I don't buy games unless I've tried them before, and I know they're good ...
There was only ever one exception to that.
The worst game I own in Okamiden. My absolute favorite game of all time is Okami, so I was psyched for the sequel, and all the reviews were pretty good so I figured I'd just buy it, I mean how bad could it possibly be? Boy was I wrong.
Okamiden is ... pretty horrid. In the original Okami, you play as a goddess in the form of a wolf, and you have your annoying Navi character, Issun, following you around everywhere, but he isn't too terribly annoying; he actually sort of grows on you over the course of the game. That sort of thing can't happen in Okamiden though, because you have multiple Navi characters, and they keep switching out, so you never get a chance to get used to any of them. Also, each has his own abilities that you have to use to solve puzzles, so you need one in particular in any given area, and the game has to keep coming up with increasingly more contrived reasons for the proper one to be there, so it starts feeling like there's a bad soap opera playing out on your back. And of course, all the characters are utterly unlikable, all being complete morons or totally full of themselves. No personality, terrible dialogue, I just want to kick them off and go it alone. But alas, you need them for the puzzles ...
That's a big problem too. A big reason Okami is my favorite game of all time is because they really pulled the "goddess" thing off quite well. You feel all-powerful, and utterly significant compared to everyone around you, but it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay or make it less challenging. Even Issun is just there to hitch a ride and try to learn more about your godlike abilities, rather than being a leader or sage or anything like that. He doesn't even get in the way or give much advice, there are Travel Guides to do that instead. In Okamiden, you depend on whoever's riding you at the time, constantly. And they're always giving advice. And they never ever stop talking. You aren't allowed to solve any of the puzzles on your own because your rider is constantly holding your hand and telling you exactly how to solve it, even if it's something obvious they have to explain it to you. That's the biggest problem with this game, is the hand-holding.
Another gigantic problem with Okamiden is the terrible blatant padding. Imagine this scenario: Let's say you're halfway through a dungeon. You walk into a room. There's a circle of lightning in your way, so you try to find a way around it, a switch to turn it off or something. But suddenly, for no apparent reason, you're whisked off into a cutscene that puts you somewhere completely different, and you have to climb a cloud mountain or something, because it's there I suppose. At the top of the cloud mountain, after a dumb minigame of some sort, someone randomly gives you a card that will let you walk through lightning without getting hurt. You get cutscened back down to where you were, in the room in the dungeon with the circle of lightning. You go through it ... and apparently, the lightning was "too powerful", so even though you got through without a scratch, the lightning card is destroyed and is now totally useless. A single-use item, obtained in a place you can only ever visit once, immediately before you use the item. This actually happens in Okamiden, and many many more scenes like it. If it weren't for all the padding from this game, it would be about half an hour long, I swear to god.
Also the controls, graphics, and loading times are all horrible. I suppose that's to be expected on the DS, but Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks pulled it off alright so I expected Okamiden to be able to handle it. The boss fights are unimaginative and not fun at all. The best thing about the game might have been the time travel bit, but they only included that in the first place as more padding so it's really a wasted effort. Everything about this game sucks.