Capcom's New Game Feels Timeless and It's Amazing
- Capcom's KunitsuGami Path of the Goddess is a unique, non-sequel game.
- The game blends action and tower defense elements.
- Set in Japan, it features intricate enemy designs.
- Carefully considered details enhance the game's experience.
- Priced at $50, it's also free for Game Pass members.
Capcom has taken a rare risk with their new game, KunitsuGami Path of the Goddess, and it's fantastic.
The world of KunitsuGami Path of the Goddess feels like an anachronism, something that shouldn't exist in 2024.
It's not a sequel in a hit franchise.
It's not working in a popular genre.
It's not pandering to an international audience.
It's just an excellent game, showing what's possible when big publishers take a chance on something completely different.
Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, a more than 20-year veteran of Capcom, told Streamers Visuals in a recent email interview:
"We believe it is important to respond to the expectations of our users with new titles in series and remakes, but we also believe it is equally important to take on the challenge of creating something new."
Path of the Goddess has you play as the sword-dancing warrior Soh.
Your mission is to rally villagers and protect the Maiden Yoshiro on a treacherous journey to purge evil from a mountain.
Instead of a straightforward third-person action game, Path of the Goddess is structured like a tower defense game.
In addition to killing enemies in fluid arcade combat, you can also conscript villagers into unique classes and order them around the battlefield.
One key was to ensure that neither the action nor the strategy elements overshadowed the other.
Kawata said, "We did not want to force players to use both elements equally, so we spent a lot of time adjusting the balance."
Players could enjoy more depending on their equipment and assigned villager roles.
It's an unlikely mashup that works surprisingly well and doesn't sacrifice quality to realize its experimental creative vision.
It's also presented in a context that's unabashedly Japanese.
Kawata, the game's director, said, "I am a fan of old Japanese folklore and thought it would be interesting to incorporate them into a game set in the mountains of Japan."
A major part of this idea was that it would be compatible with tower defense.
The game features dozens of intricate and evocative enemy designs for the evil spirits you face, called The Seethe.
Some enemies have heads shaped like massive mouths with tongues jutting out.
Others look like pearly white tumors floating through the air with dangerous hooks hanging off the bottom.
In one stage, you face a massive corrupted tree whose roots come alive and attack you like a giant mutant earthworm.
The variety and level of detail in enemy design is one of the key ways the game punches above its weight.
The other main thing that helps Path of the Goddess stand out is just how bespoke and carefully considered every small detail feels.
Kawata said, "Mixing multiple game elements will always increase the complexity, but it is important to choose carefully what is and isn't necessary."
The UI is carefully integrated with the rest of the game's look and feel.
To access the main menu, you have to go into a village and visit Yoshiro's tent.
A table in front of her collects the various ornaments, artifacts, and other objects you've gathered throughout your journey.
These objects double as the game's power-ups, status-enhancing relics, and other unlockable upgrades.
You increase the level of your villagers' roles by decorating their masks.
The save screen is a long horizontal piece of folded paper that you stamp with each new file.
One of the game's collectibles, an array of desserts, sits in a nearby box for you to examine at your leisure.
There are over 20 stages in Path of the Goddess, and each one has two phases.
The result is three to five enemy waves per stage with generous checkpointing.
Many stages originally felt too long and drawn out, so they were shortened to increase the tempo of the game progression.
The game feels stripped down to its essentials, preserving only what's elegant, polished, and meaningful to the overall experience.
Where other games devolve into ticking boxes on a marketing strategy, Path of the Goddess feels bereft of bloat.
It's the opposite of the open-world RPG with skill trees, gear scores, and random loot that pads itself out with extra hours of content.
Kawata said, "I think that the sandbox in a playground is similar to this situation."
The scope is fixed, and the use of sand is fixed, but you are free to use the sand to your liking.
This is part of why people keep referring to it as a PS2 cult-classic or lost PS3 game.
It feels made for an era where a good idea, cool look, and fun gameplay were enough.
Before pitching Path of the Goddess, Kawata directed Shinsekai Into the Depths, an underwater action puzzle game on Apple Arcade.
Much of that team was carried over to Path of the Goddess, but developers from other bigger-budget Capcom franchises like Resident Evil joined as well.
This brought additional know-how and experience with the RE Engine, which is becoming increasingly standard across all of Capcom's portfolio.
Unlike many other games, Path of the Goddess is priced at $50, just below the premium next-gen price tag.
Hirabayashi said, "We have decided to set the price as affordable as possible to allow as many people to get their hands on this game."
The game is also free for paid Game Pass members on Xbox and PC.
Hirabayashi said the goal was to get the game in front of as many people as possible given it was an unknown IP in an unusual genre.
As development costs push publishers to retreat into proven sellers, there's a real fear the top end of the gaming industry could become even more calcified.
When asked if we might see more experiments like Path of the Goddess from Capcom, Hirabayashi said he couldn't comment on the larger company's policy.
However, he added, "I am very grateful that there were so many people within the company who agreed with me to deliver this title to the users."
