Cognition Dissemination: Why Kunitsu-Gami Looks So Intriguing

Capcom’s had a steady stream of current, currently-supported, and upcoming games since restrengthening focus on their internal development teams, after years of outsourced projects that garnered inconsistent receptions. But that’s not the only noticeable trend among them. Their laser focus on big-budget AAA titles has been apparent over the last half-decade, which has come at the expense of their mid-tier and lower-budget projects. This resulted in fewer titles akin to those from Capcom’s riskier days like Okami and Ghost Trick, and was likely the deathblow to any new Darkstalkers title that could have existed. It also explains why the Ace Attorney franchise is on ice, at least currently.

The company still occasionally tries out new properties, with multiplayer sci-fi dinosaur title Exoprimal being the biggest recent example. Another upcoming one has now been detailed: Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

Kunitsu-Gami is the kind of game few expected from Capcom these days, to the extent that it was difficult to pinpoint precisely what it was after the reveal at the Xbox and Bethesda not-E3 showcase last year. The game had a clear classic Japanese aesthetic, one similar to those in the more “experimental” and mid-tier titles from years ago like the aforementioned Okami, Onimusha, and Sengoku Basara — three inactive franchises, as you perhaps could have guessed. This also means that it’s the kind that takes a few liberties with classical Japanese aesthetics for the sake of prettiness, which is fine. Now that the game simmered for a bit of time, they’ve now fully clarified that it’s a game with equal amounts of action and strategy elements.

The player controls Soh, a mask-donning individual armed with an array of attacks. He’s tasked with protecting Yoshiro, a Maiden with divine powers who cleanses and purifies villages overrun with an evil defilement across Mt. Kafuku. This is a tall order for just the two of them, as he can’t melee all the enemies and protect Yoshiro while she purifies several stages alone. This is why Soh must enlist the services of many villagers along the way for future villages and lands that need to be cleansed. The more villages cleansed, the more recruitable villagers there will be.

It’s easy to see where the strategy element comes in. Several roles are available for villagers, with some good at attacking alongside others with protecting. Specific villagers can use melee attacks on enemies, while it’s best when others attack from a distance. This is done through giving them masks like the one Soh will have equipped seemingly the entire time. The roles will be decided by the player, but it’s possible each villager’s inherent stats will show which ones are suited for specific actions. The player also has to decide where each villager should be stationed ahead of each battle, similar to a real-time strategy game. These are in addition to contraptions that can be set around each stage to trap or damage enemies.

I’m hardly arguing that Japanese real-time strategy games are rare these days, or even those with Japanese-style settings — though they’re hardly common. But they don’t tend to come from Capcom. Kunitsu-Gami sticks out because it’s far from the kind of title that Capcom attempts these days, the genres for which can usually (though not always) be properly identified after merely observing the game once. That’s, of course, not necessary when the game is a sequel to a previous title, which many Capcom and overall AAA (or “AAAA” or whatever the hell they’re classifying them as these days) qualify as. It’s clear this game doesn’t have as high a budget as their other titles, but it’s clear the budget for this title is hardly low.

Kunitsu-Gami’s aesthetic reminds me of Onimusha the most, to the point that I feel like I’m putting on a tinfoil hat by thinking that this was an Onimusha game at one point. A new Onimusha work was listed on Capcom’s leaked release schedule provided after they were hit with a ransomware attack. It was clearly temporary and tentative, one made before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it was believable at the time, and is more believable now that several games on it have been revealed or have released. My theory is that Capcom was gauging how much interest remained in Onimusha through the Onimusha: Warlords remaster, one that didn’t even sell well enough to garner interest in pursuing the far-more-needed Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny remaster. (It’s also possible that the late Yusaku Matsuda’s estate wanted too much to reestablish the rights for his likeness with protagonist Jubei Yagyu.)

The assets for that potential project could have been used for Kunitsu-Gami, a game with a similar aesthetic to the Onimusha games — especially Dawn of Dreams. It’s so similar to that one, in fact, that they should go through with remastering it anyway. It should be the cheapest one to do considering that installment didn’t use the likeness of any actor. This would be a chance to localize a version of the game without an artificially jacked-up difficulty level.

Anyway. Kunitsu-Gami. The game looks cool, and I hope it turns out that way in terms of quality. I’m not too concerned about that considering Capcom’s track record. I am concerned about the higher-ups in the company expecting too much from the game in terms of its sales. The budget is ideally manageable enough that their expectations are reasonable, but Capcom is known to expect a bit too much sometimes.

Even if it’s not successful: Not to worry. There’s also Pragmata — whatever that is.