REVIEW: ‘Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess’ Gets Lost In Its Beauty (PC)

Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess is Capcom’s upcoming game that uniquely blends the impact of an action adventure with the intricacy of a strategy game. While this combination is executed almost flawlessly mechanically, a few things the game noticeably lacks hold back the overall experience.

Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess follows Soh, a warrior of Mt. Kafuku and protector of the village priestess Yoshiro. One day, the village and its neighboring surroundings are invaded by a massive horde of monsters called Seethe, slaying almost everyone and destroying everything.

Luckily, Soh and the priestess come out unscathed, and together, they go on a quest to purify the land and seal away the Seethe. To do that, Yoshiro must perform the Rite of Cleansing, and it’s up to the player as her protector to help her complete the rite by clearing a path, fighting monsters, and cleansing villages along the way.

The story of Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess is unfortunately borderline nonexistent. Players move from one village to the next, rescuing villagers and defeating monsters with little to no narrative depth for the majority of the game. While the intro cutscene does a great job of introducing players to the setting and letting players understand the concept, the rest of the story features very few story cutscenes and voice acting, and the focus is mainly on gameplay, which is unfortunate.

However, this isn’t to say that the concept is uninteresting. The game’s theme is seemingly inspired by Japanese Onmyoji, whose job was to ward off mythical monsters and other spiritual and paranormal creatures in medieval Japan.

The gameplay in Kunitsu-Gami is simple yet intricate. Players forge a path from one village to the next at night by triggering the Rite of Cleansing. During the day, Yoshiro performs a traditional dance to cleanse the village before moving forward. However, before she can do this, you’ll need to have enough jewels, which serves as a currency that allows her to move freely.

To get these crystals, you must explore the village, cleansing victims who have fallen to defilement and other affected items. Once saved, these villagers become available to recruit with enough crystals to help you fight off the incoming hordes of Seethe. These recruits come in many archetypes, including Woodcutter, the standard fighter class; Archer, which helps fight flying demons; Ascetic, which binds demons and creates a barrier that temporarily slows their movement; and much more.

Villagers are quite effective in their roles, and the AI does a good job of sticking to the position you assign them, attacking demons while preserving their health when they can. However, the major issue with managing them is that each villager has limited health, so players must constantly take the time to heal them while fighting off enemies.

It’s worth noting that players can only recruit and position villagers they encounter and rescue during the day. However, during boss fights, they’re given a limited number of villagers to whom they can freely assign roles to. Knowing how to use these limited villagers and tailoring their roles to the boss you’re about to fight is highly satisfying and the best way to tackle challenging fights.

As players set up their villagers and gather as many crystals as possible, nighttime will eventually come, and the hordes of monsters will appear, halting all progress with the rite. At this point, players strategically position villagers who provide backup while fighting them. Soh can use a variety of skills to fight off seethe. This includes standard attacks, heavy attacks that can be chained together to make a combo, and special attacks that can be swapped for others as you progress through the game. While fighting monsters is straightforward (and easy), the challenge comes from managing villagers and dealing with some of the game’s annoying combat issues.

This includes the fact that combat in the game is incredibly floaty, and attacks never really feel satisfying because of this. Moreover, while combat looks great as attacks are meant to look like dance-like sword techniques, this proves to be its undoing as dodging away from the enemy creates too much distance and combined with floaty attacks, some combat scenarios become more difficult than they should be.

While the mission structure is engaging in its own ways, and each level is a bit different from the rest, the structure still gets a bit repetitive. Players progress each level similarly, but the challenges keep gameplay interesting. What’s more, Kunitsu Gami sports are incredible, well-designed, and have challenging bosses, which are the game’s highlights. As each boss looks vastly different from the last and requires different tactics to defeat, they all feel like an event whenever you fight them.

Outside combat, players rebuild and restore destroyed and defiled villages and collect several rewards from the proceeding mission. Building structures in villages requires you to use villagers, so they’ll become unavailable, but doing so will reward you with more crystals and other rewards. Players can also access their weapon upgrades, swap skills, check out the gallery, and upgrade all the villager types they’ve unlocked thus far. While these gameplay elements are noticeably limited and simple in Kunitsu Gami, they are still refreshingly easy to use.

Other than that, Kunitsu-Gami sports amazing visuals and aesthetics. The character designs are incredibly intricate and attractive—while also being incredibly faithful to their feudal Japanese setting. This is chiefly seen in the monster and boss designs, inspired by Yokai, mythical Japanese monsters, all of whom look amazing and foreboding in their own unique ways.

Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess is an incredibly mixed bag that, while including several great elements, is held back by overly simplistic, floaty combat mechanics and a lackluster narrative.

Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess will launch on July 19 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.