Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was one of the strangest games I’ve ever played, but it was also easily one of the most engaging titles I got my hands on at Summer Game Fest Play Days.
It’s difficult to explain the kind of game that Kunitsu-Gami is and how it plays. At its core, it’s a third-person action game with tower defense mechanics.
The majority of the levels in the demo were all about finding and clearing a path for the Maiden to reach the end of the map. Once the Maiden reaches her destination, a ritual dance is performed to rid the area of its “defilement.”
With every map you come across, various parts of the environment including its people suffer from defilement, and the only people that can do anything about it are the maiden and the protagonist, and it’s your job to do the busy work in order to help clear that path we were talking about earlier.
Kunitsu-Gami has a day and night cycle where most of the non-lethal preparation takes place in the daytime. You’ll be un-defiling people to bring to your side of the fight, as well as animals to further clear out the defilement. You’ll also need to chop away at various resources in the level in order to spend them and turn give the people you un-defiled specific jobs, like the woodcutter or archer. These people will act as units that will be integral once night falls.
Pretty colors aside, the point is to get the girl on the left to open the gate at the end of the path.
Once you think you’ve made all the preparations, you go back to the Maiden and draw a line for her to follow to the end. It’ll take forever to her to get to her destination once you draw it, so you have the ability to speed up time.
Eventually night will fall, and there’s where the danger begins. A portal at the end of the map will open up, causing demons and other monsters to come out and wreak havoc. So from here, it becomes a tower defense hack-and-slash. If they get to the Maiden and kill her, it’s game over. If they kill you, you’ll be able to be a ghost and watch helplessly at what goes on in the map before respawning after enough time. You also have the ability to change the jobs of the units on the field or change their positioning to better protect the Maiden. When I first got my hands on the demo, I didn’t really know all this and tried to tank my way through it, which worked in the first phase, but when I got to the boss fight, I wasn’t so lucky.
When I finished the level, I got to a boss fight and it’s here where we saw a lot of the menu setup. The game is heavily based on Japanese folklore, and since this was just a demo, I didn’t pay much attention and I wouldn’t want to butcher any customs, so I’m not going to pretend I really know about the importance of gifts and prayer or whatnot, but the point of these menus was to really level up and prepare even more for the next battle. When we got to the boss, it was a good way to really learn and understand the difference between all the jobs we had at our disposal. We had attackers, we had people setting up barriers, and we had archers shooting spirits out of the sky. It all really started to gel.
We set up these charms to aid us before the boss fight.
We had access to one more level after that, and it was a two-parter that really tested our knowledge. Around four nights occurred in that level and the latter two really showed how difficult and hectic things can get when the Maiden is right at the tip of her destination, but when we pulled it off and watched the ceremonial dance, I couldn’t help but start to dance too before putting the controller away.
Aside from how dense the material and menus were at first glance, the main gripe I have with the game is with how difficult it can be to see things suffering from defilement. The art style in Kunitsu-Gami is stunning, but with all the color blending, it’s really easy to miss all the defiled people or objects there are to purify. Capcom’s attendants kept pointing them out on my screen, and it made feel like I couldn’t see, so I’m hoping that’s something they can address before release. I’m also hoping the end result is a game that isn’t too long, but we’ll just have to see.
It has its touches of weirdness, but out of all the games I played at SGF, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was the one I completely went from “not interested” to “I need this in my life.” Again, Capcom is on a different level. The game is currently slated for release on the PC, PlayStation platforms, and Xbox platforms (along with Game Pass) on July 19.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was one of the strangest games I’ve ever played, but it was also easily one of the most engaging titles I got my hands on at Summer Game Fest Play Days. It’s difficult to explain…
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was one of the strangest games I’ve ever played, but it was also easily one of the most engaging titles I got my hands on at Summer Game Fest Play Days.
It’s difficult to explain the kind of game that Kunitsu-Gami is and how it plays. At its core, it’s a third-person action game with tower defense mechanics.
The majority of the levels in the demo were all about finding and clearing a path for the Maiden to reach the end of the map. Once the Maiden reaches her destination, a ritual dance is performed to rid the area of its “defilement.”
With every map you come across, various parts of the environment including its people suffer from defilement, and the only people that can do anything about it are the maiden and the protagonist, and it’s your job to do the busy work in order to help clear that path we were talking about earlier.
Kunitsu-Gami has a day and night cycle where most of the non-lethal preparation takes place in the daytime. You’ll be un-defiling people to bring to your side of the fight, as well as animals to further clear out the defilement. You’ll also need to chop away at various resources in the level in order to spend them and turn give the people you un-defiled specific jobs, like the woodcutter or archer. These people will act as units that will be integral once night falls.
Pretty colors aside, the point is to get the girl on the left to open the gate at the end of the path.
Once you think you’ve made all the preparations, you go back to the Maiden and draw a line for her to follow to the end. It’ll take forever to her to get to her destination once you draw it, so you have the ability to speed up time.
Eventually night will fall, and there’s where the danger begins. A portal at the end of the map will open up, causing demons and other monsters to come out and wreak havoc. So from here, it becomes a tower defense hack-and-slash. If they get to the Maiden and kill her, it’s game over. If they kill you, you’ll be able to be a ghost and watch helplessly at what goes on in the map before respawning after enough time. You also have the ability to change the jobs of the units on the field or change their positioning to better protect the Maiden. When I first got my hands on the demo, I didn’t really know all this and tried to tank my way through it, which worked in the first phase, but when I got to the boss fight, I wasn’t so lucky.
When I finished the level, I got to a boss fight and it’s here where we saw a lot of the menu setup. The game is heavily based on Japanese folklore, and since this was just a demo, I didn’t pay much attention and I wouldn’t want to butcher any customs, so I’m not going to pretend I really know about the importance of gifts and prayer or whatnot, but the point of these menus was to really level up and prepare even more for the next battle. When we got to the boss, it was a good way to really learn and understand the difference between all the jobs we had at our disposal. We had attackers, we had people setting up barriers, and we had archers shooting spirits out of the sky. It all really started to gel.
We set up these charms to aid us before the boss fight.
We had access to one more level after that, and it was a two-parter that really tested our knowledge. Around four nights occurred in that level and the latter two really showed how difficult and hectic things can get when the Maiden is right at the tip of her destination, but when we pulled it off and watched the ceremonial dance, I couldn’t help but start to dance too before putting the controller away.
Aside from how dense the material and menus were at first glance, the main gripe I have with the game is with how difficult it can be to see things suffering from defilement. The art style in Kunitsu-Gami is stunning, but with all the color blending, it’s really easy to miss all the defiled people or objects there are to purify. Capcom’s attendants kept pointing them out on my screen, and it made feel like I couldn’t see, so I’m hoping that’s something they can address before release. I’m also hoping the end result is a game that isn’t too long, but we’ll just have to see.
It has its touches of weirdness, but out of all the games I played at SGF, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was the one I completely went from “not interested” to “I need this in my life.” Again, Capcom is on a different level. The game is currently slated for release on the PC, PlayStation platforms, and Xbox platforms (along with Game Pass) on July 19.
by Danreb Victorio
