Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a journey over a mountain to restore nature to all it’s glory, but is it a path worth treading?

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is brought to us by Capcom and is billed as an action strategy game, which is technically accurate but as with many genres in gaming nowadays that doesn’t actually tell you all that much about what is going on. 

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a tower defence game, however it’s forced me to add two new genres to our gaming lexicon, “Passive Tower Defence” and “Active Tower Defence”, and believe it, this distinction counts…Why you ask?

Well… I hate Tower Defence games, or henceforth what I shall call “Passive Tower Defence”, they are often an awful mix of dull and frustrating and not even beloved franchises to me have been able to engage me with the genre (heres looking at you Crystal Defenders”. I describe Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess as an “Active Tower Defence” and believe me does that activity make all the difference. 

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess runs on the RE Engine and looks absolutely stunning, for those of you seeing Kunitsu-Gami and having memories of Okami invoked, I’m right there with you. Like Okami, Japanese folk lore heavily inspired the game, the enemies derive from Japanese Yokai and the combat is inspired by Kagura, a form of ceremonial dance. 

The game beings with Yoshiro, Son and the villagers atop the mountain, while dwelling on the mountain humanity has abused nature and sin has accumulated over the years and now the mountain is defiled. This has summoned the Seethe, has corrupted the villagers and tainted the animals. It’s your task as Soh to guide Yorshiro and cleanse the mountain. 

Gameplay is split into the day and the night, during the day, you’ll clear the defilement, rescue animals (which earns you rations, health potions), clear the tainted blossom (which earns you crystals) and free villagers who will aid you in defending Yoshiro from the Seethe during the night. With the crystals you’ve earned you can assign the villagers different roles raging from melee, ranged and supports roles. Once darkness falls the Seethe emerge from Torii gates (In the Shinto religion a Torii gate marks passing into a sacred area, which is fitting given the corruption the Seethe represent) they wish to kill Yoshiro to stop her cleansing the area. 

There are two types of stages in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, the main stages with the literal path you must clear for Yoshiro, each of which is followed by a “Boss” stage offering an entirely different sort of challenge. Both forms of stage are designed to be played more than once, initially you just need to complete the stage, but doing so, provides you with the option of replaying the stage completing specific challenges. If complete these challenges provide you with rewards to upgrade Soh or Musubi which you can use to level up the different villager roles, these upgrades apply to the role in general and aren’t stage specific so I’d heavily recommend completion of the challenges. Spending Musubi is easy enough and will have a massive impact, especially when it comes to defeating certain bosses. You may have upgraded your Woodcutters (melee units) into axe wielding gods of nature only to come across a flying Seethe and have them rendered useless, however, fear not, you won’t need to sit and grind, you can “refund” your spent Musubi and reallocate them as need be. This is a brilliant move on Capcoms part as far as I’m concerned, it immediately removes any anxiety about how to level up, eliminates any potential frustration and respects the players time, something increasingly uncommon in the modern industry. 

The removal of frustration shouldn’t be misunderstood however, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess isn’t a cake walk and one will have to pay attention during every moment of a stage or boss encounter. Some bosses have environmental factors that will impact how tough they are to vanquish, ignore your surroundings at you peril.  

Unlike “Passive Tower Defence” games the gameplay of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess gameplay is incredibly dynamic, given that you actively control Soh and are right in the thick of the action vanquishing the foul Seethe. Not only that, while you can position your village allies strategically in the best spots to defend Yoshiro, they aren’t merely static towers of DPS, you can redeploy them as the battle rages and I actually found myself invested in their survival. 

I think investment might be a core reason I enjoyed Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, maybe it’s the old hippy pagan in me but the world of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is so beautiful designed, as is the foul corruption brought by the Seethes defilement that it was a joy to see the world cleansed. Everything about the game is stunning to look at, the character designs are fantastic, especially the Amaterasu costume you can use for Soh. Each villager role has a distinct look featuring a unique mask which becomes more embellished as you level up that roll. So stunning is the games design that I’m actually using a screenshot I captured in game as much as current MacBook desktop background. 

