Kena: bridge of spirits: Way overdue review



(Final review on the bottom)





I was taking a little stroll on steam one day looking at indie games when I came across Kena: bridge of spirits, It looked pretty, it looked interesting, it was called a roguelike according to the tags and being apparently the 1% of the population that isn’t big into roguelikes I found that to be a red flag for me and even a bit surprising considering how Disney-esque the game looked.


Nevertheless I decided to give it a shot, after all it had some great reviews. Then I promptly let it sit In my library for a year completely forgotten, and now I found it and went “oh yeah I spent like forty dollars on that” so here we are.


So, after sinking some hours in the game here’s my thoughts.


The main thing that hooked me on Kena was the art style, I am not lying when it says it looks like an animated movie, the cutscenes especially blew me away with how well done they are, they nailed the Pixar/Disney look better than Pixar and Disney can these days. But looks aren’t everything


As for the game itself, the controls are great very smooth. Nothing confusing, it took all of five seconds for the keyboard to meld into my hands and I didn’t have to think about what I was doing to play the game. As for the roguelike part I’ll be honest, I find that just plain wrong. There’s no permadeath or grinding or procedurally generated dungeons or nothing, the only “Souls” aspects of it are a dodge roll and a shield parry. In reality it’s an action-adventure game through and through and plays very similarly to the Corey Balrog God of War games. And honestly, I found that to be a huge relief.



As the game opened up, I started in a dark cave where I was introduced to the puzzles, this game has them, but it’s not rocket science, most of them consist of taking a thing, putting it in a place. Past the cave though I was treated to this GORGEOUS forest landscape and majestic and cheery music that brought me back to my childhood, instantly the game gave the same vibes of one of my favorite games ever made, Zelda Twilight Princess.



but environments and basic gameplay aside what makes this game unique? The rot.


 these cute little…thingies, make up most of the gameplay mechanics. They’re basically the face of the game (Aside from Kena herself) they’ll just follow you around the entire game and can be seen all over once you find them. You can feed them fruit and even sit down to interact with the little guys, plus they’re useful! the rot can be used to do things like picking up rocks or setting statues upright to both find MORE rot and to get Karma, (The XP basically) they can also help you in fights.



When you fight in Kena, hitting enemies builds up “courage” when you have full courage the Rot can do things like activate healing sources, stun enemies, or deactivate enemy spawners.


Throughout the game you meet various spirits that you have to help, the games semi open, it’s mostly linear but there’s places to explore and while you have your main goals in the games map you don’t HAVE to go straight for them, and you can largely look around to your hearts content. And seeing as how Rot and Karma sources are scattered all over the place it’s well worth it! And with how pretty the game is you aren’t going to get tired of exploring.




There’s also these crystal things you can find all over that act as a type of currency for hats for the rot and I assume Alternate costumes for Kena.




Despite all the cutesy-ness the game can get pretty dark and creepy at times, there being this quest near the beginning where you have to find these two kids’ brother and go into the woods after him. I don’t want to spoil it because this game REALLY deserves to be played on its own, but you’ll see what I mean.


Honestly though perhaps the greatest praise I can give this game is that it walks this fine line between cute and dark and just plain cool which MANY games try and very few pull off.


As much as I want to write a twenty page essay on this game, I want you dear reader to experience it and experience it blind. The game is $39,99 on steam right now and I got to say, it’s way UNDER priced for what you get out of it.



So, my final review, is it a good game? Should you play it? ALL THE WAY YES. Genuinely Kena is one of the better games I’ve played in recent memory and is a damn fine example of why indie games are superior. 10/10

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