Kunitsu-gami: Path of the Goddess Appraisal (PS5)

Capcom basically has the present dialed in; From primary releases to small experiments, everything it touches turns to gold. Kunitsu-gami: Mark of the Goddess undoubtedly fits into the last section, and it’s a vital slice-of-life for lovers of real-time technology with a twist.

Being able to keep an eye on a hero character amid the hordes of a battle you’re directing is probably not entirely refreshing, but given that battle is so heavily tower defense-influenced it gave it a new feel. Is. A ten to 12-hour game in the process, Kunitsu-gami: Trail of the Goddess is a gratifying, albeit with some rough edges. If truth be told, in the end you’ll probably just wish it had lasted just one more minute.

The game’s story is told almost in its entirety without any discussion. It begins with the participating personality, Soh, attempting to fend off an invasion of demons called Sithe from the heights of his mountain home, and protecting local shrine maiden Yoshiro as she performs a ritual to exorcise them. Is. However, they are victorious, and the mountain is captured; The game is basically a procession, I’m sick of its slopes, the retreat clearing the ground as they travel.

This manifests in a mission-based build – as you ease your way, I create a campaign map that you can explore by banning shrines, lonely villages and tunnels and solving everyone’s problems. Are. If you’ve completed a location, you’re tasked with allocating resources to fix it up over a lifetime, an easy and ultimately quite tedious bit of base-building that takes up resources and unlockable improvements. hands over. However, diving into those missions is the real purpose of the game.

Kunitsu-gami puts you in Soh’s shoes in a row of arenas as he guides Yoshiro, a suit monitor, to a gate he must clear. Sometimes you’ll choose one of two branching paths, although either way, you’ll still be dealing with the same activity. You will have a few hours to run through the entire level, searching for fragments of demonic power to purify yourself, earning points that can later be spent finding and freeing you villagers in the park, Can turn them into martial devices. ,

In the beginning, they’ll probably be limited to simple archers and axemen, but you’ll soon be freed up to additional expensive options that feature, for example, instantly stopping enemies in the park, firing explosive cannonballs from a distance, and Even fix your companion gadgets. As night falls, you will park them around Yoshiro’s last location, at which point the battle will begin, requiring you to remain there until morning.

This implies the arrival of enemies from all set locations: celebratory gates that unleash demons and see them trample against the maiden, sloshing through your equipment, any obstacles you have created and your personal Slows down through the talents. Soh is a swordsman, after all, and you’ll be able to cross fields of enemies in a more devastating manner than the equipment you have around you. This means that each night divides your attention into two parts – where you should be, fighting fires and slashing monsters, I’m sick, and where your equipment should be, covering fire or simply blocking a lane.

It’s a really fun balance, with your collection of tools having a vintage rock-paper-scissors component depending on incoming enemies, and additional twists thrown in quite frequently (each one being worse at least a few times) depending on the issues. Gather more tightly. There are levels where you are not able to participate in combat yourself, and will only be carrying out orders; Others departed on board the floating rafts of boats, taking pains to prevent any craft from sinking; Another type requires you to collect lit lanterns throughout the level as a way to target enemies.

Your ability to actually direct comes via a time-pause menu that allows you to cycle through your gadgets and park them on the map, even as you move through your grassy scene and site. be restricted; A negative is an easy way to find out by stopping the movement of the entire map. Plus you have to be right for a unit to fix it or change its function (which you’ll need to do regularly in the then-current levels), so Soh’s slow pace is a minute of nerve-racking. Be prepared to evolve as you go.

Soh’s latest conflict controls are serviceable, but nowhere near as neat as the personality of a proper Dynasty Warriors, let alone Dante or Bayonetta. This is sure to help balance your energy on the battlefield, yet it invests more in Soh’s skill-tree than upgrading your gadget’s functions. However, that upgrade tree can be completely reverted at any time, which is wonderful for experimenting with other tools and technologies.

Maximum levels last for more than one night, and often for a few days as you find yourself looking through maps, selecting the appropriate year to get buffs for night time and cannons. Or give yourself extra lives to build improvements like sharpshooting towers. , Managing your gadgets through those repeated engagements is a no-fuss task, aided by generous nightly checkpointing, meaning that if you fail you’ll rarely, if ever, have to do a full reset. The project will need to be restarted.

However, it’s fair to say that, through the life credits roll, we were still looking for a very tight point – the chance of actually winning against the opposite wall of probabilities. Those who get past the main challenge can also be assured that Kunitsu-gami is much more accessible than you might expect. The things that require extra abilities are often boss fights that you can easily solve between max levels. They trade as significant obstacles in your path, some introducing new, stronger enemies, others having the pace a minute extra specific (and in truth rarely getting tedious to fight).

From a top-down perspective, but with a bundle of camera monitors, the game looks quite pretty at times, even if it’s a minute short on environmental assets. Those demon fashions are extremely quirky, to be prepared for that, and we encountered no efficiency issues while enjoying the speed. The merits of Kunitsu-gami’s soundtrack also indicate that it is a beautiful blend of clean and peaceful melodies with funky prog-rock at its most vivid moments. Also on the pitch front, you’ll want to turn off your DualSense controller’s speaker within the PS5’s device settings, as the game unfortunately turns the gain on quite unpleasantly constantly without a toggle to turn it off.

conclusion

It won’t exactly feel as fresh as its billing, although Kunitsu-gami is still a pretty minute-long game, with a seriously entertaining hook that will never make you think it’s longer than it actually is. Would have been much longer than that. The number of plates it helps keep spinning is remarkable, even though the final weight is actually a modest one minute.