Ōkami

The player controls the main character, Amaterasu, in a woodcut, watercolor style, cel-shaded environment, which looks like an animated Japanese ink-illustration (known as ink wash painting, or sumi-e) and ukiyo-e, along with other styles of art. The gameplay style is a mix of action, platform, and puzzle gaming genres, and has been noted by many reviewers to have numerous similarities in overall gameplay style to The Legend of Zelda series, an inspiration that director Hideki Kamiya, a self-proclaimed Zelda fan, has admitted has influenced his general game design. The main story is primarily linear, directed by Amaterasu's guide Issun, though numerous side quests and optional activities allow for players to explore the game's open world and take the story at their own pace. By completing quests, side quests, and small additional activities (such as making trees bloom into life or feeding wild animals), Amaterasu earns Praise, which can then be spent to increase various statistics of the character, such as the amount of health and number of ink wells for Celestial Brush techniques.

Combat is staged in a ghostly virtual arena, and Amaterasu can fight enemies using a combination of weapons, fighting techniques and Brush methods to dispatch the foes. At the end of combat, money (as yen) is rewarded to Amaterasu, with bonuses for completing a battle quickly and without taking damage. The money can be spent at merchants and dojos across the land, featuring healing goods, better weapons, tools, key items for completing quests, and combat techniques.

Most character names below are the shortened names of the U.S. version.

The player controls Ōkami Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, in the form of a white wolf. Amaterasu is referred to in the Japanese and European version of the game as a female, while in the North American version she is genderless although she is referred as the "mother of all". When endowed with ink power, Amaterasu is seen by the player with red markings, cloud-like fur on her shoulders, and weapons on her back. Most of the human characters in the game only see her as a plain white wolf; some believe Amaterasu to be the reincarnation of Shiranui (the white wolf that fought Orochi 100 years prior to the game's present), and do not recognize her spiritual nature.

Ōkami resulted from the combined ideas of Clover Studio. The idea originated from lead designer Hideki Kamiya while he was developing Viewtiful Joe for Capcom. He had seen the new photo realistic game engine being developed for the Resident Evil remake for the GameCube, and wanted to make a game using that engine, but with a more light-hearted theme centered on the concept of healing, and "depict[ing] a lot of nature". Kamiya created a minute-long demonstration movie using this engine, showing a wolf running about a forest, with flowers blossoming in its wake, but still lacking any gameplay. Kamiya and other members of the team introduced ideas around the nature aspect and eventually led to the game's initial prototype, which Kamiya admitted was "incredibly boring to play".

While the team successfully used the photorealistic engine to produce initial prototypes, the performance on the target platform, the PlayStation 2, was not great. Further, Kamiya suggested that he allowed so many ideas from the team that resulted in the development moving off-target, including creating more of a simulation. Eventually, they settled onto the gameplay found in the final product. While the team tried to optimize the game engine, character designer Kenichiro Yoshimura drew the wolf character using a brush, which inspired Kamiya and other leads to adopt the Ukiyo-e and sumi-e style, both Japanese watercolor and wood carving techniques used in notable works such as those of Hokusai, and which better conveyed the connection of restoring nature, while also resolving the performance issues.

Ōkami received universal acclaim, with a score of 93/100 on Metacritic.

GameSpot gave it a 9 out of 10 and selected it as an Editor's Choice, citing that its "visual design instantly stands out, but it turns out to be just one of many inspired aspects of this impressive action adventure game". 1 out of 10, as being "beautiful, charismatic, engaging and one of the most original games you'll play anytime soon". 5, and 9 out of 10, with one saying: "I'll be surprised if you can find a better game on any system this fall". Newtype USA named Ōkami its Game of the Month for October 2006, heralded the pacing as "nearly flawless" and proclaimed "Ōkami is that rarest of beasts: a game without any obvious flaws.