Kena: Bridge of Spirits review

Need to know

What is it? A game about saving souls by beating them into submission.   
Expect to pay: $40/£32
Developer: Ember Lab
Publisher: Ember Lab
Reviewed on: GeForce GTX 1650, AMD Ryzen 5 3550H, 8 GB RAM
Multiplayer: None
Release date: September 21, 2021
Link: Epic Games Store

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a looker, and the Pixar comparisons that have been flying around are, to an extent, justified. The lush world and its big-eyed inhabitants radiate with personality. Even the bulbs of corruption that plague the land are oddly attractive. Kena’s got the Hollywood looks down, but it’s also got the Hollywood determination to play it safe.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits might look like a Zelda game at a glance, but it’s a largely linear action-adventure game that takes place in one large map, and you’re rarely required to retrace your steps. The map is dotted with warp points anyway, and the game autosaves regularly, so you’re never in danger of losing much progress or repeatedly running through the same empty areas. It keeps the story moving throughout its 8-10 hour runtime without too much friction outside of some potentially tricky fights, depending on your chosen difficulty. Overall, Bridge of Spirits is a pleasant cruise through familiar action platforming waters.

Kena herself is a spirit guide. It’s her job to help souls move on from the mortal plane. This means searching three areas for relics attuned to the spirit, clearing corruption and defeating lesser unfriendly spirits on the way. Seeking out personal items in order to gently move a soul on, I can understand, but repeatedly hitting them in the face with a stick? Seems rather unorthodox, but I guess that shows what I know about spirits.

(Image credit: Ember Lab)

Combat, of which there is a lot, works just fine, but I can’t get any more enthusiastic about it than that. There’s a light attack, a heavy attack, a block and parry, and other abilities to unlock (including a bow, which becomes vital both in combat, and for switches used in the light traversal puzzling). Although some enemies require specific tactics to defeat, or to defeat effectively, generally speaking it’s all a bit button-bashy. It doesn’t help that arenas tend to be fairly small, and enemies often approach from off-camera. I end up dodging a lot. 

The little creatures that accompany you on your journey are known as the Rot, and good god they are adorable. You can sit down to admire or play with them whenever you like, but they also have practical uses. During fights, you charge up ‘courage’ which allows you to send them to distract an enemy, help destroy an enemy spawn point, or activate an unlocked ability (such as the Rot Hammer, which takes a pleasing chunk out of enemy health bars). Poking around off the main path will sometimes yield new little followers, which suits my playstyle well. And I must admit, the Rot do make themselves useful on occasion; one boss was frustrating me immensely, digging into the ground as soon as I got close, until I realised that I could order my adorable army to hold it in place for a few seconds while I got some hits in.

(Image credit: Ember Lab)

Rot’s next?

source: gamezpot.com