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Stand by me…in a turn based battle, Echo Generation Midnight Edition but is it worth staying up late for?

Echo Generation Midnight Edition hails from Canada from indie developer Cococucumber with support from Canada Media Fund and Ontario Creates. Echo Generation has made it’s way to the Nintendo Switch with it’s Midnight Edition. The Midnight Edition features upgraded graphics, fast travel as well as a host of quality of life upgrades.

Echo Generation Midnight Edition is a Turn based RPG set in a small town during the 1990’s and if that starts hitting you in the nostalgia feels then buckle up as you’ve got more to come. As soon as you load up Echo Generation Midnight Edition you’ll appreciate it’s art style, everything about the game is distinctly vintage but without looked dated, thats to say it looks old school but with the crispness you’d expect from a modern release. The first thing you’ll need to do is select and name your player character. I went with the character model I thought had the most 90’s vibe, then I had to name them, so with nostalgia in mind, I went for Ripley. The name of your character has 0 impact but I did get a fair bit if enjoyment out of the name choice once with more sci-fi elements of the games plot started to unfold. 

Once you’ve selected your avatar you’re in your bed room which looks perfectly 90s, posters on the walls, a tape cassette player, old school looking PC, toy chests and of course (Ice) Hockey equipment, we’re in Canada remember (Although no Canadian team has won Lord Stanley’s cup since 1993) but being a big hockey fan myself, it was a nice touch. You leave your bedroom all set to start shooting a Sci-Fi movie with your friends, when your mother forces you to take your little sister with you. Now, in most stories this will be a chore, but Lily is a fully capable member of your party, in fact you party will make out at 3 members, You, Lily and a ‘Pet’, one of five to choose from, although pick Meowsy the cat, easily the best support character.

As always I like to keep narrative spoilers to a minimum but Echo Generation Midnight Edition features a great cast of characters, including a psychotic headteacher, hipster bubble tea store proprietors, a distracted inventor who’s some what of a lack lustre father to a Racoon in a baseball cap. As far as the games writing is concerned it’s sensational, it hits the Saturday morning adventure vibe perfectly. I’m sure comparisons to Stranger Things are guaranteed but I’ll be honest, I kept thinking about Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five, which is entirely anachronistic and makes me feel old, but be it Stranger Things, Stand By Me or any other rites of passage coming of age story and you’re in the right spot. The plot is the perfect adventure, the characters and their dialogue reach Buffy levels of witty banter and it’s pacing is perfect, the game clocks in around 10 hours and at no point in time did it feel anything other than compelling. 

You’ll spend the 10 or so hours of the games length exploring a variety of locations, the suburbs (engaged in a turf war between kids and a Racoon street gang), the woods, a secret research lab and many more, and you’ll be running back and forth between these locations in an almost Metroidvania-esque fashion. The world features a myriad of NPCs, many of whom are memorable and add a huge amount of charm to the game. 

Battles in Echo Generation Midnight Edition are turn based and for the most part they are pretty much what you’d expect for the most part. Each character has a basic attack and a decent selection of special moves. You’ll unlock these special moves by finding comic books (who says funny books aren’t educational) and each book is themed to each character. The main characters moves are all (Ice) Hockey themed which I really enjoyed. Having blocked a few shots in my time a puck being sent into your face via a slapshot would certainly be an effective tactic in battle. Each special attack has a unique mini-game, pass and you’ll do critical damage, fail and you’ll have time to make do with the attacks base damage. This can be increased be levelling up. Each time you level up you’ll be rewarded with points to spend in one of three categories, health, attack and skill points. 

