Kunitsu Gami: Path of the Goddess

Capcom first teased this game in 2021, that I remember. As it was untitled everyone postulated the style of Japanese mysticism could possible mean a new entry in the Onimusha series. The next time it was showed off, it showed a lone ninja character slashing its way through a slurry of twisted, disgusting demons, as well as a name, Kunitsu-Gami. A new IP from Capcom and they swung far out beyond the fences, they were aiming for that special place beyond the beyond, for a game that could feel at home on today’s consoles (though no switch port was certainly a choice) or the dankest PS2 title you’ve never played. A mixture between combo-based character action and a realtime strategy, this game brings a lot of ideas into a pretty refined package.

The core loop of the game works like this:

• Start a level in the daytime. You have 12-hours (about 10 minutes, though I never actually timed it) to run around and clear defilement. Defilement comes in 2 flavors, towers that will spit out a bunch of crystals or a cocooned villager that will be freed and added to your roster. Each stage has a set number of villagers (sometimes zero!) and towers, and when you finish each tower you have a bunch of crystals and a special present to open. These presents are at shrines and are often a power-up that can be equipped, a special move or some kind of enhancement.
• While it is still daytime you need to use crystals to assign roles to villagers. These are your grunts, your workhorses, your people. Axemen, spearmen, magic users that slow and hurt enemies, guys with big fucking canons, there is a lot of variety, and more get unlocked with each boss you fell. You also need to spend crystals to carve a path for Yoshiro, the goddess you’ve sworn to protect. She only moves during the daytime so it’s best to carve quickly. But since crystals cost the same currency as your units you sometimes need to prioritize one or the other leading to some interesting tension.
• Nighttime rolls around and the tori gates in each stage come alive, unleashing a ton of enemy varieties. Some of them need specific units to destroy effectively. They are coming, and they are trying to kill Yoshiro, the goddess you’ve been sworn to protect. Your units AI is pretty smart but you can command them all around. If you wanted, you could go all John MacLane on their asses and try to solo this shit. Soh (your playable character) has a pretty sick moveset and can get pretty powerful

In between stages you can go back to old maps which have been cleaned out, and you put your villagers to task to rebuild. This is pretty simple, you run around the map to different parts that have crumbled and press a few buttons and assign whomever is currently free. the thing that’s hard to put into words about this game is how satisfying all of this shit is. Clearing the defilement, collecting crystals, assigning villagers, finishing tasks and collecting rewards. It’s all QUICK, makes great noises and offers very satisfying feedback! It’s addictive in its design! I want to finish this stuff, beyond the fact that it expands your inventories and gives you additional rewards.

I loved this game. It was just unique, even though there was plenty of influence felt. I hope the team received enough praise and the game sold well enough that they get to do something else like in the future!

fun fact - there are few screenshots for this because xbox apparently started to delete all screenshots on the xbox drive after 90 days and locally after about 21 which is absolutely clown shit. leave my local files alone