Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Complaining about ports has become increasingly common amongst Wii owners, but few would have anything bad to say about Okami, which will complete its transition from PlayStation 2 to Wii next week when it launches in the U.S.

If anything, Okami is the perfect example of how porting games can be a force for good. One of the most notable critical darlings of the last few years, sales of the title were sluggish on Sony's platform, yet its appearance on Nintendo's console will give it another opportunity to attain commercial success. We can't think of many other games that are so deserving of a second chance.

Recently, Wii Fanboy got a chance to chat with Didier Malenfant, President and co-founder of developer Ready at Dawn, who filled us in on why those who played the PS2 version should return to the Wii edition, on how his company ended up working on the project, and on the future of lengthy adventure games.

Okami on the Wii was confirmed by Capcom just a few days ago, along with the news that Daxter developer Ready at Dawn would get the game up-and-running on Nintendo's system. Men roared their approval and punched the air, women wept and howled with joy, and all was well with the world. As anybody who's played it will know, Okami is all kinds of awesome. But Okami with Wiimote-engineered brushstrokes? Finally, we could die happy.

But hold the hearse, because here's Ready At Dawn president Didier Malenfant on what else will be new in the Wii version: "The game on Wii is going to be an exact port of the PS2 version and I think that's what fans of the franchise want to see. This game has such a huge following throughout the world that people would probably send us death-threats if we messed it up by trying to add things that don't have their place in the Okami universe."

An "exact port," he says, and you know how we feel about those, so immediately there are important questions raised by this. Questions such as: if you've completed the PS2 game, will the promise of added Wiimote functionality alone lure you back? Is it ungrateful to expect a little more than "just" Wiimote brushstrokes (as excellent as that addition might be)? And did Didier really just put "Okami" and "huge following" in the same sentence?

[Via Siliconera]