There aren’t many games I would consider a "work of art" but Okami has been one of them. From visuals, to incorporating Japanese mythology into the game, the now-defunct Clover Studios did a great job in creating a game that I have played a dozen times. I did find it sad that the game really never hit it big, even after the Wii port, but the fans of the game are very much in love with it.

Like most games, though, once people were done playing it people began to wonder if there could be a sequel. Fans argued that there couldn’t be because Clover Studios was no longer around but others commented that Capcom owned the rights still. Ignoring the fact that Clover Studios is gone and with it the team of people who created this piece of art, I usually comment that it couldn’t be done due to the mythology (they covered nearly all of the ‘major’ stories in my opinion), timeline (the game roughly takes place during the Yayoi period), and the ending of the game combined.

Yet despite all this Capcom has created Okamiden, Okami 2 for the DS. My first woe about the game was the fact that Capcom took a step back system wise. I originally thought the game should have been on the DS rather then the PS2 (because of the brush work you had to do) but I was happily surprised that it worked on the home system so well. I know Sony is trying to phase out the PS2 system but they could have either squeezed this game into the last few releases or took that extra step and made it PS3 worthy. Instead they decided to make the game look a bit more cutesy and let the graphics take a little bit of a hit.

The time line of the previous game, like I had said, was roughly the Yayoi period. The period lasted about 650 years, but taking into account when Princess Himiko was around one could speculate the next game would be taking place in the Kofun Period, which would change things in the game. The Kofun Period was when the military states appeared in Japan, they started shipping tributes to China, and when the Imperial Line finally took hold. So this time is ripe with ideas but it seems to clash with the cute imagery that’s already been presented.

As for the story, well there isn’t much on it just yet except that it supposedly takes place 200 years after the original game and features either a new form of Amaterasu or her son. Issun appears to have returned and it seems that one of Susano’s decedents has been placed in to continue their story.

Despite all of that and the fact that they made Amaterasu into a puppy, trying to figure out what could be going on is nagging at me. In the previous game the two major things you had to do was collect the brush gods and defeat all the big evil monsters. By the end of the game you have regained all your brush strokes, defeated the root of all evil (essentially), and then returned to the moon to clean up the creatures up there. Yet, in the sequel you’re back in Japan. My question is if they came up with something new or if they did the obligatory the evil has escaped/returned and you have to do it all over again.

No matter what, though, I’m going to keep my eye on this game and decide whether or not I should place my money on it.

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