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Summary
It’s never possible to know if something will be a cult classic until it already is one, but if 2024 has any prime candidate, it’sKunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. Developed and published by Capcom,Kunitsu-Gamiis the kind of experiment that might have been less surprising to see from a major studio twenty years ago. It’s billed as a “Kagura Action Strategy game,” and its fusion of hack-and-slash action andinteresting tower defense tacticsis unique enough to earn the genre exclusivity.
Kunitsu-Gamihas a lot to juggle, so it never gets too bogged down in the particulars of plot, sticking instead to bare-bones but evocative silent storytelling. The game takes place on Mt. Kafuku, a mountain covered in defilement and invaded by monsters known as the Seethe that pile forward out of traditional torii gates.The protagonist Soh guides the Maiden Yoshiro forward each day and defends her from the Seethe each night, allowing her to purify the mountain village by village with the hopes of ultimately rooting out the corruption at its source.
Setting Up Each Day For Survival At Night
A Core Gameplay Loop Focused On Balances
At its core,Kunitsu-Gamiis a game about trade-offs. Taking the central mechanic of carving the path for Yoshiro as an example, the cost is paid in crystals, which can alternately be used to upgrade villagers to different classes for defense. There’s also a lot to consider about positioning, which isn’t as simple as just getting her as far as possible every day. Some setups are more defensible than others, and having to survive an extra night while progressing through a village might be better than leaving her in a vulnerable position.
Kunitsu-Gami’s daily preparation process is a rush of bouncing from task to task, and having everything in place by nightfall isn’t always easy. Soh can personally rescue villagers, harvest crystals, and nab unique rewards for thoroughly cleansing an area. When delegating, Soh can set villagers to the task of opening up new areas, get a builder working on repairs to defenses like barriers and cannons, or assign Thieves to uncover buried resource chests.
At its best, the experience of guiding Yoshiro to each gate is a nail-biting gauntlet that culminates in a uniquely satisfying sense of victory.
The first few nights inKunitsu-Gamipose no serious threats, but as the game progresses, survival starts to lean more on frantic damage control.Every class of villager brings a different value to the table, from Ascetics that can slow the progress of the Seethe, to Sorcerers capable of unleashing devastating attacks with exceptionally long gestation periods. Yoh can spec into several personal abilities of significant power, but using them without careful thought more or less guarantees that Yoshiro will get overwhelmed at the worst possible time.
At its best, the experience of guiding Yoshiro to each gate is a nail-biting gauntlet that culminates in a uniquely satisfying sense of victory. Although the game bookmarks each day and night to prevent too much unnecessary backsliding, the threat of losing progress is real, and thechaotic nature of the gameplay can make failure annoying. A few levels feel a bit exhausting in their length, but the fundamental momentum of the setup generally keeps things ticking along at a reasonable pace, and some stages shake up the core concepts in fun ways.
Kunitsu-Gami Has A Couple Of Other Diversions
Boss Fights And Village Repairs Have Their Charms
Kunitsu-Gami’s primary gameplay loop is punctuated by two other forms of entertainment — boss fights and village-building. Boss fights trade in a lot of the tower defense elements for more traditional showdowns that just happen to have extra bodies to throw around. Although putting in the work to inflict a break status on bosses can get repetitive,each major foe brings a nice array of interesting moves (and fun musical shake-ups) to the table.
The village-building element is largely mindless, consisting principally of Yoh assigning pre-determined repair tasks to batches of villagers and checking in whenever they’re done. From a gameplay perspective, the larger function of villages lies in giving Yoh a place to handle upgrades, both for villagers and himself. Upgrades are another example ofKunitsu-Gami’sfocus on resource allocationand trade-offs, and deciding whether to give Shamans some extra juice or unlock another ability for Yoh can be tough.
Exceptional Presentation Makes Kunitsu-Gami Shine
Masterfully Crafted From Top To Bottom
More than anything, what makesKunitsu-Gami’s villages work is the game’s incredible care for presentation. The tent where upgrades are handled presents them through a physical array of items, almost entirely getting away from the humdrum standard of flipping through menus. It also houses a couple of completely extraneous features — sweet desserts that can be placed in front of the Maiden and emaki scrolls that beautifully render scenes from each level. These things aren’t strictly necessary, which is a big part of what makes their inclusion feel so gratifying.
Checking out village maps also reveals notes about each villager, providing small character stories for figures that are otherwise mostly decorative.
From the intricate enemy designs to the Ema Plaques that detail yokai stories,every model and prop inKunitsu-Gamifeels like a labor of love. Its dedication to a unified aesthetic can make a lot of stages and enemies look similar at a glance, but thanks to fantastic animation work and a surfeit of bespoke detail, it’s rarely that difficult to tell things apart at any given moment. There’s also clearly a ton of thought put into making every action and selection snappy and responsive, which injects extra life into more mundane aspects ofKunitsu-Gamithat might otherwise prove tiring.
Final Thoughts & Review Score
4/5 - “Excellent” By Screen Rant’s Review Metric
Kunitsu-Gamiisn’t going to be for everyone, and even for those who do find it alluring, its gameplay loop might eventually start to wear thin.But it’s hard not to love something this creative, especially when its seemingly disparate gameplay elements are so deftly unified with a consistent and compelling style. There might be hundreds of fluid action games with more sophisticated combos and hundreds of strategy titles with deeper mechanics, but there’s only oneKunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and that makes it worth a lot more than many of those games will ever be.
Screen Rantwas provided with a PC download code for the purpose of this review.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
Capcom returns to Japanese fantasy/mythology with Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. Playing as a warrior who guides and protects their goddess, players will ascend their holy mountain as they work to purge their home of demonic creatures known as the seethe in high-speed action combat in environments inspired by Japanese folklore.
