Most of our thirty minutes of play time (the demo times your play session to end in 30 minutes) was spent first obtaining the new power, which required solving a multi-faceted puzzle, then bringing life to some dead foliage. Just before we were kicked back to the title screen (after drawing the first "o" in "To be continued"), we managed to exit Sakura Valley and were taken to what we presume is the game's world map. An expansive field which seems to connect all areas of the game, this map is so large that we finally understood why Amaterasu moves so uncomfortably fast once he hits his full stride.
We were only able to explore a tiny bit of this new area, as aside from the immediate surroundings of Sakura Valley, the field is covered by a poisonous black substance, which is presumably in place to keep players from progressing too far too fast. Just like you, we'll have to wait until the final release of Okami (the game is set for March in America and April 20th in Japan) to explore further. While getting your hands on this demo will be tricky if you don't live in Japan, you can do the next best thing and download our new gameplay movies.