This brings me to the only really downside of Echo Generation Midnight Edition, aside from the first boss, grinding isn’t needed. Now, there are of course there are two schools of thought when it comes to grinding. To some, it’s a classic part of the TTRPG experience, to others its an outdated mechanic that needs to be left behind. I’m somewhere between the tow and if I’m honest the only game I think nailed it was Final Fantasy XIII. Echo Generation Midnight Edition doesn’t really have what you’d call a difficulty curve, it’s more of a small bump followed by a steep decline. Battles provide little challenge, even the final boss is a breeze and while the mystery of the narrative was rewarding enough but the ease of the combat did dull the feeling of accomplishment somewhat. 

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Paper Trail brought to us by Newfangled Games is a puzzle adventure game that’s been described as a premium mobile game, it’s made it on to console, does it stand up or will it crumple?

The moment I saw the trailer I had Paper Trail bookmarked, I’m a sucker for a few things when it comes to games. A unique premise, charming art style and narrative I can become invested in. Paper Trail seemed to promise all three so when Newfangled Games offered us a review code I almost folded myself in two to accept. 

Paper Trail begins by introducing us to Paige, she’s just been accepted into university and she’s excited to begin her journey, longing to leave her sleepy little village and become an astrophysicist. There’s just one problem, Paige’s parents don’t want her to go. Well, tough, Paige is all set to run away a begin her new life, but a storm hit’s and she’s stranded. Initially tasked by her folks to check on some of the locals an adventure unfolds that not even Paige could have journaled in her wildest dreams. 

I’m not going to spoil any of the story contained within Paper Trail, it’s a charming narrative of longing for change and coming of age full of whimsy and wholesome moments that I found heartwarming and kept me invested the entire time. 

Invested…I love puzzle games but up until Paper Trail they’ve all struggled to keep me invested, be it though a uninspired narrative or the fact that the actual mechanics of the puzzle become one note once you’d figured out the system. This often meant that for an hour or two a puzzle game would have my focus but I’d quickly loose interest, or on occasion they’d become so fiendishly difficult I’d sulk and never play them again. 

As I’ve already mentioned the story of Paper Trail won me over but what of the gameplay?

The world of Paper Trial begins with Southfold (adorable homely name and a pun, excellent work Newfangled) Paige’s hometown, but the world itself is essentially 2D but exists on two sides of a piece of paper, your job is to get Paige from A to Z, but doing this will mean folding the world in on itself. You can fold from any edge, horizontally, vertically or diagonally in from the corners. There are some limiting factors, you obviously can’t fold over Paige, and as your progress they will be certain aspects of the world that prevent you from folding over them as well.  The only minor issue I had while playing was the cursor speed, I’d often zip past the fold I want onto to wrong on, this has me wished for mouse, but it was easily fixed by lowering the sensitivity via the settings menu.

The short amount of time spent in Southfold acts as the games tutorial and the mechanic is refreshing and cool and seems fairly intuitive, but once your out in the big wide world things become a lot more complex and each new world adds a crumple into your folding plans. Examples of which might be boulders in the way, or needing to fold runes together to make sure doors open. Every new addition to the core puzzle mechanic is fantastic and adds a degree of challenge at a perfect pace. It’s also not easy, there were a good few times when I couldn’t figure out what I was suppose to do and started to get a folding headache, most notably the first time I realised I could move a wooden platform across multiple pages. Well, if in being honest, I didn’t work it out, I used the games hint system. 

Hint systems in puzzle games normally drive me crazy as the are normally poorly implemented and just flat out tell you the answer and leave you feeling stupid and judged by the game. Paper Trial is different, they game will show you the folding pattern you need to do in order, but it breaks it down, so you can view as much or as little of the solution as you’d like. What’s fantastic however is that it will show you the folding pattern but not anything to do with the interactive elements of the game, so the hint really is just that. It relieves  frustration but in a gentle way that doesn’t rob the player of a sense of accomplishment. 

Visually Paper Trail is beautiful, it’s a joy to look at and the character designs are simply adorable, special mention to the frogs, I don’t know if Newfangled would ever release prints of the game or an art book but I would be first on the list to order them. 

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