Hands on with Okamiden

Let me start by saying that Okami is one of my favorite games of all time.  It had a certain charm and character to it, the visuals were stunning and I felt it was one of the most immersive games I've played.  The story, the gameplay, everything about it was extraordinary.  Of course perhaps most important was that it was DIFFERENT!  Since 99% of the commercial releases we see today can be lumped into 6 or 7 very similar genres it was a nice change to play something that actually breaks the mold instead of just claiming to in press releases.

Okami was also one of those games where you want a sequel so you can continue to adventure and explore the amazing world the developers created, but you are also afraid that a sequel couldn't possibly live up to the original.  Once Clover closed down I assumed we'd never find out.

Well now Okamiden is coming and I got to try it out at E3.  It looks good. It was very easy to just pick up and jump right into.  It was fun running around on Chibiterasu, exploring, and working with the Celestial Brush.  But the simple fact is a game like this can't be evaluated by 15-minutes of playing.  The question is will the story be as fascinating, the characters as appealing, and the story as well written as the original?  If it even comes close I'll be thrilled, even a less than perfect trip back into the Okami world is one I'd like to take.  I guess we will just have to wait until 2011 to find out, but even if it doesn't live up to the original I'm very glad to see publishers willing to give a second shot to a game that was a critical success but commercial failure.