Capcom’s Kunitsu-Gami Recalls Forgotten PS2 Iconic Game

For a time in the mid-2000s, Capcom enjoyed an explosion of creativity rarely seen from any huge, established publisher. A team of experts led by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami oversaw a series of original titles characterized by bold design and even bolder visual direction. First came “Five Capcoms”, a series of games initially available exclusively on the GameCube that included Resident Evil 4 and a side-scrolling fighting game by Hideki Kamiya Scenic Joe and gonzo shooter Goichi Suda Killer 7Mikami and Kamiya then formed the rebellious internal unit Clover Studio, where they each directed a PlayStation 2 masterpiece: Mikami’s revisionist fighting game God’s hand and a pretty, hand-painted by Kamiya, Zelda-like piece, Eyes.

There was just one problem: the games were virtually all flops. Capcom shuttered Clover in 2007, and Kamiya and Mikami left to form PlatinumGames, which inherited some, if not all, of Capcom’s brilliance from that era. But over the next 17 years, the unique game series only grew in influence and reputation. Now, a reborn Capcom, enjoying unprecedented success with Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, is beginning to feel that original spirit stirred again. You can see it in its bold triple-A gamble, Dragon Dogma 2. And you can definitely see it in Kunitsu-Gami: The Path of the Goddess.

Kunitshu-Gami is a relatively tiny, decidedly oddball game that could have been ripped straight from its 2000s glory days. With its sequence of tiny, contained levels, focused action, and tight gameplay loop, it feels more like a remaster of some lost PS2 game than a genuine (free) 2024 product. Its richly detailed, grotesque art is inspired by conventional Japanese folklore and illustration styles, and that aesthetic combines with the premise to create a unique atmosphere that’s both eerie and seductive. It’s a true one-off.

Capcom is calling Kunitshu-Gami action-strategy game — or, to be more precise, the action-strategy game “Kagura.” Kagura is a ritual ceremonial dance in the Shinto religion that involves a trance-like procession intended to purify the spirit. Kunitshu-GamiThe player takes on the role of Soh, a swordsman who must protect the Maiden Yoshiro during a ritual to cleanse Mount Kafuku, home of the Goddess, of demonic contamination.

During the day, Yoshiro walks in a majestic and elegant manner, while Soh clears tiny enclaves of pollution, rescues villagers, orders them to repair defenses, and assigns them combat roles such as archer, lumberjack, or ascetic (a shaman who can snail-paced the advance of enemies). At night, Yoshiro halts her progress and dances in place while hideous demons known as Seethe pour out of possessed gates and try to overwhelm her. At this point Kunitshu-Gami becomes a sort of hybrid of action and tower defense. Players take control of the strategic placement of villagers, while also directly controlling Soh, using her balletic combos to carve a path through wobbly, writhing monsters.

A single resource ties the action together. The player earns crystals by cleansing themselves of desecration and getting rid of Seethe, and spends them on assigning villagers roles and carving out a path along which Yoshiro will dance (literally: in a ridiculously nippy animation, Soh plunges a blade into the ground and runs with it). During the day, there’s a elementary but still thoughtful balancing act of trying to prepare well, make enough progress, and leave Yoshiro in a defensive position when night falls; maximizing progress on a path isn’t always the best strategy.

Image: Capcom

Despite being an unusual blend of action and tactics, the game has a satisfying simplicity. Kunitshu-Gami which makes the game feel lightweight. The linear progression through the levels makes the game feel more vigorous and adventurous than the more traditionally hunkered-down tower defense game, and the constant march of time keeps you on your toes. This is a game with clearly defined and deeply satisfying loops. Even after you complete the levels, they turn into bases, where repair jobs provide additional rewards, and you can enter a humble tent to upgrade your dwellers, tinker with amulets that grant buffs, browse gorgeous art scrolls, and share deliciously modeled conventional Japanese sweets with Yoshiro.

Capcom clearly knows what it is bringing back from its past Kunitshu-Gami; as a reward for participating in the demo version of the game, players receive Eyes-themed cosmetic items. These two games certainly draw from the same historic source of Japanese folklore and mythology, and express that influence in similarly distinctive (if very different) art styles.

But what Kunitshu-Gami What it shares with games like Capcom Five and Clover is an individuality that comes from combining sturdy artistic choices with game design in a way that is both groundbreaking and uncomplicated, resulting in an almost arcade-like effect. Kunitshu-Gami has a truly haunting feel, not least in its surreal monster designs—all bones and fingernails and tongues—and the way characters prance and pirouette like puppets around grim mountainside dioramas, hoping to live to see the sunrise. I can’t think of any other game—including its illustrious predecessors—that comes close.

Kunitsu-Gami: The Path of the Goddess is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC via Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It is also available on day one on Game Pass for PC, cloud, and console.