Kena: Bridge of Spirits

A breathtaking action-adventure game that delves into spirituality and the restoration of nature through healing anguished spirits attempting to move on. With the sequel being recently announced and the game sitting in my backlog for a while it felt like the perfect time to give the game a proper playthrough and I had an amazing time all the way through. The game presents themes similar to those found in the Ori games which I loved with nature and spirituality being the center of the game with the overall mechanics woven into the environment and how its restoration works to resonate with players in an effort to revive the land from corruption. Ember Lab's debut made quite the splash with its gorgeous Pixar-like animation which from a baseline instilled a wide array of emotions due to the characters coming to life through their grief and how Kena's efforts worked to restore balance to their spirits and the land around them. The game does not overstay its welcome with a short runtime especially if you don't go out of your way for collectibles with the game being cut into three sections with each presenting various obstacles in clearing corruption, retrieving relics, and defeating each boss encounter. The gameplay felt akin to Souls-likes & Zelda through the amount of actions Kena was able to use as well as the enemy behavior encouraging both cautious and aggressive gameplay through parrying and shields. While parrying isn't the easiest to accomplish with it being similar to how it is utilized in Expedition 33, when I was able to consistently get it down it felt truly satisfying from a gameplay perspective, but also relief where it isn't completely necessary to conquer all challenges found. The bow and bomb provided new ways to engage with enemies with the sheer quantity you face at times creating true chaos where gameplay can feel snappy and engaging every fight. The rot creatures were cute companions that helped elevate the gameplay through restoring the environment and upgrading Kena's abilities with the Rot Hammer being my favorite with its high DPS and ranged potential. The characters were all implemented well as the linear story structure allowed them to be fleshed out according to their proper areas and culminate into a hopeful but tragic overarching story structure in saving a land that has already lost its people through giving them peace at their end. A small gripe I have with the combat is how Kena generally controls with her movement not being as responsive as it should be as her dodge roll isn't the most amazing as seen in similar titles with its start-up lag ensuring you aren't able to chain it and you need to be able to telegraph enemy attacks so you don't accidentally jump right into them. The camera was also not utilized the best as it is naturally slow and the lock-on function would still be in play even if an enemy vanished, but it wouldn't follow it with you needing to disengage then find them again. Finally, a small issue also being how the game allocates "experience" or upgrading Kena's abilities as the majority of the time you open chests to find crystals which are only used for cosmetics and Karma - the currency being used for abilities only found in restoring environmental structures and defeating basic enemy encounters which can result in needing additional playthroughs just to upgrade everything. For achievements, most came from the story in unlocking abilities and progressing the story till the end with the rest being collectibles which were simple to manage with the map automatically tracking everything which made finding every last one easy enough without needing to cross-check too much. The trials, while not necessary, were a fun challenge which also unlocked charms and costumes for Kena to use with some of them needing some strategy as they are implemented to ensure you understand the mechanics well enough to manage a plethora of varying enemy types. Master mode was the hardest to achieve as it lives up to its name in which you must be able to master all game mechanics in order to survive while not necessarily having to parry as you can dodge everything reasonably well it can definitely help at times through the benefits you receive for doing so. I had heard horror stories about the hardest difficulty, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was difficult, but not in an unforgiving way as you are able to grasp the mechanics well enough to conquer everything thrown at you to ultimately complete the game. Overall, I enjoyed my time playing through Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Ember Labs truly has something special with this as their debut game and I cannot wait to see what improvements they make to elevate the experience with Kena: Scars of Kosmora later this year. This game is truly special and I could not recommend it enough for people looking for a fun focused experience with surprising in-depth combat and gorgeous visuals.

good

very good game. very hard though even on the medium setting of sprit guide. the boss fight are long and took me a good while to figure out. but worth while playing in my opinion

Un juego, que vale la pena comprarlo una y mil veces.

Отличный сюжет, красивая анимация, боевая система схожа с Dark Souls. Отличная игра!

This one is so good 🫶🏻.

迪士尼的游戏，游戏画面色彩我很喜欢，战斗打怪机制简单，轻度解密机关什么的