Eric Neigher, Contributing Editor: Hey, thanks for kicking my ass with horrible Ryu cheese at Marvel vs. Capcom 3 before we played this game, thereby totally souring me on anything I would've seen for the rest of the day. Somehow, despite that, Okamiden made me smile. What was your general impression of how it holds up to its PlayStation 2/Wii progenitor?
Ryan Scott, Executive Editor: This really strikes me as Okami: Super-Kawaii Chibi Edition. In addition to the cool watercolor/cel shading art style, everything's super cutified -- the dog's name is Chibiterasu! And hey, I have no problem with this. The celestial brush mechanics still work more or less like you remember; you draw stuff in a special subscreen in order to affect the environment (such as drawing a path across a broken bridge in order to mend it). It's a concept that feels quite tailored to the DS, and I'm, really taken with it. It might be my favorite game from E3 so far.
Eric Neigher: Gotta say: I agree. I think this game works just brilliantly on the DS. One question for you, since you delved a bit more into it than I did: Did you get a sense of the storyline at all? Why is Amaterasu chibi-fied? Who is the kid who rides on her back? And it's still totally in that stylized version of feudal Japan, right?
Ryan Scott: It's definitely in the same sort of lucid world that the first Okami took place in. I don't know exactly who Chibiterasu's rider is, and I have no idea what they're doing, but based on what I played, it's the kind of game where I don't necessarily even need to be invested in that to have fun. I was actually quite interested in the puzzles -- you have to separate Chibiterasu from her rider at points, in order to cross terrain that neither of them can pass as a single unit. You only control the dog directly, but you can guide the girl across terrain by drawing lines for her to follow. This leads to interesting time-sensitive dilemmas -- avoiding spike traps, etc. At one point, the two characters worked together to trigger a series of successive switches in order to progress. It was pretty basic stuff, but I can see it getting tougher later on, in a good way.
Eric Neigher: Are you sure that was a girl? The Japanese text referred to him/her as "-kun" a suffix typically reserved for boys. You always did have trouble with that, Ryan, which is why I continue to insist that you never go to Thailand. So, you talked about the puzzles, which I can see will be pretty similar to the Zelda-esque stuff that was in the first game, but how about the combat? Do you fight in a special arena again? How is the celestial brush implemented?
Ryan Scott: The combat's pretty basic. Hit a button, and you swipe whatever's in front of you. I don't think that's meant to be this game's focus, though -- the puzzles really seemed to take center stage. The celestial brush, of course, is at the center of all that. And given that this is the DS we're talkin' about, it works just like you expect: Draw what you want on the screen, or trace a given object. It felt pretty accurate and easy-to-use -- though I didn't do anything especially complicated. And yeah, I'm not so clear on the rules of cel shaded dog gender; the character in Okami was female, so I assumed this one follows suit. Boy, do I have egg on my face!
Eric Neigher: No, no, dude. The dog IS female, I meant the kid riding the dog. Jeez, pay attention! Anyway, it sounds to me like this one is basically a shrunk-down (literally) iteration of a fantastic game, and I have no reason to believe it won't continue to be pretty hot salsa this time around. Final question, then: Anything stand out to you that would bring a new audience into the series here (other than the portability factor itself), or is this appealing pretty much to the same crowd that dug the original?
Ryan Scott: I get the feeling that they're gonna make it easy to get into whether you played the first one or not. If you'll recall, Okami -- as good as it was -- bombed at retail. I think the new strategy here is to market it toward the legion of DS owners who are quick to embrace quirky and original things. Games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Nintendogs are proof-positive that this is one good bet to make.
