I was familiar with most of the games I played and saw at before I had a chance to see them, but was a rare exception. It was also one of the show’s most pleasant surprises, successfully merging a tower defense game with a third-person slasher in a world that demands to be explored. Your job as the guardian Soh is to protect the Maiden Yoshiro from evil spirits called the Seethe that are invading our world.
In order to keep her safe, you explore levels in the daytime, purging defilement and rescuing trapped villagers. Once the villagers have been freed, you assign them different jobs and position them to help you block the spirits at night. All the while, you’ll be carving a path (hence the game’s name) for Yoshiro to walk from one end of the level to the other.
Just make sure that she doesn’t travel too far before night falls because protecting her is more challenging the closer she gets to the end. As soon as the sun sets, the Seethe come pouring out of a portal. Soh is a capable swordsman, able to take on individual enemies and small groups on his own with some simple and satisfying combos, but he can’t handle an entire swarm alone.
That’s where the villagers come in, as you’ll have to arrange them around the map to block the progress of the Seethe while you fight off the stragglers. There are a few different roles you can assign, from melee-oriented Woodcutters to bow-wielding Archers to spell-casting Ascetics. Sign up for the most interesting tech & enterta.
