I game across Okami while I was trawling Gamespot for other Wii games to play. I really enjoy Zelda and Gamespot has a nice little button which links you to similar games. Tadaa - Okami!
It's actually quite an old Playstation game which was re-released for Nintendo Wii. What attracted me to it was the graphics. The animation style was different to any game I had played before. The story involves many elements from Japanese folklore and culture and the graphics were done to match.
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| Okami Screenshot |
The gameplay is similar to Zelda in the sense that you travel the world fighting monsters and solving puzzles. The key difference is in using brush techniques. You play Amaterasu, a god in wolf-form who has several powerful brush skills. Each one can be used to different effect. With the Wii remote, you control the brush strokes and paint what you need. It's a bit tricky to get the swing right all the time, but the gameplay and story has kept me riveted.
Of course, the awesomeness factor alone of playing a wolf-god who kicks ass by painting should be enough to get you playing this game :-).
I came across The Legend of Zelda for the first time in the early 1990's when I got a Gameboy with Link's Awakening. The Gameboy wasn't colour, but rather those shades of green, but super cool at that stage. Playing Zelda was friggin' amazing! The game was quite intricate with some tricky puzzles and very interesting villains and dungeons. It was one of the first games I actually could play to the end.
Since then I've tried to get a hold of the other games in the series. Recently, I've been playing Ocarina of Time and the main reason I got the Nintendo Wii was to play Twilight Princess :-). In this latest Wii incarnation of Zelda, Link is as always the silent, strong type with very little dialogue. As the main character you play, Link is more a person of action. Twilight Princess doesn't disappoint and some of the puzzles have stumped me for a little while as well. The world and different dungeons are amazing and playing it on a big screen tv really brings everything to life.
Since some of the Zelda plots and puzzles can be quite difficult and complicated, it's one of those games which you can play at any age. And any game where you can chase chickens and blow up castles in wolf form are okay in my book :-).
