For some time within the mid-2000s, Capcom loved an explosion of creativity that’s uncommon to see from any main, settled writer. A crack group led by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami oversaw a sequence of unique titles characterised by daring design and even bolder visible course. First, there was the “Capcom 5,” a sequence of initially GameCube-exclusive video games that included Resident Evil 4 in addition to Hideki Kamiya’s side-scrolling brawler Viewtiful Joe and Goichi Suda’s gonzo shooter Killer 7. Then, Mikami and Kamiya fashioned the insurgent in-house unit Clover Studio the place every of them directed a masterpiece for PlayStation 2: Mikami’s revisionist beat-’em-up God Hand and Kamiya’s beautiful hand-painted Zelda-like, Okami.
There was only one downside: The video games just about all bombed. Capcom closed Clover in 2007, and Kamiya and Mikami left to type PlatinumGames, which inherited some, if not all, of Capcom’s genius spark from this period. However over the following 17 years, this distinctive run of video games solely grew in affect and fame. Now, a revitalized Capcom, having fun with unparalleled success on the backs of Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, is beginning to really feel the stirrings of that artistic spirit once more. You may see it in its daring triple-A chance, Dragon’s Dogma 2. And you’ll positively see it in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.
Kunitsu-Gami is a comparatively small-scale, defiantly odd sport that would have been ripped straight from that 2000s heyday. With its sequence of small, confined levels, centered motion, and a good gameplay loop, it feels extra like a remaster of some misplaced PS2 sport than a real product of 2024 (complimentary). Its richly detailed, grotesque artwork is impressed by conventional Japanese folklore and illustration kinds, and that aesthetic combines with the premise to create a singular ambiance that’s each eerie and beguiling. It’s a real one-off.
Capcom calls Kunitsu-Gami an action-strategy sport — or, to be extra exact, a “Kagura Motion Technique” sport. Kagura is a ritual ceremonial dance within the Shinto faith that includes a trance-like procession stated to purify the spirit. In Kunitsu-Gami, the participant controls Soh, a swordsman, who should shield the Maiden Yoshiro as she performs a ritual to purge demonic defilement from Mount Kafuku, dwelling of the Goddess.
In the course of the day, Yoshiro makes her stately, elegant progress whereas Soh cleanses small pockets of defilement, rescues villagers, instructions them to restore defenses, and assigns them fight roles corresponding to archer, woodcutter, or ascetic (a shaman who can gradual the progress of enemies). At evening, Yoshiro pauses her ahead progress and dances in place whereas hideous demons referred to as the Seethe pour ahead from possessed gates and try to overwhelm her. At this level, Kunitsu-Gami turns into a kind of hybrid of motion sport and tower protection. The participant takes cost of the strategic placement of the villagers whereas additionally controlling Soh instantly, utilizing his balletic assault combos to carve a path by means of the shambling, writhing monstrosities.
One useful resource ties all of the motion collectively. The participant earns crystals from purging defilement and dispatching Seethe, and spends them on assigning roles to villagers and carving a path ahead for Yoshiro to bounce alongside (actually: in a ridiculously cool animation, Soh plows his blade into the bottom and runs ahead with it). In the course of the day, there’s a easy however nonetheless considerate balancing act in making an attempt to organize your self effectively, make sufficient progress, and depart Yoshiro in a defensible spot come dusk; maximizing progress alongside the trail isn’t all the time the most effective technique.
As uncommon as it’s in its mix of motion and techniques, there’s a satisfying simplicity to Kunitsu-Gami that retains it mild on its toes. The linear progress by means of the degrees makes it really feel extra dynamic and dangerous than a extra historically hunkered-down tower protection sport, and the fixed march of time retains you in your toes. It is a sport of clearly outlined and really rewarding loops. Even after you’ve crushed the levels, they remodel into bases the place restore work offers further rewards, and the place you possibly can enter a modest tent to improve your villagers, tinker with buff-granting charms, evaluation beautiful artwork scrolls, and share mouthwateringly-modeled conventional Japanese sweets with Yoshiro.
Capcom clearly is aware of what it’s evoking from its previous with Kunitsu-Gami; as a reward for collaborating in a demo model of the sport, gamers are rewarded with Okami-themed beauty objects. These two video games actually draw from the identical historical effectively of Japanese folklore and mythology, and so they categorical this affect in equally characterful (if very completely different) artwork kinds.
However what Kunitsu-Gami actually shares with the Capcom 5 and Clover video games is an individuality born of marrying robust inventive decisions to sport design in a manner that’s each progressive and unfussy, producing a end result that has an virtually arcade-like immediacy to it. Kunitsu-Gami summons a very haunting temper, too, from its surreal monster designs — all knuckles, fingernails, and tongues — and from the way in which the characters prance and pirouette like puppets round its gloomy mountainside dioramas, hoping to make it to dawn. I can’t consider a single different sport — together with these illustrious predecessors — that’s something prefer it.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC through Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Sequence X. It’s additionally obtainable day one on Recreation Move on PC, cloud, and console.
