There is really only one problem with Okamiden, and it's only going to be apparent if you have played Okami, its forebear. By all rights, Okamiden really is a fantastic game. It's unflaggingly beautiful, it's well-craftted and interestingly designed, it pays homage to the Zelda series while never stealing outright (and also creating its own niche within the "kind of an RPG but mostly a dungeon crawling, puzzle solving adventure" genre), and it has wit, charm, clever dialog and an amazing, beautiful theme. By all rights, Okamiden should be one of the best games of the year, as near perfect as everything is, but there's that one problem: Okamiden does absolutely nothing that Okami did't already do.
Is a carbon copy of one of the best games ever made really a bad thing? Depends who you're asking, I suppose, but Okami felt like such a bold, creative leap forward for the industry that simply repeating it feels like a little bit of a letdown. There are really only two areas where Okami have been (slightly) improved, and that's in portability (an intrinsic feature of any DS game, obviously) and control. In all other respects, if you've played Okami, you're not going to get anything from playing Okamiden.
Even the narrative seems like a tacit acknowledgment of the loss the team behind Okamiden were seemingly at in creating a new story (Clover, the original studio, was shuttered after Okami failed to meet sales projections, mostly because the PS3 was due to be released about two weeks after the game was created – much as Okamiden finds itself in the shadow of the 3DS, actually – and Platinum Games, the company that rose out of Clover's ashes, has an extremely welcome aversion to sequels). Here's the plot: you play as Chibiterasu, the young pup of the original Okami protagonist, Amaterasu. As a sun god, this means you have control over the Celestial Brush, an implement that allows Chibi to control the elements and literally paint on the elements of the world you want to see. As you're only a pup, though, you don't have all of the powers that Amaterasu collected in the original game, meaning you have to go on a quest to get all of the same powerups again.
Taking place about a year after the events of the original, basically what's happened is that Nippon has been attacked by demons, again, and as Chibi, you have to, again, cleanse the world of the demons and restore beauty to the countryside. Literally the exact same path you took in Okami is here, and many of the puzzles are exactly the same. Besides some very effective changes in the story "beats," (for instance, an extended sequence with the son of Okami's bumbling "hero," Susano, is incredibly effective) there's nothing you couldn't have gotten from Okami. In fact, it's so similar as to almost feel like a DS port rather than an actual, standalone game.
Everything still feels great, though. The dungeons are interestingly designed, the world is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and the major revelation of Okamiden is how absolutely perfectly suited the game is to the DS's strengths. While painting with the analog stick or the Wiimote in the PS2 and Wii versions were functional, if at times a little touchy, the DS's touchscreen allows pinpoint precision with your brush strokes, and in a game where this plays such an integral role, it's the best kind of mechanic – one that's both functional and rewarding.
Unfortunately, there's a tradeoff. While Okamiden is certainly one of the very prettiest DS games ever made, it could never hope to reach the heights of the Wii version in aesthetic beauty. And while graphics normally wouldn't be the most important thing, with Okami, the aesthetics play such an integral role in creating the world and playing into the themes that the highest fidelity possible is almost a necessity. Okamiden comes off looking like Okami as imagined on the PSX, and subsequently can't help but feel like a step backwards.
If you've never played Okami, then, it's a bit of a toss-up which one you should play. They're both expertly crafted games, immensely enjoyable to play, and look and sound amazing. With that being said, the creative bankruptcy on display in Okamiden is a little worrisome – while everything is done to the best of the game's ability (including its writing, which might be a reason to play it even if you have played Okami), Okamiden just is not a fresh experience. I don't require that every game reinvent the wheel, but this is just far too similar to Okami. If you have a long trip ahead of you and you want to relive Okami, Okamiden might fit that bill, but if you've already mastered Okami, there's very little here to bring you back.