Okami HD

Okami HD brought to PlayStation 3, in full resolution, one of the most beautiful games ever made. You play as the sun goddess Amaterasu, who returns to the world in the form of a white wolf to free the land of Nippon from a curse that stripped it of color and life when an ancient eight-headed beast awoke. The game's structure follows classic action-adventures: you traverse an interconnected landscape, unlock new areas, solve dungeons, gain abilities, and along the way help villagers with small troubles that together form a wonderfully wide world full of Japanese myth.

The biggest idea is the Celestial Brush. Whenever you pause the action, the screen turns into paper and you draw a symbol onto it with a stroke. A circle around the sun brings day, a horizontal line cleaves an enemy, a spiral summons wind, and a line between branches revives a withered tree. You gradually learn a dozen of these strokes, and the game uses them in combat, in puzzles, and in bringing the landscape back to life, which literally blooms beneath your paws. Battles take place in enclosed arenas, where you switch between mirrors, rosaries, and swords carried on your back.

Visually, it's a recreation of Japanese ink painting with bold outlines and a paper texture, and it's in this HD version that the style's resistance to aging really shines. The music draws on traditional Japanese instruments and ranks among the most often praised soundtracks of its generation. The PS3 release added support for the PlayStation Move controller, letting you draw brush strokes directly in space, as well as trophies. The original 2006 game was critically celebrated but sold poorly, so the HD version gave it a second life and a new generation of players. Today, Okami remains a singular experience: a calm, kind, and unusually long journey with no real equivalent. It requires patience, since the opening hours are chatty and the game holds your hand for a long while, but once the world opens up, you get one of the most generous adventures of its generation.