I dropped the game twice. Once on PS2 many years ago and another time on PC.

I gave it one last shot recently and I've come around to really appreciate this game.

You take charge as Amaterasu (Ammy), who goes around Nippon to protect others and defeat some demons.
Along the way, Ammy helps to restore the physical land itself, whether via cherry blossoms or giving life to clovers

Whenever Ammy fulfills her duties, it sparks so much inspiration and happiness within the other characters.
This premise and the pleasing artstyle combine to create a very wholesome experience.

And it's not like the sidequests or even the gameplay have deep mechanics or anything.

So what changed between my initial drop during the PS2 days and now? Honestly - just getting older and realizing something.
If I can be a source of inspiration to the people I know in the same way that Ammy was to those she helped, then I'll be content in life.

This game is the perfect embodiment of the phrase "Flawed Masterpiece". It shows from Clover Studio a deep admiration of Japanese mythology to develop a 30h+ Zelda-type game that also adapts said mythology into its gameplay, like the celestial brushes and its many different uses. A game of these ambitions sounds realistic if you imagine it as a shorter 12-15h game, but for this runtime it feels like an epic akin to many classic literatures works like Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes too big for its own good.

Okami has a huge issue with pacing when it comes to its story structure. The three acts are all structured as arcs, and it's a seamless story, but they're so self-contained that the final boss of one act feels like the final boss of the game, not to mention how in between these bosses, the game stretches itself as thin as possible, with long text boxes, absurd exposition dumps and fetch quests to justify prolonging its runtime, and your tolerance for that may vary. Speaking of which, I'll be the first to admit that I know very little of Japanese mythology, but I bet for people familiar with these folklores and tales it must be a delight seeing these tales adapted with twists and variations.

Equal praise goes to Capcom for doing their due diligence in preserving this title by re-releasing it to multiple platforms to this day, so more people get to experience it, as well as Hexa Drive for doing an incredible work in remastering the game, by preserving the art direction and polishing up the technical aspects, so people get to experience it in its best form regardless of platform.

if i could turn off the tutorial character guy, i'd buy a full priced remake capcom