Thank you, Capcom! For what it's worth, this preview could have ended right there – it would have conveyed our thoughts perfectly, without unnecessary time and effort wasted writing about the game in detail. Sadly, that would be doing Okami a grave injustice. If you're not aware, when it was released back in 2006, Okami soon racked up average review ratings of over 90 percent, and with good reason – its original artistic style and compelling story are what made it the masterpiece it is recorded as today. Life's not fair however, and despite being applauded by every videogames publication and website bar a small minority, Okami failed to sell. Why that is remains unknown – perhaps it's that the game is considered too obscure for many to approach, or maybe it's just bad luck – but to cut a long story short, the developer Clover Studio was shut down by Capcom early last year, and as a result we and so many others didn't expect we'd ever see Okami on another console. How wrong we were!

Anyway, enough about the game's history – it has been rescued by the God Of War developer Ready At Dawn, so that's good news. “Just tell us about the game already!” you cry. Well, Okami puts you in the shoes (or paws, at least) of Amaterasu, a sun goddess turned into a wolf whose task is to use its mythical powers to save the world from the evils of demons. There's no denying it, this probably wouldn't mean much were it not combined with the aforementioned artistic style, but also injecting another layer of realism into the world of Okami is Japanese folklore and culture.

Amaterasu the sun goddess strikes a pose.

Speaking of the visual style, Okami is basically presented on parchment scrolls with beautiful watercolour paintings showing the action as it happens… it sounds cheesy, but look at the game running and you'll see why it's a sight to behold. We hate to be pessimistic, but it's our job to tell you the truth, and the Wii version of Okami appears to have lost a certain amount of its graphical charm; don't get us wrong, the game will still look like an interactive painting (and believe us, that's a better thing that it sounds) but from what we've seen so far the parchment is harder to see in favour of a clearer look. This isn't a review so we can't really speak yet, but since the game is already out in several other countries we're not able to make our generic 'hopefully it'll be fixed in time for release' comment!

It's not like it ever needed more, but another of the game's unique features is what's known as the Celestial Brush. During certain points of the game you'll need to pause the action while the game zooms out to a scroll, which you can paint on. It's not just a worthless addition though, it can be applied to all manner of scenarios. For example, drawing a bridge across two high platforms, creating lily pads in the water, slashing enemies, bringing dead plants back to life… the list really does go on, and until you sit down with the full game you can't begin to imagine how much depth there is in just one of the title's gameplay elements alone.

We never thought Okami would see the light of day again. It looks like we were wrong.

One thing we noticed about the PS2 version of Okami was the difficulty level, specifically it being spot on! The same will probably apply to the Wii port; at no point are you likely to become truly stuck (or even as far as lost in the large world) but somehow the game rarely comes across as being too easy in contrast. Okami is often compared to Zelda in many ways, and it's clear to see why when it comes to the boss battles. Instead of a dependence on extra lives or reverting back to a previous save, the basic battle template follows a structure of defeating a group of minions, moving on to the boss itself, then finding its weak spot and acting upon that. In doing so Okami remains fast-paced and intriguing – the boss battles are never a walk in the park but they're not rock hard either; after all, the enemies are crafted just as well as the scene they're placed in, so it's justified that you'll want to glance at them for a while. They take on the roles of generally giant creatures often based on myths but with slight modifications.

Away from the main story there's plenty of other stuff to do though. Most of this is made up of side quests that involve helping villagers perform certain tasks. In Zelda, Link interacts with NPCs and in Okami Amaterasu can do the same; it's never a requirement and you're perfectly free to walk past these demanding people, but if you can help them, you should. After all, you are rewarded for doing such favours for people and that can't be a bad thing – they range from unlocking new moves and brush techniques to being rewarded with gold dust and praise (the latter of which is used to raise attributes when there is enough of it). Other examples of these extra things to do are collection tasks such as finding the clovers in each area.

Thanks to the Wii Remote, the Celestial Brush is even more like real painting now!

During any preview of a Wii game the controls are bound to crop up at some point and now it's the turn of Okami which should benefit greatly from the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. As you might expect, the Nunchuck is attached and then used to move and evade, while the Remote is used for attacks, controlling the Celestial Brush and so on, as well as in various other cases such as the fishing mini-game. It's the Celestial Brush sections we're most looking forward to seeing in the final game since it's things like this the Remote was designed to account for.

On top of these things it's quite possible a good amount of the people who buy Okami come launch day will be impressed further by the little intricacies that were present before and will make their way into this version, after all, it is these things that helped make the game so ground-breaking originally. We're talking about day-to-night cycles, hidden areas and cool features such as interactive loading screens (but we won't spoil that for you!).

They say spiders are more scared of us than we are of them. We highly doubt this one is...

Just in case it hasn't been made crystal clear already, the overall message in this preview is that you should buy Okami on the Wii when it's out on our side of the pond in little over a month from now. Granted, we've already stated that this is not a review but it doesn't always matter… at the end of the day it's got all the makings of a phenomenal game and has proved itself before. Chances are the definitive N-Europe verdict of this masterpiece (coming soon!) won't mean much anyway as it's going to tell you exactly the same thing about Okami, only in slightly more detail – that no one should miss out on this phenomenal masterpiece! Which reminds us, we need to go and find something to do until its release. Bah!