Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess

• Genre: Action/Tower Defense
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: ~25
• Too Short/Long: It felt a little long because it expects you to replay levels a lot.
• Soundtrack: For a game where dancing is so central to its theme, I kind of expected a better soundtrack overall. Some of the games later tracks are great though.
• Why I played: Weeb.
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: For the most part it's solid. Sometimes thing don't connect when they feel like they should, and encountered a couple graphic/sound glitches that quickly resolved.
• Difficulty: It's a little tough at times. I think tower defense games have to be a little bit to be engaging. As a hybrid, each aspect was too tough on it's own, but I guess that means it was well balanced.
• Recommend to others: I'm a bit in the middle for this one. I'd only recommend it to people who specifically like japanese folklore stuff and would also be interested in a hybrid character action/tower defense game.

Kunitsu-Gami is a rare new Capcom IP in the year 2025. Okay well technically it came out last year, but it's still surprising from a company that has gone from frequently making all new games to relying almost exclusively on it's strongest selling franchises. While I don't think Kunitsu-Gami is going to blow away many people, I do hope it does well enough to convince Capcom it was worth it.

There is a specific flow to Kunitsu-Gami's gameplay and while I enjoy it, it's repetitious nature does not benefit it. Most levels have you spending your time frantically running around to purify the town and repairs defenses in the time you have before the defense phase, before you're subject to a period where you can only fight back and order/reposition your units. Some levels mix up with gimmicks, and I think each gimmick is used at least twice, but I still feel like there should have been more use of some of these gimmicks as too many levels felt samey.

Besides the bulk of the gameplay, there is also a little bit of town management, but there isn't really any customization. Each level acts as a little hub once beaten, and it's just assigning people to repairs so you eventually unlock more skill points or collectables, you just have to play a level or two and return to unlock regards, rinse and repeat. Maybe it's better then just spending some misc currency to buy upgrades/unlocks, and it's nice to flesh out the environment of the game, but it kind of just felt like a hassle. Like I was walking around to go to places that would just be a menu option, and doing it dozens upon dozens of times didn't help with the game feeling repetitive.

The game does lean hard into it's style. The environments are maybe a little generic, as they are intended to just be historical Japanese settings, but the character/costume design, the items, and all the things that flavor the world are handled with care. Overall it's pretty unique in that regard.

The story is a bit vague in it's presentation as none of the characters really have any dialog. Most of the story is short sequences of interactions and gesturing. Basically, the land is corrupt/defiled and you are on a mission to purify it.

It's another one to mark down as a PS2-ass game I've played this year. That description has kind of expanded to mean anywhere from like PSX-PS3, but it fits there solidly. One, it's a time when Capcom was actually making new games outside it's top four franchises. Two, it seems like it's just kind of a weird little experiment of a game. Three, it's a bit more simple in it's execution, so it just feels more like a game that would have come out twenty years ago. I don't mean that as a bad thing, I never do. It's just a difference in how games were made versus how they are currently made, and I keep going back to it, so there is definitely something about the straightforwardness of "this is what this game is" that appeals to me.