Kunitsu-Gami is The Tower Defense Game I Never Knew I Wanted - Summer Game Fest 2024

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I got to check out a lot of extremely cool games that will be coming out soon, but one of the few I was really looking forward to trying was Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. The trailers hooked me with the vibrant colors and looked wonderfully unique, but I wasn't 100% sure about the gameplay. It seemed like an odd mix of tower defense and action, but I wasn't sure about how it would work in the overall gameplay loop. Well, after playing it, all those fears have washed away, and I am left wishing I had more time to enjoy it.

As the trailer shows, the game is a combination of action, real-time combat, and tower defense mechanics, feeling like a great combination of the genres to create something unique. Your goal is to get the goddess to the gate to cleanse it, and to do so, you need specific currency. This currency is used not only to create the path that your goddess will dance/walk but also to assign townspeople to find different jobs. Once the townspeople have jobs, you can place them around the map in tower-defense style placement You will have to utilize both of these to fend off waves of monsters and protect the goddess. The combat that you directly control isn't complex, with only two types of attacks (light and heavy) that you can combine into different combos, but it does the job.

As I played, I was able to see the limitations on both yourself and the units you place. The emphasis is then placed on how you effectively utilize both systems to beat the level. I love that you can't rely on one over the other, and it adds another enjoyable layer of strategy that makes the game even more compelling. And as the trailer shows off, the visuals are stunning. The colors are vibrant, the monster designs are impeccable, the flashy moves and dancing were on point, and seeing how the color and world changed with each action was so cool.

Outside of the levels, you will have a home base where you can upgrade your townspeople's jobs and modify your abilities. You will then be able to select which level you want to go to next. On top of the usual tower-defense heavy levels, there are other kinds, like boss battles, which do still require some tower-defense strategy but have you focusing more on one large enemy rather than waves. It's a nice change of pace, and it's very welcome.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess surprised me with how addicting the gameplay loop was. The visuals were as stunning as I hoped, and I am convinced that I will be playing a lot of the game when it releases! Capcom has a lot of exciting news for games coming out, including the awesome Street Fighter 6 content, but don't miss out on this one!

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is available to pre-purchase for $49.99 on Steam ahead of its July 19th release date. The system requirements are a little heavy on the GPU side for the Steam Deck, but the estimation is for 1080p resolution, which is higher than the Deck's native resolution, so I think this will be great to play on the go!

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