My sister was kind enough to get me Okamiden for my upcoming birthday, so I’ve had a chance to play a few hours of it so far.

The game starts nine months after the end of Okami, which was a gorgeous and inspiring RPG for the PS2 and Wii that I greatly enjoyed. You played as a white wolf form of the goddess Amateseru, and battled demons and Orochi the eight headed demon terrorizing the main village. As a wolf, the main character got to interact with animals, and got around the “silent RPG star” cliche a bit, while having a few very chatty characters make talking noises to carry the story forward.

One of the more interesting innovations was the ability to change the world around you using the “Celestial Brush.” As you can see from the artwork shown above, the style of the game works quite well with such a concept, and being able to affect the world around you meant that puzzles and secrets were that much more fun to interact with and discover.

Okamiden is on the DS, so the controls are a bit clunky, and you have no way to change the camera view, but aside from that the game works quite well on the handheld device. The pace is a bit quicker, even on the “newbie” setting, but the game seems to progress at a good clip, and has enough content that those of us who prefer completionist accomplishments will have quite a bit to do before setting it down and moving on.