Okami is a game I never expected would get a sequel. I know I'm saying this 13 years after this game's release, but my point still stands. Okamiden however is an interesting title, and there's a lot of what I can really say about it.
Okamiden could be best described as "Okami Lite". It's a much smaller version of Okami, with the same mechanics and world, but shrunk down to fit into a DS. And I think it does it quite well! It's commendable how well this game tries to replicate the original Okami's art style. Combat is very akin to how it was in the original Okami, though it's definitely a lot more simplified.
The dungeons and puzzles are really fresh, and I enjoyed going through them! I'm a sucker for good dungeons, and Okamiden's dungeons are well executed. The mechanics tied to partners is really fun, and I love how each partner has unique mechanics. The brush mechanics are transferred to the touch screen, and work pretty well. Sometimes it doesn't seem to work properly, but I'd say it works about 95% of the time.
I described Okamiden as "Okami Lite" earlier, and while I said that with praise earlier, it's also Okamiden's greatest flaw. For a lot of the game, Okamiden feels like a repeat of the original game. It's as if the game is afraid of stepping out of Okami's shadow. You'll go to the same areas, in the same order, with the same motivation. Sure the dungeons and bosses are unique, but the way to get there isn't. The most notable moment was of course, when you had to fight Orochi twice again.
But I say that to reiterate that when Okamiden steps out of Okami's shadow, it shines! There's so much heart and care put into this game. The dungeons, and puzzles as previously mentioned are well crafted. The characters and story though are really well written, and I honestly really loved the game's ending.
Okamiden definitely has issues, but I can't help but love it. It's super cute, and it has some absolutely fun dungeons. While it struggles to get out of Okami's shadow, it's really good when it does. For what it is, it's a really nice game.

a gem of a movement shooter. really excels in weapon variety and fun. my only critique would be:
- last two levels are kinda not good
- the fact that the majority of levels are locking u in certain areas, not allowing u to go back and search for missed secrets so you have to restart the whole level. its a design choice obviously, just a design choice i dont really like.
- the difficulties dont feel balanced enough. getting killed because of attacks from far away with no way to see them doesnt feel good.

This might be the best singer-player FPS I've ever played. Better than Titanfall 2, Doom Eternal, or any other great in the genre.

I'll admit the story is flimsy but it's really only there to set up some increased platforming & action setpices. The gunplay is absolutely perfect and it's arsenal is as inventive as it is functional. I'm going to gush about this game a lot but first some critiques.

This is a classic boomer shooter, so if you're not down for running at 100mph & never reloading, this may be too much for you. In fact, it was almost too much for me and I love these kinds of games. I had to tone down the difficulty from normal to the easiest level twice because I felt I just died too quickly to react. Some enemies, especially near the end when they appear in groups, can wipe away your entire health bar in one hit. You get a dodge, a grappling hook (that can set enemies on fire), a double jump with additional modifiers, and sometimes environmental movement enhancers like jump pads, so it's usually easy to dodge tougher enemies. But when the game purposely locks you in tiny rooms, it can be rough. And that is especially true in the final level when time limits are introduced.

The upgrade systems here are satisfying, though simple. Killing certain random enemies will make them drop money which is used to by modifications for your limbs & head or weapon upgrades. It may seem like it'll take a while to unlock them all, but you'll have all of them early into the final (3rd) episode. This means that for roughly the final 25% of the game leaves you with nothing to spend your money. This is fine because it feels like you've finally reached your final form at that point, but I wish I didn't have a functionality pointless number continuing to go up in the final levels.

There's controller support, and I played the entire game on Steam Deck. It was nearly flawless, but it takes some tweaking to get everything mapped in a way that feels comfortable. In particular, it was hard finding a place to map all of your special powers (slow motion, micro missiles, grappling hook) as at least 2 of them are abilities that you'll need to aim while using. These abilities make sense for the shoulder buttons, but you also have alt-fires & weapon swapping up there usually, so you may have to get creative (thank God for the weapon wheel).

And finally, I understand this is an indie game so I don't want to go too hard on this point, but I've gotten hard stuck twice due to checkpoint-related glitches. Luckily all I needed to do was restart the level, but considering these both happened in the final levels, I had to replay sections that I barely completed in the first place. Plus, because the game is so hard, I find myself trying to outsmart the game and trying to access health & ammo that should have been locked behind previous doors, which is the very reason one of my glitches happened. When the game can be this difficult, it encourages cheesing, so maybe a tweaked difficulty could change that. Hell, it really is only a few specific fights that were rough, so maybe just check those encounters. Also, this game could use some kind of more prominent "danger zone" warning state similar to Doom Eternal. In that game you rarely died in one hit, if at all, in normal. You'd at least get knocked into a fragile state & had a split second to recover. You almost never get that split second in Turbo Overkill, and perhaps if I had ot I never would have been frustrated in certain moments.

But the rest of this game FUCKS SO HARD.

You get every gun under the sun it feels like. A sniper, 2 different shotguns, SMGs, an LMG/flamethrower, a plasma rifle, rocket launcher, and orbital Lazer, & chainsaw arms (which are charged by killing enemies with your chainsaw leg). Every weapon feeling great to use (especially if you turn on hit markers) and with a moderate exception to the plasma rifle, every weapon has heavy utility. And despite how frustrating they were initially, the timed fights forced me to find the most effective weapon for each enemy. I couldn't just pick a weapon and stick with it, I had to react to every specific encounter.

I mentioned weapon upgrades and body augmentations earlier and I gotta say they're mostly fucking incredible. Body mods can do simple things like give more mod slots, extend slow-mo times, or give health or armor when killing with your chainsaw leg. Or they can give you crazy useful perks like igniting enemies with your grappling hook, adding a second chainsaw leg, or giving yourself the ability to wall jump once before touching the ground. In some cases, weapon mods just fix an initial flaw with a weapon, like eliminating the chain gun's windup. But sometimes the entire use case of a weapon is changed. For example, x the starting pistols can be upgraded to (after landing enough shots consecutively) transform into a magnum that does more damage than any other gun in the game. And it stays that way until you finally miss a shot. The variety of these upgrades is insane and takes the power fantasy of the gameplay up to 11.

I mention that there's a story, but it's nothing special. It's very campy in an 80s way, and tonally it's humor is very Duke Nukem (but with none of the meanness of Forever). It makes for fun cutscenes at least, and many of them show off the impressive level & character design.

Oh yeah, I forgot that this game is BEAUTIFUL. It has a PS1 look to it, but so many detailed enemies get jammed into such massive & detailed arenas that it's hard not to be impressed with the game in context of modern releases. It might be working with half the polygons when it comes to texture, but they lean on vibrant colors, insane boss design, and varied level design to stick out.

There's even more I could talk about, like how great the platforming sections are and how they feel like if Titanfall 2 & Doom Eternal had a baby, or how satisfying it is to rain fire from above thanks to the forgiving floatiness of its jumps, or how satisfyingly hidden the collectibles are, or how brilliantly the scale & stakes of the game escalate throughout, or how there's apparently community maps to play now that I'm done, or how the audio logs gives some surprisingly tender back story. But, I gotta go to bed I've been up for nearly 24 hours.

So I'll just say that if you've ever enjoyed a Boomer Shooter (any game like Dusk, Doom Eternal, Ultrakill, etc.) then this is a must-play. I'll be surprised if this isn't on my top 10 of the year.