Thus endeth this long tale of woe, of the IGN-Watermarked Okami art. It stretches back to April, when someone discovered that the box art image was actually repurposed from an Okami handout that IGN watermarked. Six months and two "now shipping!" notices later (the last in August), the damn thing finally arrived. Reader gamer4250 sent us a shot of it. If anyone has higher quality scans, send along and I'll include them. Who wants some sushi?

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We're not normally in the business of keeping you up to date on a company's routine paperwork, but since so damn many of you were bugging us about this, here you go: the replacement Okami Wii covers are, according to Capcom, shipping. Right now. And actually shipping, too, as opposed to the not-actually-shipping from a few months back. To compensate for the delay, everyone on their list will be getting all three covers. Got one? Let us know.

Okami Wii special covers - Final Update! [Capcom]

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Despite being one of the best damn games we've ever played, Okami bombed (at the register, relative to its quality) on the PS2. Bombed on the Wii, too. So maybe, uh, third time's a charm? Let's hope so (because this isn't official confirmation)! A listing for a Greatest Hits version of the game - on PS2 - has turned up on retailer Play-Asia, with a ship date of later this month. Who knows, maybe a cheap, cheap price will look great to the 3-4 people who somehow missed it first time around. And don't own a Wii.

Okami (Greatest Hits) [Play-Asia, via Siliconera]

Earlier, Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya didn't exactly have kind words for Ninja Gaiden. They weren't mean per se, they just weren't kind. Kamiya said he's "not interested" in NG so perhaps you could say he is indifferent. In the same issue of EGM, former Team Ninja lead ninja Tomonobu Itagaki has this to say about Kamiya and his game Okami:

My daughter tried playing Okami, and she got sick of it pretty quickly-and I got pretty sick of it, too. And I'm not out to make this an Okami bashing session or anything — I'm just saying that it didn't feel like it had much of a spirit. It's unique, but it's not a powerful fighter plane... So I heard Kamiya said something about the action genre not moving forward in eight years. Can you tell me more about that?

Apparently, Kamiya said the action genre hasn't moved forward since the release of the first Devil May Cry. To which Itagaki replied:

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When Capcom's Christian "Sven" Svensson said you all needed to go out and buy more copies of Okami, damnit, he wasn't kidding around. Tucked away in Capcom's financial results yesterday were some sales figures for the company's biggest games, showing that the Wii port of the PS2 classic - a version that was supposed to deliver the kind of sales the title deserved - has sold only 280,000 copies in North America and Europe since release. Being a port I'm sure they still turned a profit, but with Res 4 managing to sell over a million on the Wii, you can't blame Capcom if they decide to toss Okami in the "too hard" basket.

More Capcom sequel hostage-taking. Last time it was Phoenix Wright fans in Capcom's blackmailing sights, this time, it's Okami fans. Responding to questions bugging them over a new brush-shaded adventure on Capcom's boards, Christian "Sven" Svensson said "I think we need a lot more people buying the current version before we seriously consider a sequel". A harsh statement on the game's combined sales figures, perhaps, but also probably an accurate one. Still, we can dream, no?

The Question That Was Inevitably Coming [Capcom, via GoNintendo]

In July 2007, fresh from beating the game, I ordered the Japanese-language edition of the Okami art book. Weeks went by. Then months. No art book. I totally forgot about the thing. Then today, June 24, 2008...success! The book finally turns up (albeit the English-language edition). Was it worth the wait? Was it ever. This is a proper art book. Full of concept art, level design sketches, character reference models and even some mangas detailing both the game's boss battles and "god release" cutscenes. Best part? It even gives you soundtrack advice: ie, if you're reading this, play track 7 on disc 3 of the soundtrack.

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Looks like those Platinum Games rumours are true. Things like a mulit-page article in this week's Famitsu magazine tend to confirm things like that. There's 3D action title Bayonetta for the PS3 and the Xbox 360>. The angel-battling game features a protagonist with gun-feet. The game is being directed by Hideki Kamiya, the creator of Devil May Cry and director of Okami. The other game Famitsu mentions is Infinite Line, which is apparently being co-developed with Nude Maker.

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Platinum Games, the studio founded by former Capcom developer Clover, has apparently struck a deal with SEGA to publish three games. Those games are:

• Bayonetta, directed by DMC creator Hideki Kamiya, and is described by the site's correspondent as a "stylish action game" with "a witch battling angels". Apparently she has guns on her feet.
• A science-fiction RPG for the DS called Infinite Line, where you play as a starship captain, customising your ship and crew.
• A Wii game called MadWorld. ...it's, "Black and white Sin City graphics, with red blood. Ultra ultra violent. Fatality moves like shoving a post through someone's head. Chainsaw on your right arm."

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So my day job (Frengo Corp.) is like, not even a block from Capcom supreme world U.S. command in San Mateo, Calif. And equidistant to us both is the above Trader Joe's grocery, which Californians know as a go-to stop for tasty lunchtime treats for not a lot of dough. I enjoy the barbecue chicken pinwheels, even if they do pack 53 percent of my RDA of fat.

But I was in there Thursday and I noticed something.

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