Amaterasu is a sun god transmogrified into a shining white wolf. Along with Issun, her mouthy bug companion, ‘Ammy’ must purge feudal Japan of a curse that has brought darkness and ecological ruin to the land – the act of a vengeful eight-headed serpent called Orochi, no less.

If this sounds like a wacky contrivance wrought from ancient Japanese mythology that’s the very premise for Okami, a visually-stunning action/adventure game for Playstation 2 – and the best we’ve played since Final Fantasy X, Ico or – whisper it – Twilight Princess.

But comparisons with the latter are lazily made for Okami stands proud in its own right. Okay, so the good vs. evil premise isn’t exactly original, some gameplay mechanics are almost too familiar and, yes, it’s another adventure game starring a wolf. However Okami is imbued with so many other unique and at times bizarre embellishments that you’ll overlook such shortcomings.

Take the graphics, which are pure joy to behold in-motion – imagine an ancient parchment brought to life. Or Ammy’s ‘Celestial Brush’ which literally paints items or events into existence, bringing sunshine to darkness, vibrant foliage to decay and is highly useful in combat too, literally slicing Ammy’s enemies neatly in twain. And then there are flourishes of inspired Japanese lunacy – the bloke with an orange on his head, the bear who sleeps on a giant acorn, the hotel run by sparrows or Ammy’s ‘Golden Fury’ attack where a leg’s cocked and, er, you can guess the rest. Okami is brimful of such things.

Okami is not a tough game – we played for 10 hours before dying – but that’s missing the point. With 50+ hours of branching, never-dull gameplay, dazzling combat and visuals that truly sizzle on the aged PS2 Okami is a unique and unforgettable journey you’re going to want to make at least once. Okami is festooned with awards and critical plaudits yet it barely scraped into the game charts. Go figure. Better still do yourselves a favour and go buy it…!