Ōkami (大神, literally "Great God", a pun on "wolf") is a 2006 action-adventure video game developed by Clover Studio and directed by Hideki Kamiya. Set in a mythological version of Japan called Nippon, it follows Amaterasu (or Ammy for short,) a sun goddess inhabiting the form of a legendary white wolf that defeated the demonic dragon Orochi 100 years before the events of the game. When Orochi is freed from its prison and curses the land, Amaterasu returns and, accompanied by the Celestial Envoy Issun, sets out to slay Orochi once and for all and uncover the true source of the demons plaguing Nippon.
Featuring a cel-shaded visual style based on traditional Japanese sumi-e and ukiyo-e painting, a prominent mechanic in Ōkami's gameplay is the Celestial Brush, which allows players to draw strokes of paint on screen to perform various actions called miracles.
Ōkami's mixture of combat, puzzle-solving, and exploration have led many to consider the game to be Hideki Kamiya's take on the Legend of Zelda series. Ōkami received critical acclaim for its strong visual design, large amounts of content, and the quality of its gameplay, though some reviewers took issue with its low difficulty and excessive dialogue.
Achieving only modest sales on release, Ōkami was considered a notable commercial failure when it first released on the PlayStation 2, to the point that it (alongside God Hand) resulted in Clover Studio's closure. However, Ōkami's sales and popularity gradually increased over time as it continued to be ported to later generation consoles, most notably to the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3, and by 2023 all versions of the game combined surpassed 4 million sales.
Ōkamiden, a "sequel" to Ōkami described as a spiritual successor, released for the Nintendo DS in 2010/2011. For many years after the game's original release, Hideki Kamiya publicly expressed interest in returning to Capcom to develop a true sequel to Ōkami, until finally the development of an untitled Ōkami sequel was announced during The Game Awards 2024, alongside the formation of a new independent game development studio lead by Kamiya named Clovers Inc.
As another game directed by Hideki Kamiya, The Wonderful 101 not only took some inspirations from his past work on Ōkami, it also reuses and expands upon a major mechanic from the game:
Cleansing a cursed tree using Celestial Brush techniques
The Wonder-Liner, one of The Wonderful 101's core game mechanics, is based on the Celestial Brush mechanic in Ōkami. Both mechanics allow you to draw various shapes on-screen to activate your powers, with many powers having similar effects and inputs between each game, such as circling plants to regenerate them or drawing a circle with a line to create a bomb. The Celestial Brush and Wonder-Liner are both also limited by similar energy systems: in Ōkami the Celestial Brush is limited by the number of Ink Pots in your possession, and up to 10 can be obtained, and in The Wonderful 101 the Wonder-Liner is limited by your Unite Gauge, which can be temporarily increased up to 10 units through collecting Wonderful Batteries.
The Ink Pot and Unite Gauge mechanics are both based on the VFX Gauge from Viewtiful Joe.
The boss Diekuu Ohrowchee Revived is comparable to Orochi from Ōkami: they're both major enemies based off of Yamata no Orochi, a serpentine monster from Japanese mythology. However, where Ōkami offered a more traditional depiction of Orochi, Ohrowchee in The Wonderful 101 a reference in name only.
Ohrowchee's (and Laambo's) deaths in Operation 001-C (being sliced in two down the middle) is extremely similar to the defeat of Orochi in Ōkami.
Wonder-White's extremely "traditional Japanese" personality is sometimes regarded as a callback to Ōkami. In particular, Wonder-White's assigned city, Shinshu, is a historical name for the region of Japan now known as Nagano Prefecture, however, it also references a playable location in Ōkami, Shinshu Field.
