If you’ve been looking at your Nintendo Wii copy of Okami following its sequel announcement, you might want to put it down if you like Hideki Kamiya.
To the surprise and delight of Okami fans everywhere, a sequel was announced at last year’s Game Awards, with creator Hideki Kamiya back at the helm at his new studio Clovers. This was a pretty big deal for fans everywhere, given that the game has never received a proper sequel (Okamiden is more of a spiritual successor, and Kamiya wasn’t involved), though it did receive a port to the Wii in 2008. That version was obviously unique because you could use the Wiimote to paint in the game, one of the game’s central mechanics, a fun and obvious choice to make for a console like the Wii. You might even own that copy, but you might want to think twice about playing it that way, as Kamiya has shared that he actually doesn’t want you to.
A follower of Kamiya’s on Twitter shared that they’d recently started playing Okami on PC, but wondered if they should play the original Wii version instead, but the game developer quite simply responded (translations via VGC), “The Wii version is not the original. I made the PS2 version. If you’re going to play it now, the best version is the HD version. Personally, I don’t want you to play the Wii version.” Kamiya is obviously known for his strong personality, so he’s never been shy about hiding what he really thinks.
One odd thing to note about the Wii version is that you can actually see IGN’s logo at the time watermarked on it very faintly, and while I doubt this is the reason Kamiya doesn’t want you to play it, it is still incredibly funny that this actually made it to release without anyone noticing.
The as-of-yet untitled Okami sequel doesn’t have a release date just yet, there’s not even a lick of gameplay, so for now maybe you should just replay the original (just not on the Wii).