They don't make games like this no more

5 hours in and there has been maybe 2 sentences of spoken dialogue that weren't random combat shout outs. This is peak

[Review based on ~25 hours playtime, completed all stages and side-objectives for the first cycle, just starting New Game+]

In a year with Unicorn Overlord, Shadow of the Erdtree, FF14 Dawntrail, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Hades II, P3 Reload, FF7 Rebirth, Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth, SMTV Vengeance, etc etc etc (all of them excellent)….never in a million years did I expect a weird little tower-defense action game to come along and take ALL my spare time and attention.

I won’t go into gameplay details as a demo is available and other reviews have already touched on a lot, but the overall experience is phenomenal: music, art design, progression and upgrades, difficulty, amount of content, gameplay, direction, story and writing, thoughtfulness w/ controls, UI, and graphics options - all *excellent*. It has a really weird vibe that teeters back and forth between being cool, silly, horrifying, zen, super intense, and very sweet / genuine…as a whole I don’t think I’ve ever played anything else quite like it. Hands-down the most creative thing I’ve seen come out of Capcom since Ōkami.

It’s not an insanely difficult strategy title, but I would never call it easy or mindless. Level to level I’ve been constantly kept on my toes while adapting to new situations and enemy types, there’s an awesome amount of variety in how the stages “work”, and some seriously great boss battles and set pieces. For me everything hits just right.

Being a brand new property in a VERY niche style and genre, I do wish Capcom had actually promoted this + priced it at $40 to appeal to more people, but personally I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. I’ve seen a lot of comments such as “it’s like a PS2 8/10 game” but I think that’s severely underselling it, whereas “things like this don’t get made anymore” feels scarily spot-on. Even if it’s outside of the usual type of game you enjoy, please try the demo and consider supporting Kunitsu-Gami. It’s beyond worth it and I’d love to see more companies take chances on non-AAA games.

Kunitsu-Gami gets my highest recommendation. It’s weird and truly wonderful, I’m overjoyed it exists, and will be shoving it in the faces of friends / plugging it every chance I get in online comment sections for years to come.