The world of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is meant to feel fantastical and from another time, but the game itself also feels like an anachronism. Something that shouldn’t exist in 2024. It’s not a sequel in a hit franchise.
It’s not working in a popular genre. And it’s not pandering to an international audience. It’s just an excellent game, and it shows what’s possible when big publishers take a chance on something completely different.
“We believe it is important to respond to the expectations of our users with new titles in the [existing] series and remakes, but we also believe it is equally important to take on the challenge of creating something new,” the game’s producer, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, a more than 20-year veteran of Capcom, told Kotaku in a recent email interview. “As a completely new title, we are taking on a number of challenges.” Path of the Goddess has you play as the sword-dancing warrior Soh, who must rally villagers and protect the Maiden Yoshiro on a treacherous journey to purge evil from a mountain.
But instead of a straightforward third-person action game that has you exploring levels and slicing through hordes of demons, Path of the Goddess is structured like a tower defense game where, in addition to killing enemies yourself in fluid arcade combat, you can also conscript villagers into unique classes and order them around the battlefield. One key was to make sure that neither side overshadowed the other and each was viable in.