I tend to get snotty about action RPGs - but I think they're more suited to consoles than the "click your mouse really really rapidly over and over and over again" style of play you end up with on a PC. I think they have the neither-fish-nor-fowl problem in that they tend to appeal neither to pretentious RPG players who are all about the *narrative* nor are sufficiently adreneline-pumping to make the action work while. This sounds pretty cool though - the girl in me likes the idea of playing a purty wolf...

Okami does really well in action terms - the fight scenes are actually exciting and fun, and the running-and-jumping bits are competently put together - I was reminded a lot in fact of /Ico/ and /Shadow of the Colossus/, the prettiest platform games ever designed - and the clever brush techniques are genuinely useful.

Plot-wise, the plot is solid but unremarkable. I think it would have been a bit more interesting if the plot remained focus on the village you start in, since I found that I cared about the people there a lot more than I did the inhabitants of the capital city (for example), but otherwise it's fine. And the climax actually manages to redeem Issun and make him a valuable and worthwhile character instead of a comedy sidekick.