izigame.me

You know how people love to go "I wish they still made PS2 games" or that thing about "shorter games with worse graphics"? Well, here's one, so if you like how that sounds, don't sleep on it.
Kunitsu-Gami is, if you want to put it very simply, a tower defense game. You go into the level, and you can place your units to certain points as they kill enemies and defend your base. A lot of its DNA can be traced back to Flash games, with optional objectives reminiscent of games where you could beat level with 1-3 stars, and a lot of units being familiar.
However, Kunitsu-Gami is just as well a lite character action game with some strategy. There's a singular hero you can control who does most of the work, a lot like Musou games, but you need to control your units a bit like Pikmin. Your hero - Soh - can dodge, attack, and you can unlock shooting, parrying, special attacks, and even stuff like Ukemi.
There aren't actually towers in this game - they are villagers you hire and assign roles to, and you can command them, individually or in bulk. It's not as threatening as it sounds, since most of the time they will stand still, but there are stages where you'll need to switch their positions or roles around. For example, when things get hairy you can always pay some to modify your warrior into a healer or into a shooter.
This game doesn't have gold to buy more units or upgrade them - what you start the stage with is all you'll get. Your main currency, Crystals, is used for assigning roles, and other action rarely done in TD games - moving your "base"
Throughout the game you travel with a Priestess who has to rid the land of the Curse, and in levels, your goal isn't to survive, but to move her to enemy Torii gates, effectively moving your base closer and closer to the main enemy spawn point, and to do that you pay Crystals. Didn't kill enough in the alloted time, don't have much money. The enemy attacks are timed, so if your troops are bad at killing one miniboss, you can just run around and waste time, but next wave will be harder, and you'll earn no money by just trying to survive, rather than aggressively attack.
The game being a third-person battler also means you never have an easy access to the cursor or an overview. Sure, there's a map, but it's not THAT clear, so you have to be all eyes and move around, killing enemies you perceive as threats to your squad.
Before the battle starts you have a few minutes to run around. The game is very Okami in that every location you visit is a cursed shithole, so it's up to you to rescue all the villagers, assign them roles, clean some trash for additional crystals, maybe rebuild some bridges and platforms for archers. Downtime is as, if not more, exhilirating as the battle, as you try to do the most within the time limit.
While you can't upgrade villagers with the currency enemies drop, the game has a ton of unlockables, including, indeed, exp you can spend on yourself and your units, and your status carries on through the levels. You can find relics to wear, new powers to try, upgrade villagers, return to stages for optional objectives, and more.
I've always loved the "making the world better" goal of Okami, and this one is no different - purging the curse feels fantastic, and every stage turns into a little hub where you can rebuild various structures to get lore, art, models, and more exp.
Most levels are very unique, featuring some sort of gimmick of which I don't want to spoil a single one. Said gimmicks appear, at most, twice, so you can get used to them and then go through the stage with similar mechanics as the game can be sure you understood it. There's only a single stretch of two levels that feel a bit too similar to each other, and otherwise the game does a fantastic job of differentiating its enviroments.
There are also bosses, and a lot of them, which mostly feature you trying to clear the enemy's stamina gauge and then attack with all your units for maximum damage, and survive in the meantime. Those are probably the low point of the game for me, since you still have all your troops, and actually commanding them is tricky. Leading them out of aoes is more frustrating than anything even when you know they're coming, unless you want to spread them out one by one in the menu.
The game looks absolutely gorgeous. Various Japanese demons and strange effects are great, even if the rest of the artstyle can be plain. I suppose it might be the intent, a sort of a clash of worlds, but likely just a budget thing. However, it's only noticeable if you actively stare at rocks and trees, and not the game in general.
If you're bad at strategies, don't worry, as the game holds your hand for a while, and early stages are effectively free. As things ramp up, you might die, but the first try of any stage is the hardest, and the knowledge you got usually means you'll get through it on the second go. You can always go back, get more materials on easier levels to power up, and you can undo all the exp on everything for free, too!
If you're good at this type of game, however, there are also optional challenges and boss speedruns that will reward you with more toys to play with. Also, the game presents a lot of opportunities for a lot of unstated challenges, such as clearing it without certain units or stuff like that. It annoys me that achievement systems on various platforms pretty much moved away from actually achieving anything and giving you ideas in favor of popping up when you beat a level, but if you are into doing something just for yourself, there's a lot you can do.
Kunitsu-Gami is easily the best surprise of the year for me. The trailers made it look incomprehensible, and, granted, it has a lot of mechanics, but the actual game is fantastic. It's constantly changing, it's addictive, and most importantly, it's just fun.