Capcom is on the rise. Success has been built on the excellent remakes of several Resident Evil titles for several years, and the Monster Hunter series seems to be getting stronger with each release. That same year, the company had another big hit with Dragon’s Dogma II, which sold more than three million copies in its first two months.
But Capcom can do more than just produce big-budget titles. Exoprimal may have stumbled, but Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess didn’t, and it’s one of the most surprising games of 2024 to date. It’s the work of a small team at Capcom that has created a game deeply rooted in Japanese culture that successfully mixes multiple genres such as action, tower defense, and strategy.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is set on the lush and beautiful Mount Kafuku, where idyllic villages, beautiful cemeteries, and dazzling lakes are scattered around the mountainside. For hundreds of years, the Goddess of the Mountain has protected its inhabitants, but now an evil darkness threatens with terrifying creatures inspired by the Yokai (called Seethe), and they have taken control, stealing the Goddess’ 12 Masks and scattering them throughout the mountain.
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Together with the mountain maiden Yoshiro as her squire and protector Soh, you must now fight your way down the mountain, driving out the Seethe monsters along the way, liberating and rebuilding the villages and, of course, finding the missing masks in order to finally perform a ritual at the foot of the mountain that will banish evil from Mount Kafuku once and for all.
Around the mountain are the sacred Torii gates that the Seethe use to enter our world, but only at night. Therefore, you have the day to gather your forces among the mountain’s inhabitants and assign them different roles, for example a lumberjack with a large axe, an archer with a bow and arrow, or an ascetic who can create barriers that block enemies. . As you progress in the game and find more and more skins, you will receive more roles and all of them can be continuously upgraded, as can a variety of Soh’s skills.
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Once the roles are assigned, you must strategically position your forces so that when night falls and the Seethe pours out of the torii gates, you are ready to defeat them and protect Yoshiro from attack at all costs. Under no circumstances should she fall in battle, for only she can perform the vital ritual at the foot of Mount Kafuku.
In addition to correctly positioning your forces, Soh also allows you to attack the enemy with swords and special attacks. You can continuously order your forces to retreat and protect Yoshiro, attack the enemy, or stay in their assigned positions and defeat the enemy when you get closer. The missions vary quite a bit throughout the game; one of them takes place on a ship, which changes the combat considerably, and in others you cannot use Soh, who has been enchanted, so you can only give orders to your forces.
At the end of the night, you lick your wounds and prepare for the next night, slowly bringing Yoshiro ever closer to the area’s main torii gate, which will cleanse them of evil upon arrival, thus putting an end to the Seethe’s nightly visits to this area.
As the description above suggests, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a mix of several different genres, and the truth is that it works surprisingly well. There’s action when Soh faces off against hordes of enemies, and the tower defense part comes into play when you gather forces, assign them roles, and strategically place them around the torii gates. The strategy part comes into play when you command your forces to attack or defend during battles, and when you scavenge for resources and rebuild the area after the battle is over to repair the damage the dark evil has done to buildings, defenses, or religious stonework, for example.
All of this spiced up with references from deep Japanese culture. It’s a very Japanese game, but not as flashy as Final Fantasy, with perhaps slightly childish characters and scantily clad heroines: it feels like a believable look at the rich and complex Japanese culture.
When games mix multiple genres, there’s a risk that they end up being a tepid middle ground in all areas, and while Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is neither a particularly deep strategy game, nor a tower defense game, particularly clearly, nor a particularly good action game, it all works quite well together. Proper placement of forces is a little confusing and awkward due to the camera angle, but you learn to deal with it, and in the end it’s overshadowed by the game’s strengths, which thankfully are in abundance here.
The rich Japanese culture is also clearly expressed visually. From the character designs, the masks and the beautiful robes of the mountain maiden Yoshiro, to the beautiful temples and altars on the mountainside, to the in-game menus and of course the soundtrack, everything is really well done and quietly well designed.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess shows how versatile Capcom can be, and ends up being one of the most surprising games of 2024. It’s refreshing because it mixes things up in such a way that pieces from several different genres end up being mixed up in quite surprising ways. It’s a hybrid that balances surprisingly well between an action game, a Tower defense and a strategy game, so it’s hard to say who Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is really aimed at.
For me at least, it was a positive surprise. If you like strategy or tower defense games and fancy some alternative summer holiday entertainment, I would definitely check out Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess; there’s even a demo available on all platforms so you can try it out and see if it’s for you. I recommend you at least try the demo version, although it’s fully included in Game Pass.
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