When Kunitsu-Gami: The Way of the Goddess debuted during Capcom's digital summer showcase last year, I didn't pay much attention to it. It looked like a high-concept action RPG based on Japanese mythology that took some of its artistic cues from another of Capcom's highly stylized games, EyesAnd while I have nothing but love for action RPGs and Japanese folklore, nothing in that initial trailer, or the ones that followed, showed me enough of what the game was about to make it interesting.
It was only after trying out the game's demo at this year's Summer Game Fest, and then getting my hands on a copy, that I finally… I understand. And damn, this game is worth getting into.
In Kunitsu-Gami: The Way of the GoddessYou play as Soh, the guardian of the priestess Yoshiro, whom you must protect and guide through the land helping to purge it of evil demons. In an email to The edge, Art and game director Shuichi Kawata wrote that it was not intentional that the marketing surrounding Kunitshu Gami He did not make clear what kind of game it was.
“This title is a mix of various genres,” Kawata wrote. “And we imagined the possibility that people might have a variety of impressions.”
I challenge you to guess what kind of game this launch trailer is based on.
Kawata described Kunitshu Gami as a “maiden” defense game. The game is split into three parts: day, night, and a base-building cycle. During the day, Soh tours mountain villages plagued by demonic corruption. He cleans out the corruption and rescues villagers who will aid him in the coming night cycle. At night, demons attack in hopes of reaching Yoshiro to kill her. To stop them, Soh assigns the villagers different jobs, each with their own skills, strengths, and weaknesses, and places them throughout the village to prevent the demons from reaching Yoshiro. Once Yoshiro reaches the end of a village, it is permanently cleansed, making it a new base that Soh and the villagers must repair before moving on to the next location.
I like how Kunitshu Gami This game cleverly iterates on tower defense games. You assign roles to villagers with crystals, a resource gained by defeating demons at night and clearing a village during the day. Not all villagers can fill all roles, and some roles aren’t viable for combat, though they have other benefits. During a daylight cycle, I might assign a couple of my people to the thief role, sending them out to dig up more crystals or rations that act as health potions for Soh and the villagers. But thieves are useless at night, requiring me to burn precious time and crystals to reassign and redistribute them. Sometimes I may not have enough crystals, as I've used them all to buy the expensive Sumo Wrestler role (which draws the demons' attention to themselves and away from Yoshiro) or the Acetic which uses its power to freeze demons in place, making them easy prey for the Archer's Bow or the Lumberjack's Axe.
Kunitshu Gami It offered the kind of challenge that makes my puzzle- and strategy-obsessed brain sizzle with excitement.
In addition to simply completing a stage, each village battle also comes with a set of special parameters that, if met, will give you additional rewards. One parameter required that I not use more than 1900 crystals. While that initially seemed trivial, that goal became much more difficult to meet because that stage also I was required to give Yoshiro 1500 crystals to complete it. I was then left with only 400 crystals for my villagers, an extremely tight budget when basic roles like archer and lumberjack cost 50 crystals each, while more powerful roles cost between 150 and 300.
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I really enjoyed that tension between strategic allocation and deployment. Do I spend the crystals to get the powerful roles, leaving me with fewer defenders? Or do I risk having my larger but weaker army overwhelmed? Kunitshu Gami It's also special because it never fell into the trap of being too trivial. In other tower defense games, it's possible to set up your defenses so well that you can sit back and watch the game unfold. That never happened to me. It didn't matter if I had an excess of resources and well-placed villagers, I always had to remain on high alert, and I often came to Yoshiro's rescue with one of Soh's ultimate attacks. In each level, Kunitshu Gami offered the kind of challenge that makes my puzzle- and strategy-obsessed brain sizzle with excitement.
While not a standout feature, the game also has an interesting narrative. Each villager you rescue has a name and a biography, and I enjoyed reading their stories and how they intertwined. These people became more than just nameless units to be thrown against a demonic horde, but members of a living, breathing community made up of married couples, family, and friends. It was a beautiful message that reminded me of the aphorism “we are all equal.”
In Kunitshu GamiSoh is the only one who has martial training while everyone else is a farmer, fisherman, and housewife. Rather than wait for outside help or succumb to the relentless demons, those ordinary people took up the few weapons they had to defend their homes and families. In a political climate that seems intent on rolling back protections for women, queer people, and people of color, it’s good to see that message. The help isn’t coming — we are the help. It’s a sentiment backed up by what Kawata shared as Kunitshu Gami main topic.
“Challenge is the motto that guides this game,” he wrote. “We face various situations seriously and move forward without fear.”
Kunitsu-Gami: The Way of the Goddess is now available on PlayStation, PC, Xbox and Xbox Game Pass.
