You play a wolf goddess who paints directly onto the world with a magic brush, drawing a circle to create the sun, a line to cut down a tree, or a slash to strike an enemy. The whole game is styled like a moving ink painting, and using the brush feels closer to calligraphy than a normal action game. It is a long, slow-paced adventure, so it suits someone who likes a fairy tale mood over constant action.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
Overall
It remains one of the most beautiful and emotionally resonant adventure games ever made, and time has done little to dull its charm.
Moment to moment
The celestial brush mechanic ties puzzle-solving and combat together elegantly, though the pacing can feel slow in its earlier hours.
Art and atmosphere
Its living ink-painting art style still looks like nothing else in gaming, and the Switch port handles the transition to handheld screens gracefully.
Worth your time?
It is a long journey with plenty of side content for those who want to fully restore the world. Recommended to anyone who missed it the first time around.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
You play as Amaterasu, a sun goddess who takes the form of a white wolf, exploring a fictional ancient Japan that has been drained of color and life by an evil curse, running, jumping, and fighting much like an action adventure game with a sword-like weapon strapped to your back. The signature mechanic is the celestial brush, at any time you can pause the action and draw directly on the screen, a circle summons the sun or a bomb, a straight line slices through an enemy or object, and a swirl conjures wind, and pulling this off feels like casting a spell with your own hand rather than pressing a preset button. As you explore, the drab, sickly landscape visibly blooms back into vivid, ink-painted color, trees regrow, and rivers start flowing again.
Your overall goal is to travel across the land, clearing traditional dungeons full of puzzles and enemies while restoring cursed areas to health along the way, gradually learning new brush techniques that let you solve puzzles and reach places you could not before. Side quests and townsfolk conversations flesh out a story steeped in Japanese folklore, and watching an entire region's color and life return after you solve its central problem is consistently one of the most satisfying moments in the game. A full playthrough runs around thirty hours, including some backtracking through earlier areas late in the story.
Session to session this feels unhurried and painterly, closer to a fairy tale than a fast-paced action game, and it rewards patience with genuinely beautiful moments. What may frustrate you is the pacing, especially long, unskippable dialogue sequences and combat that stays fairly simple throughout compared to more modern action games. This is a wonderful fit for someone who wants a slower, story-rich adventure with a completely unique visual identity.