Toilet Game of the Week for 19 March

19 Mar 2011 at 10:30:00 by John Robertson

The 'Toilet Game of the Week' is a new weekly feature in which we give you our recommendation as to which game you should be playing on your handheld device over the next seven days.

The best way to pass the time while taking care of one’s personal business this week…Okamiden.

Platform
Nintendo DS

Price
Prices vary (£24.91/$28.99 from Amazon)

Developer
Capcom

Genre
RPG

Why should you be playing it on the toilet?

Because, Okamiden’s visuals makes an otherwise unpleasant time of the day utterly wonderful; the dreamy Japanese art flashing before your eyes acting as the perfect distraction to the horrors taking place at your rear end.

Okamiden puts you in the shoes of Chibiterasu, the child of Okami's protagonist Amaterasu (also of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 fame), as you attempt to rid the land of evil. That land is the very same one featured in Okami and, such as, will be extremely familiar to anyone who has played that particular PS2 classic.

However, despite the odd bit of déjà vu, the fact that much of this environment is unchanged from what we’ve seen before doesn’t present much of an issue; largely because of the fact that you’re (or, at least, I am) so caught up in the game’s beautiful aesthetics to care about where I am.

Unfortunately, Okamiden has a few problems that prevent it from being truly exceptional. Movement using the DS’ d-pad is awkward and there’s no way of assigning it to the touch screen, fighting can feel clumsy and the frequency at which it throws loading screens at you can get irritating (although it does provide a good opportunity to wipe).

Still, despite the niggles Okamiden is a special game and proves there's still in left in the DS in the face of its 3D successor. Okamiden is a good deal more expensive than the iOS games we’ve recommended for your toilet time the past two weeks but, for a DS game, it more than makes up for the cost with its generous running time and wealth of content. 

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