Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess Review: Gameplay Impressions, Video and Top Features

Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess from developer Capcom could be the latest example of how unique singleplayer experiences have a home in the always-online era of gaming.

Beyond its stunning visual style, Path of the Goddess instantly stands out because it is an action strategy game with a twist—it combines strategy with elements of tower defense games in a refreshing way.

That hardly tells the whole story of this unique effort, either. Path of the Goddess continues to open up in deeply engaging ways throughout the course of its lengthy runtime in a multi-pronged RPG way that helps the hours tick past.

Graphics and Gameplay

Path of the Goddess might go down as the best-looking game of the year.

It shuns the uber-realistic trends of the market and instead leans heavily into the shinto-styled vibe that will be familiar to those who loved Okami back in the day. That gives it a watercolor-painting-come-to-life feel that will stand the test of time.

There isn't one great word to describe the visuals, though colorful comes to mind—it's a simple treat for the vibrancy of the different locales. It's fluid in motion, too, with monster designs one of the bigger, more impressive aspects of the presentation. Even minor details like stylistic choices in the menus fit the whole vibe.

Notably, the process of the game's creation is innovative through a 3D scanning process that sees game details such as buildings and clothing created in real life first, then uploaded to the game. It's something that goes beyond being a simple pre-release hype point found in other games and is felt throughout the experience, never mind furthering the feeling that this is a passion project.

Gameplay-wise, Path of the Goddess matches the visual setting in terms of engrossment factor.

At its most basic, players control Soh, who attempts to guide Maiden Yoshiro through a variety of levels while combating monstrous forces.

A dynamic day and night cycle steers the gameplay loop in interesting ways. Daytime is a chance for Soh to work with villagers to strategically prep for the nighttime, where battles commence.

To do so, Soh can use a variety of options available such as Tsuba guards, dancing-esque sword moves and employ the diverse range of village abilities strategically. Soh himself can run around and attempt to contain threats and fill areas that weren't properly covered during the strategic sessions of the day with zoomed-in combat, yes.

And while that's fun, the real meat of the gameplay centers around the day-night strategy.

During the day, players attempt to purge gates where monsters will emerge during the night and cleanse villagers who can assist through a variety of roles. They can also uncover crystals and other environmental features that can aid in the battle.

But there's a catch to the daytime—resource and time management is key. There are only so many crystals to guide Yoshiro on her path and only so much time for actual moves. Striking a proper balance is both challenging and rewarding.

Notably, the loop goes even deeper. Defeating Seethe means securing stolen masks, with those masks then being the thing that lets players empower villagers in a variety of different roles.

Properly kitting out villagers is critical and engaging, too. Sure, there are standard long-range units and even decoy units, but there's even a magical side with villager masks capable of creating barriers that merely slow the advance of the Seethe.

All this before the nighttime, where the results of a day's worth of planning unfold on screen while Soh attempts to dart around and assist.

Path of the Goddess blossoms in its breadth longer than players might expect, too, as it continues to roll out different enemy types and villager abilities for quite a while. This extends to stage quirks like a nighttime fog of war and unique bosses with different attacks. The latter quickly becomes skill checks in fun ways.

Overarching controls, be it commanding individual units or the entire battlefield, are intuitive and fun to use, just capping off the impressiveness of the entire package.

Story and More

Players hop into the role of the protagonist Soh, a spirit guardian summoned through the plight of Maiden Yoshiro, who must perform a rite of cleansing after Seethe overwhelms the village of Mt. Kafuku.

Interestingly, the game takes a minimalist approach to the tale as a whole, though. There are some impactful cutscenes (which mostly work to position Yoshiro as the real story anchor, not Soh), yes, but the actual dialogue is few and far between.

And that's not a bad thing at all. Players spend so much energy on the captivating world and the deep gameplay systems that any attempt at major storytelling might have fallen on the backburner and cutscenes would have interrupted the pace.

That might sound like a cop-out other games wouldn't receive for a lack of in-your-face story, but it's meant to illustrate just how fantastic the passive narrative and character work is here, too.

Progression in Path of the Goddess is captivating because of the way the game keeps layering on the enemies and abilities. While the early levels seem simple enough, it's not long before a handful of new enemy types slowly debut, only to combine in even later levels.

It certainly helps that so much is packed into each stage, too, beyond simple (but important) Musubi upgrade material. Hidden items that grant abilities and buffs, among other things, are worth uncovering.

Tack on quality-of-life features like being able to skip cutscenes and jogging back through the game to look for secrets or simply grind is a breeze. Doing so is worthwhile even if players don't care to find all the hidden things either—seeing one's work as villages become cleansed is visually a satisfying treat.

Path of the Goddess has a robust options menu, too, and does dip into the typical-game territory with a strong new-game plus offering for those who want to go back to the beginning.

Bonuses notably include those mentioned 3D models as unlockables for players to examine closely, too, a bit of an exclamation point on the entire package.

Conclusion

Path of the Goddess isn't going to appeal to every type of player, and it also probably won't feature heavily on more traditional Game of the Year lists.

That disclaimer is out of the way; it's easily one of the sleeper hits of the year.

Unique games and new singleplayer IPs are more than welcome in today's landscape, and this harkens back to the PS2 era when creative, unexpected hits would fly out of nowhere to become classics.

Path of the Goddess is undoubtedly one and an achievement, considering the risk it takes in blending genres and capping it off with an unmatched visual flair and deep gameplay systems.