Capcom's new tower defense-like action game is this year's Summer Sleeper

As gloomy as its atmosphere Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess may be, you constantly provoke it with a colorful celebration. Fireworks are a recurring motif, symbolizing the exploits of your journey as you help clear villages and shrines of the threat of enemies inspired by Yokai – supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. In battle, every time you fire a cannon, the impact turns pale creatures into a splash of particles. Outside of that, fireworks are ever-present when you rebuild people's homes, as townspeople jump and scream with joy to see hope restored.

Capcom's latest release combines hack-and-slash action with strategy elements that echo the tower defense genre. Playing as Soh, you wield your sword through a series of increasingly challenging stages to protect the virginal Yoshiro. He is the only person who can purify the portals at the end of each level, and finally the corruption torments the land completely. But she cannot stand alone. As you quickly learn, Soh can't do this alone either – instead, you enlist the help of the villagers you rescue as different types of units, slowly building a team to stand together against rampant hordes of enemies. It's a new idea and it's evolving with amazing results.

Its first levels Kunitsu-Gami serves as an extended tutorial introducing tone and general structure. After losing an early encounter, Soh is left in a weak state with only a few abilities available. Additionally, 11 God Masks are scattered throughout the explorable area of ​​Mount Kafuku, each unlocking a new type of unit you can assign to your villagers, including cannons to deal with large groups of enemies, shamans who heal those around them, thieves who can to collect locked chests, and so on.

The mechanics can be difficult to understand at first. You observe Soh from top to bottom, controlling it like your usual hack-and-slash game. Villagers, on the other hand, act independently — you set their locations on the map, as well as issue some general direct commands, such as all-out attacks during boss fights. They're all pretty competent, except for a few odd cases where they might get stuck in environments.

Once you start to understand what each unit type excels at and how to best deal with enemies, the loop becomes exciting. The structure of each stage varies, but for the most part you carve out a path for Yoshiro with your sword from point A to B in one stage to move towards the gates that need clearing. A cycle of day and night dictates a time limit – more often than not, Yoshiro can take more than one in-game day to reach the gate. As soon as the sun goes down, enemies begin to flock in, trying to get to Yoshiro. The plan is to strategically place units around choke points to ward off danger and regulate up traps.

However, you cannot simply assign roles to villagers freely, as this costs the in-game currency called crystals. During the day, Soh can clear a few areas from each stage, which grants crystals in return. If you manage to find them all, you are rewarded with equipped trinkets that grant passive skills. You also have to manually release some of the villagers – which is necessary to avoid jumping into battle at a big disadvantage. Defeating enemies also gives you crystals and you can assign roles mid-battle which freezes time, a handy and welcoming mechanic as encounters get harder to fight.

But it takes some time Kunitsu-Gami to become provocative. I went through the early stages completely ignoring the map. Instead of placing units on different paths and making use of the available space, it was easier to group everyone near the gate entrance to wreak havoc on enemies as they appeared. The structure began to feel stale — I was able to tackle all of my daytime obligations with plenty of time on my hands, eroding any sense of friction from the day-night cycle. Once I was familiar with the basic loop and mechanics, I kept waiting Kunitsu-Gami to show his hand.

Eventually, he does. The stages begin to feature different permutations and obstacles to watch out for, such as dark caves with lanterns that need to be lit to ensure the villagers can see the enemies and attack them. The maps themselves are more complex, with multiple gates opening at once and changing position on a whim, requiring you to always think on the fly and move units around. Enemies also become tougher to deal with – some prevent Soh from healing himself or controlling units until you take them down, while others are walking kamikazes that explode if not killed. Doing so damages enemies. It takes a while for these layers to emerge, but once they do, they create a satisfyingly frenetic pace.

Completing stages rewards you with another currency which is used to upgrade each type of unit. You can reset upgrades on the fly and redistribute those points elsewhere in case you feel stuck with your current options. Eventually, you also have access to Soh's skill trees. Don't expect an overly deep progression path here, but there are skills to be had, such as unlocking more slots to use trinkets and special attacks, or even gaining access to different fighting styles, including ranged bow attacks. It's the same currency that's also used to upgrade your villagers, which adds another strategic element. I kept debating whether to invest more in Soh and my agency as a player, or make my villagers stronger so I could focus on specific enemies while they held their positions without having to constantly defend them.

An aspect where Kunitsu-Gami it falters in the moments between stages. After you successfully clear a village, it becomes a base where you can rebuild structures to earn money and trinkets. For this, you must manually interact with the debris to allocate the required number of villagers, requiring multiple visits until the entire base is rebuilt. The rewards are significant, such as increasing your limitsmall of crystals and rations, used to heal Soh and the villagers. But the back-and-forth can become a chore, especially with multiple mounts undergoing simultaneous repairs. To finish the villages, you need to complete a stage. Some require more than one, creating a backlog.

Do not wait Animal crossing levels of complexity here as rebuilding structures is a fairly shallow feature not meant to be a farming sim. But it would be nice to have the option to redeem the rewards after completing a repair from the overworld map, instead of having to manually revisit each one and interact with the structure again.

Fireworks aren't the only way Kunitsu-Gami symbolizes the celebration. Rebuilding a structure causes flowers to bloom around them, while the villagers cheer each for a job well done. Bases fill with life after being cleared, with wildlife roaming around and congregating around Yoshiro once you've cleared their corruption. These touches are small, but they are signs of care and passion that add to the experience. Busy work aside, I invested in helping the townspeople, and it was rewarding to completely rebuild a town, walk across a previously poisonous lake, or pet a deer that first tried to run away whenever I initially approached it.

The further I got in Kunitsu-Gami, the better the engineers got together. Getting to bigger stages with bigger threats with strong synergy between my units kept Yoshiro from getting a single scratch and felt like breaking a puzzle that had been built up over the past twelve hours. Boss battles, in particular, can be quite inventive, testing previous lessons and forcing you to engage with every tool at your disposal to achieve victory.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, director Shuichi Kawata said that the team is constantly trying to find the best way to explain to everyone what this game is about. I can see why. The trailers alone don't really convey what the experience is. The satisfaction that comes from managing 12 villagers at once and actually gaining life requires a significant investment of time, tutorial after tutorial.

As AAA companies continue to invest in existing series with sequels and remakes, it's refreshing to also get experiences like Kunitsu-Gami, introducing new worlds with genre combinations that might be a hard sell to mainstream audiences. It takes a while for its charm to blossom, and some mechanics aren't clear without trial and error, but once the concept comes to life, conquering its challenges becomes a puzzle worthy of its fireworks.