Okami is a 3D role-playing platformer, in which you take control of Amaterasu, a white wolf god, who must journey to both defeat the evil god Orochi and restore the land to its former glory.
The graphics are stunning; since the game is based on Japanese mythology, the animation is a combination of Japanese brush prints and a cartoon, and is incredibly smooth and colourful without being particularly cute. The screenshots really don't do it justice.
As Amaterasu, you are free to explore a 3D world at your own pace, helping villagers, fighting monsters and rebuilding the landscape. Aside from the usual finding and offering of a hidden object, since Amaterasu is a wolf god she has magical powers, the most entertaining being the 'celestial brush stroke' - with a large paint brush you can make dead trees blossom, rebuild bridges and split enemies and rocks in half. You can even draw a circle in the night sky to create a sun and hey presto, it's daytime again.
You can interact with villagers, whose reactions and needs change according to the time of day and on which areas you've been to, and as you do so you accumulate faith spheres which enhance your power. Other gods from Japanese folklore also lend a hand, appearing as constellations in the sky and coming to life as you wield the celestial brush.
There are also plenty of monsters, either jumping out as bosses or appearing on the horizon as green scrolls - which you can avoid or fight by choice.
This really is a great game; you spend ages wandering around just exploring your surroundings and as you learn new skills you can return to old areas and uncover new secrets. You also learn techniques as you play with the help of tiny sidekick Issun, so no labouring through the manual with this one.
The only complaint I have about this game - and it's a rather trivial one at that - is the narration and character voices. The speech is subtitled of course, but the characters talk a bit like Bill and Ben and it can be rather annoying when there's a long dialogue, with the introduction for instance. I would rather they had left it silent, as with older Final Fantasy games, or left in the Japanese, assuming they recorded any voices to start with.
That aside, this is an excellent game for all ages, not too fiddly and difficult, the graphics are superb, and with a giant 3D world to explore and alter with magic it will keep you entertained for hours. Without a doubt the best game I have ever played on Playstation 2.