Okami Video Update - Wielding the Celestial Brush

Capcom's Okami has both tantalized and baffled us by turns ever since its development at Viewtiful Joe maker Clover Studios was announced more than two years ago. The game features a beautifully unique visual style and storyline steeped in Japanese mythology, and yet we've only slowly demystified the strangely unique gameplay--which will see you controlling the lupine embodiment of the sun goddess Amaterasu and painting with a traditional Japanese brush, the "celestial brush," to combat enemies and solve puzzles--as we've gotten to play through various sequences and then check out the full import version over the last couple of years.

To help expound upon Okami's original concepts, Capcom has provided us with a video showing off two of the techniques you'll wield in the game through use of the celestial brush, which forms the basis of much of the gameplay in this distinctive action adventure. In addition to this new video, Clover Studios' eminent president Atsushi Inaba offered this commentary on the two celestial-brush techniques highlighted in the video:

The "Veil of Mist" is a stylized version of the mist that appears in traditional Japanese paintings. This technique slows the enemies' movement and attacks. The idea originally came about from our previous work on Viewtiful Joe [laughs]. It's sometimes easy to forget about this effect when fighting monsters, but it can help to make battles a lot easier.

Regarding the "Thunderstorm" ability, it is one of the brush techniques we tested in the early stages [of development]. At that time, the game system did not involve the player drawing directly on the screen. Instead, it had players selecting icons that represented what they wanted drawn on the screen. Eventually, the lightning-bolt drawing we had in the beginning became the drawing for a powered-up version of the Thunderstorm technique.

Okami's long development will finally come to a close in the coming weeks, as the game is due out in North America in September. We're looking forward to getting our hands on--and bringing you more information on--the English version soon.