Game of the Week: Kunitsu-Gami feels most alive when it's standing still

Admission time: I used to scoff slightly whenever I read a piece of games criticism that spent any time at all talking about a game's photogenic qualities for taking screenshots with. The size of a writer's personal screenshots folder simply wasn't something that interested me at the time, partly because taking screenshots of games just wasn't an activity I ever really engaged in, but also because this was back when dedicated photo modes weren't nearly as ubiquitous as they are now. I also wasn't yet writing about games as part of my job where unique and perhaps artfully-framed screenshots might, say, be really quite useful to make my own work standout against the torrent of 'press' shots you get from the usual official sources.

Now, my stance on screenshot chat has softened considerably, because let's face it, once you've subjected RPS supporters to a 10-part photo diary of your dumb adventures through Death Stranding, there's really no going back. These days, I take great delight in a game that's really put some effort into making a good photo mode, which brings us to our Game of the Week, which is Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

Don't worry. I'm not about to spend the next few paragraphs telling you how fat my Kunitsu-Gami screenshots folder is. Rather, the thing that really struck me while I was playing was just how much more alive and exquisite its characters' dance-based movements became when I paused for a close-up photo. Kunitsu-Gami's combat is based on traditional Japanese kagura dancing, which is often performed during shrine rituals to celebrate life, and bring the human and the divine together in a single artform. Look up any real-world YouTube video of it and you'll see it's a very theatrical style of dancing with big, broad movements that have a real sense of athleticism to them - a feeling that Capcom has translated beautifully into creating Soh's individual dance attacks. And what really captured my imagination when I was playing it for review.