What's good, is good!
The start is very slow, because it has a pretty long-boring introduction, but once the game starts, you'll be amazed by how much fun it can be playing such a simple game like this!
Now: What is Okami? Okami is an adventure game that was promised from the very beginning to be different and great!
Story
The game is set in Nippon and begins 100 years before the game's present. The introduction of the game describes how Shiranui, a white wolf, and Nagi, a swordsman, fought the eight-headed demon Orochi who was threatening the village to save Kamiki Village and the maiden Nami, Nagi's beloved. Shiranui and Nagi but manage to seal the demon away. In the game's present, Susano, a descendant of Nagi and self-proclaimed greatest warrior, breaks Orochi's seal due to the fact that he does not believe in the legend, and Orochi escapes and curses the lands. Sakuya, the guardian of Kamiki Village, calls Amaterasu, the sun goddess, who takes Shiranui's white wolf form ("Ookami" means "wolf" and "Kami" means "God") and goes to remove the curse that covers the land. Accompanied by the Issun, Amaterasu is able to restore the land to its former beauty.
Gameplay
Okami has an amazing gameplay, which is going to amaze by all of its aspects. All fight can be avoided (except for the script ones). The beginning feels harder, but once it started, in won't stop for hours! Are these hours boring? Surprisingly: no! Even running (and it's a lot of running in this game) is fun, because all the small details of the game make it more and more intriguing and fun!! The game is filled with places to visit, people to talk to, mini-games and more!
A really fun part of this game is the Celestial Brush, a brush (Amateratsu's tail) that can do a bunch of different starts. When you hit the R1 button, the time will stop and everything will look like it's drown on a paper. You'll have a brush and you can draw different thing (you'll learn these in the game) that will do different things. For example, if you stop the time, while being in a fight and draw a straight line on your enemy, the enemy will get a big amount of damage. But Amateratsu also knows a bunch of normal attacks so you can just play around as much as you like with both the brush and the character itself.
Graphics
The Okami graphics are so original, so coloured and so neat that are going to blow your mind! Everything seems like it's painted. It's the only game I've ever played that has such graphic effects and I don't think that there will be another one soon. Because it's hard to make such a nice story to actually flow with these graphics.
Sound
The music also flows really well with the game, inspired by traditional Japanese music, it's great to hear in fight, travels and pretty much anywhere in the game.
There is an annoying thing however: the whole dialog is replaced with something like the people in The Sims would be saying... a weird blabbing that can be pretty annoying, especially at the beginning. But once you get used to it, it can become really fun :)
Impression
It's pretty much impossible not to be impressed by this game, because it's a revolutionary game on PS2, and original game from all the points of view and a neat nice way to spend your time. You definitely won't regret it!
I'm a big fan of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series and the fact that this game distracted me so long from them is a big thing! So go for it, and tell us how much fun you had playing it ;)