Defending Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess’ Mysterious Mountain

Slowly however absolutely, the enigmatic Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is revealing itself to us, solely to pose new questions as we peel again the layers on this distinctive sport. Lately, Capcom shared some new background particulars on the festering Seethe, creatures of lore who pose a menace to the Maiden, Yoshiro, and the villages she’s defending. 

This previous weekend at Summer season Sport Fest Play Days, I used to be amongst the first to check out a prolonged demo of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, earlier than sitting down with some of the sport’s creators to reply all of the “what did I simply see?” sorts of questions which got here tumbling forth. 

This particular demo was set early in the sport, in an space known as Myoko Move; the builders defined that we’ll be spending lots of time in the mountainous area. “The story takes place and in addition concludes on Mount Kafuku” defined Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi. “Many of the Japanese folklore and mythologies have backgrounds the place it takes place on mountains, and that’s the place [we] received the inspiration.”

In case you’ve seen a trailer for Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, your response might have been alongside the traces of “this appears to be like cool, however how, precisely, do you play it?” Fortuitously, the sport’s loop units itself up early: taking management of masked guardian Soh, gamers earn crystals by purging defilement all through the village (maintain the B button down everytime you see one thing… disturbing). This typically releases a villager in the course of; crystals might be spent to assign them extra martial roles to tackle at night time – when issues go from bizarre to worse.  

You’ll have to stability build up your battalion with an much more vital job: utilizing crystals to clear a path by means of the defilement for Yoshiro, the maiden you’ve seen dancing in trailers, to proceed by means of the village in the direction of a tainted Torii Gate – the titular Path of the Goddess. Soh’s crystal harvesting and path of Yoshiro and the villagers takes place throughout a number of real-time minutes of daytime. As soon as night time falls, it’s time to make the finest of a deadly scenario. 

As quickly because it will get darkish, the defiled Torii gate begins spitting forth pint-sized, virtually cute enemies, based mostly on Yokai of Japanese folklore, all making a beeline for Yoshiro. Whereas they don’t transfer too rapidly, they arrive in giant numbers, and from a number of instructions.  

Not an issue – Soh is a succesful warrior who employs a swish “Sword Dance” motion system, impressed by conventional Kagura dance. The outcome evokes a kind of “Capoeira with blades” moveset. 

I directed Soh forwards and backwards, elegantly slashing my means by means of dozens of monsters, sometimes pausing to direct my axe-wielding villagers to carry down choke factors. Whereas Yoshiro took a success or two, producing every kind of alarm on display, she made it by means of the night time. By dawn, I had earned sufficient crystals to pave a path for Yoshiro all the strategy to the Torii gate, the place she purged that half of the village of defilement. 

This opened up a tent, serving as a base from which to arrange for the subsequent battle. Inside, Yoshiro introduced Soh a Tsuba guard, granting a brand new energy to battle the Seethe known as Suzaku’s Flame, with the promise of extra to return.  

In search of a higher problem, I subsequent challenged a boss. Earlier than heading off to battle, Yoshiro provided a bounty of crystals, with which I educated a posse of 4 woodcutters to assist even the odds.  Quickly, Gakinyudo, an enormous model of the mobs I had been going through in the village, got here bursting into the clearing. I assigned three villagers to encompass the abomination, reserving one to protect Yoshiro. We had been dealing out vital harm when Gakinyudo summoned extra tiny variations of itself to swarm the battlefield. 

That’s when Gakinyudo received the finest of me, sending Soh sprawling to the earth. Apparently, that’s not sport over – Soh change into a floating spirit, nonetheless in a position to direct villagers and maintain the strain on the beast. After just a few agonizing seconds as a non-corporeal being, Soh respawned again on the battleground, sword in hand! This made it clear that, in an actual means, Soh isn’t the important character, it’s Yoshiro; if she is slain, the mission has failed. 

This time, I made higher use of Soh’s dodge roll, and earlier than lengthy, Gakinyudo was dispatched. Soh was rewarded with boons to his well being, and even new roles to assign villagers, reminiscent of Archer, for the battles forward.   

And there shall be a lot extra fights; it is a huge mountain, and daylight is already burning. Fortuitously, we gained’t must endure many extra darkish nights till we get our arms on Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, one thing that the builders eagerly stay up for. 

“Having it on Sport Move on day one permits a possibility for many individuals to need to problem themselves to tackle this new gaming style, to expertise this new gaming expertise,” Director Shuichi Kawata advised me. Producer Hirabayashi added, “While you first play it and then you definately progress by means of it at the starting, it form of takes a bit of bit of time to get used to it. However as you progress by means of it and past the very first difficulties, you actually get the feeling of the new gaming expertise that this sport has to supply. So we’re trying ahead to that.” 

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess shall be out there on July 19 for Xbox Sequence X|S, Xbox One and Home windows PC, and Xbox Sport Move subscribers will be capable to play the sport from day one. As well as, this title is appropriate with Xbox Play Wherever, permitting cross-play and switch of saved information between Xbox and Home windows 10/11.