Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess impressions: plays like a lost PS2 cult classic

For a while in the mid-2000s, Capcom enjoyed an explosion of creativity that’s rare to see from any major, settled publisher. A crack team led by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami oversaw a series of original titles characterized by bold design and even bolder visual direction. First, there was the “Capcom Five,” a series of initially GameCube-exclusive games that included Resident Evil 4 as well as Hideki Kamiya’s side-scrolling brawler Viewtiful Joe and Goichi Suda’s gonzo shooter Killer 7. Then, Mikami and Kamiya formed the rebel in-house unit Clover Studio where each of them directed a masterpiece for PlayStation 2: Mikami’s revisionist beat-’em-up God Hand and Kamiya’s gorgeous hand-painted Zelda-like, Okami.

There was just one problem: The games pretty much all bombed. Capcom closed Clover in 2007, and Kamiya and Mikami left to form PlatinumGames, which inherited some, if not all, of Capcom’s genius spark from this era. But over the next 17 years, this unique run of games only grew in influence and reputation. Now, a revitalized Capcom, enjoying unparalleled success on the backs of Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, is starting to feel the stirrings of that creative spirit again. You can see it in its daring triple-A gamble, Dragon’s Dogma 2. And you can definitely see it in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

Kunitsu-Gami is a relatively small-scale, defiantly odd game that could have been ripped straight from that 2000s heyday. With its sequence of small, confined stages, focused action, and a tight gameplay loop, it feels more like a remaster of some lost PS2 game than a true product of 2024 (complimentary). Its richly detailed, grotesque art is inspired by traditional Japanese folklore and illustration styles, and that aesthetic combines with the premise to create a unique atmosphere that’s both eerie and beguiling. It’s a true one-off.

Image: Capcom

Capcom calls Kunitsu-Gami an action-strategy game — or, to be more precise, a “Kagura Action Strategy” game. Kagura is a ritual ceremonial dance in the Shinto religion that involves a trance-like procession said to purify the spirit. In Kunitsu-Gami, the player controls Soh, a swordsman, who must protect the Maiden Yoshiro as she performs a ritual to purge demonic defilement from Mount Kafuku, home of the Goddess.

During the day, Yoshiro makes her stately, elegant progress while Soh cleanses small pockets of defilement, rescues villagers, commands them to repair defenses, and assigns them combat roles such as archer, woodcutter, or ascetic (a shaman who can slow the progress of enemies). At night, Yoshiro pauses her forward progress and dances in place while hideous demons known as the Seethe pour forward from possessed gates and attempt to overwhelm her. At this point, Kunitsu-Gami becomes a sort of hybrid of action game and tower defense. The player takes charge of the strategic placement of the villagers while also controlling Soh directly, using his balletic attack combos to carve a path through the shambling, writhing monstrosities.

One resource ties all the action together. The player earns crystals from purging defilement and dispatching Seethe, and spends them on assigning roles to villagers and carving a path forward for Yoshiro to dance along (literally: in a ridiculously cool animation, Soh plows his blade into the ground and runs forward with it). During the day, there’s a simple but still thoughtful balancing act in trying to prepare yourself well, make enough progress, and leave Yoshiro in a defensible spot come nightfall; maximizing progress along the path isn’t always the best strategy.

Image: Capcom

As unusual as it is in its blend of action and tactics, there’s a satisfying simplicity to Kunitsu-Gami that keeps it light on its feet. The linear progress through the levels makes it feel more dynamic and risky than a more traditionally hunkered-down tower defense game, and the constant march of time keeps you on your toes. This is a game of clearly defined and very rewarding loops. Even after you’ve beaten the stages, they transform into bases where repair work provides extra rewards, and where you can enter a modest tent to upgrade your villagers, tinker with buff-granting charms, review gorgeous art scrolls, and share mouthwateringly-modeled traditional Japanese sweets with Yoshiro.

Capcom clearly knows what it’s evoking from its past with Kunitsu-Gami; as a reward for participating in a demo version of the game, players are rewarded with Okami-themed cosmetic items. These two games certainly draw from the same ancient well of Japanese folklore and mythology, and they express this influence in similarly characterful (if very different) art styles.

But what Kunitsu-Gami really shares with the Capcom Five and Clover games is an individuality born of marrying strong artistic choices to game design in a way that’s both innovative and unfussy, producing a result that has an almost arcade-like immediacy to it. Kunitsu-Gami summons a truly haunting mood, too, from its surreal monster designs — all knuckles, fingernails, and tongues — and from the way the characters prance and pirouette like puppets around its gloomy mountainside dioramas, hoping to make it to sunrise. I can’t think of a single other game — including those illustrious predecessors — that is anything like it.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC via Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It’s also available day one on Game Pass on PC, cloud, and console.