Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Xbox Game Pass impressions
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess takes place in a gorgeous Japanese-inspired world, on the fictional Mt. Kafuku, home of the Goddess. Once a lush, vibrant region, Mt. Kafku has now been defiled by demons known as the Seethe. After surviving a particularly powerful Seethe on the mountaintop, protagonist Soh, and Yoshiro, the Maiden they’re protecting, must descend the mountain, clearing villages of defilement as they go and recovering powerful masks — before heading back to the top to whoop ass!
Blending action and strategy gameplay, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess strikes a good balance between cutting your way through demons, and ensuring your troops are correctly positioned to thwart the waves of hostiles attempting to stop you. Each level plays out in two stages: Day and Night.
During the day, you need to collect crystals from around the village by purging defilement so you can spend them on carving a Spirit Path towards the Torii Gate (main portal for the Seethe) for Yoshiro, as well as assigning villagers roles. Yoshiro can only travel down the path during the day, being forced to stop during the night, so along with collecting crystals and saving villagers, you also need to prepare your defenses.
Each village has a host of defenses to make use of, such as fireworks to burn the Seethe, barriers, raised positions for archers, and the like. The Seethe beeline for Yoshiro, so you need to position your villagers so they can intercept the advancing demons, which during the later stages of the game, come from multiple directions. Villagers can be positioned via a command menu, which annoyingly doesn’t let you change their roles. For that, you need to stand next to them so they’re highlighted — this can be fiddly when they’re all bunched together. The masks I mentioned earlier are linked to the roles villages can take on, such as axe-wielding Woodcutters, Archers, Sorcerers, and more, and are earned as you kill boss Seethe. The more you progress through the game, the more roles (classes) you unlock.
During the night, everything grinds to a halt — Yoshiro freezes in place, Villagers no longer clear obstacles to blocked areas of the village, and defenses stop being built. Waves of Seethe then begin pouring out of the Torrii Gates, offering you plenty of opportunities to lay waste to the demons with Soh’s combos, special abilities called Tsuba Guards, and your villagers. The Seethe come in all shapes and sizes, so having a good selection of villager roles is needed — although I’ve practically run through the game barely altering my Woodcutter, Archer, and Ascetic combination.
When the night ends, it’s back to work during the day — rinse and repeat. While Yoshiro will continue slowly traveling down the path (if you’ve assigned a path further than she has reached) the villagers don’t return to the obstacles they were clearing the day before. I’d certainly like to see that changed in a future update for convenience.
Once you have cleared a village of defilement, you set up a base camp, offering you the ability to repair the village for upgrade currency for Soh and the villagers, as well as lore and further upgrades. Kunitsu-Gami’s difficulty naturally progresses as you make your way through the game, and with the addition of challenges and collectibles, levels have a good amount of replayability to them. The gameplay I’ve discussed above, while making up the core experience, is switched up with boss fights and other mission types as you make your way down the mountain, but I won’t go ahead and spoil the fun for you.
Summary
I’ve had a blast with Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess over the course of 20 hours or so, and would highly recommend it to anyone with the faintest interest in action-strategy games. It wasn’t on my radar before, and I fear it might become an underrated gem in the extensive Xbox Game Pass library, but I hope many players decide to give this fantastic game a go. While there have been a few niggles, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is vibrant, action-packed, and wonderfully paced, making it a pleasure to play from start to finish.
Tom played around 20 hours of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, unlocking 32 achievements along the way. A review copy of the game was provided by the publisher and played on an Xbox Series X.
