Kunitsu-Game: Path of the Goddess Preview – Dancing swords in the moonlight

thesixthaxis.com:

We need more games like Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. I’m not talking about its specific blend of gameplay – though a few copycats wouldn’t go amiss, if you ask me –but rather that it’s Capcom that’s making it. With so much focus on AAA games that take the better part of a decade to produce, it’s always refreshing to see smaller teams within major publishers producing niche and inventive games that have become the preserve of indie developers in recent years. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is one such game, and could be a real surprise for anyone that dances on over when it comes out later this month.

How to describe Kunitsu-Gami is a tricky one, though. There’s so many elements at play, but you can see the shadows of Monster Hunter, Pikmin, Kingdom: Two Crowns and plenty more besides dancing across its backlit tapestry. And that tapestry is a gorgeously woven rendition of Japanese mythology and religion that skips and dances across your screen.

The game’s story sees you trying to cleanse Mt. Kafuku of the defilement by twisted and evil spirits known as the Seethe. As the Seethe spread across the mountain, it consumed small villages dotted across the slope, leaving villagers cocooned while creepily many-handed growths have sprouted at various points around each locale.

It’s your quest, as Soh, to guide the divine maiden Yoshiro through each village, free their inhabitants, and fight back against the waves of the Seethe that attack at night. There’s a clear divide between daytime and night, with the former all about rapid exploration and preparation, and the latter then takes on the tone of a tower defence game as you protect the Maiden from attack.

There’s plenty to do during the preparatory phase, as you race around the map trying to destroy core patches of corruption and free villagers – you earn a bonus for clearing everything within a village, in the form of a new Tsuba Guard ability that could be a flashy attack, a group buff, or more. You also have to