Capcom is absolutely on call right now; everything he touches seems to turn to gold, from big releases to the smallest experiments. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess certainly fits into the latter category, and is a great time for fans of real-time strategy with a twist.
Being able to control a hero character in the midst of the frenzy of a dictating battle may not be entirely new, but it is given a new feel by this battle that is heavily influenced by tower defense. At a play time of 10 to 12 hours, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a delight, albeit with some rough edges. In fact, you might end up wishing it was a little longer.
The story of the game is told almost entirely without dialogue. It opens with the player character, Soh, trying to fend off an invasion of demons called Seethe from the top of his mountain home, protecting the local shrine maiden Yoshiro as she performs rituals to banish them. However, they are overcome and the mountain is conquered; the game is essentially a procession down its slopes, in tow, but clearing the ground as they go.
This manifests itself in a mission-based structure – as you make your way through a campaign map, you’ll stop at shrines, abandoned villages and tunnels to stop and take on the challenge of each. Once you’ve completed a location, you’re tasked with allocating resources to repair it over time, a simple and ultimately somewhat tedious part of base building that grants upgrade resources and openings. However, diving into those missions is the real meat of the game.
Kunitsu-Gami puts you in the shoes of Soh in a series of arenas as he guides Yoshiro down a set track to a gate that she must clear. You’ll occasionally choose between two branching paths, but either way, you’ll still be faced with the same task. You’ll have a daily period in which you’ll run around the stage, finding bits of fiendish energy to purify, earning points that can then be spent on the villagers you find and released around the place, transforming those in combat units.
At first, these will be limited to simple archers and spades, but before long you’ll unlock more expensive options that have the power to, for example, freeze enemies in place for a short time, fire balls explosive from a distance or even heal their comrades. unit. You’ll place these around Yoshiro’s final position as day turns to night, at which point the fight will begin, requiring you to survive until morning.
This means the arrival of enemies from certain places: hot gates that pour out demons and see them walking towards the girl, slowed by your units, any obstacles you managed to build and your abilities. After all, Soh is a swordsman and you can wipe out enemy fields more devastatingly than the units you order around. This means that each night divides your attention into two parts – where you need to be, fighting fire and destroying demons, and where your units need to be, providing covering fire or blocking a lane entirely.
It’s a really fun balance, with a classic rock-paper-scissors element to your unit selection based on incoming enemies, and further turns are made fairly regularly (each used at least a few times) to make things more challenging. There are stages where you are unable to participate in combat yourself and can only issue orders; others see you in a floating armada of boats, struggling to stop any craft from sinking; another type requires you to carry beacons around the stage to be able to target enemies.
Your ability to issue commands comes via a time-paused menu that allows you to cycle through your units and place them around the map, though you’re limited by your field of view and location; there is no easy way to see the entire map while paused. You also need to be near a unit to heal or change its role (which you’ll need to do often in the later stages), so be prepared for Soh’s relatively slow movement speed to become a bit annoying.
Soh’s actual combat controls are usable, but noticeably not as smooth as a good Dynasty Warriors character, let alone a Dante or Bayonetta. This definitely helps to balance your power on the battlefield, but makes investing in Soh’s skill tree less appealing compared to upgrading your units’ abilities. However, that upgrade tree is fully redeemable at any time, which is great for experimenting with different units and tactics.
Most stages last for more than a night, and often several days, as you pace your way through the maps, stopping at the right moment to grab a night’s bread and give yourself more time to build upgrades, such as sharpshooter cannons or turrets. Managing your units through these repetitive engagements is challenging fun, supported by generous checkpoints at night, meaning you’ll rarely, if ever, have to restart an entire mission from scratch if you fail.
Still, it’s fair to say that, by the time the credits rolled, we were still looking for a truly grueling stage – the chance to actually score a wall-against-the-odds victory. Those driven by the ultimate challenge can rest assured that Kunitsu-Gami is more accessible than you might think. What sometimes requires more skill are the boss fights you unlock between most stages. These act as mandatory barriers to your progress, some introducing new, more powerful enemies, while others are a bit more unique (and frankly, sometimes tedious to actually fight).
From a top-down perspective, but with plenty of camera control, the game looks pretty nice at times, though it’s a bit low on environmental detail. Those demon models are extremely weird, to make up for it, and we didn’t experience any performance issues during gameplay. Kunitsu-Gami’s soundtrack also deserves a mention, a wonderful mix of calm and quiet melodies with funky prog-rock at its hottest moments. Also on the sound front, you’ll want to turn down your DualSense controller’s speaker in the PS5’s system settings, as the game unfortunately makes constant use of it obnoxiously without a break to turn it off.
CONCLUSION
It may not look as new as its billing, but Kunitsu-Gami is still a nice little game, with a seriously catchy hook that will make you wish it was longer than it actually is. The plates she keeps rolling are impressive, even if she’s actually a bit light on the final weigh-in.