izigame.me

(Review updated after Master NG+ run)
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a game that feels like it should be longer, but in a good way: by the end, I kept wishing there was more of it. Overall, I found it to be a solid, enjoyable action-adventure game, and a wonderful first entry from Ember Lab.
Heading into the game, I didn't read anything about it, and so I didn't know what to expect besides the extremely vibrant environments and the adorable Rot companions. The beginning of the game was, admittedly, a bit slow. Most elements of the game felt a little bit underwhelming, from the combat to the platforming, and I ultimately put it down for about a year. What a mistake that was! When I picked it back up about a week ago, I realized I'd left the game off at the exact point where it starts getting good.
--Combat--
First off, the major bosses are incredible. Their animations are extremely expressive and give an epic feel to the fights. Extra kudos to the Corrupted Woodsmith fight: the way the music pauses for tension, before it it soars while the boss begins hammering away at her forge throwing up enormous rings of fire everywhere was glorious. All of them were memorable, and give me an itch to go straight for a Master difficulty playthrough even though I've told myself I wouldn't.
Some have described Kena as a soulslite, as some parts of its combat, between the dodge rolls, the need to recognize and know how to precisely punish a boss's attack animations, very limited healing in combat, punishing damage from bosses, and the way you need to weave in and time your own attacks, are reminiscent of souls games. Admittedly, when the first major boss turned out to be a giant hulking wolf guy with a big, glowing sword who leaps at your face, I had mildly traumatic flashbacks to Maliketh, the Black Blade from Elden Ring (I played ER first, although Kena was released first). One of the challenge trials features a double boss that, again, gave me mildly traumatic flashbacks to Godskin Duo.
I personally really enjoyed the varied range of skill expression possible with Kena's combat. There is an expectation that you will use Kena's entire kit in combat, and this holds true through the end of the game. Mastering her kit can mean flawlessly chaining her abilities in combat and defeating bosses without taking a hit; not doing so means panic rolls and, oftentimes, death. There's a solid chunk of puzzle elements in combat as well, and as a long-time Zelda fan, I really appreciate having this kind of gameplay present (especially when it's so absent in the most recent Zelda games).

I think that Master difficulty really helped the game's combat shine even more. On NG+ Master difficulty, most of the early game encounters are revamped with endgame enemies, and getting hit is substantially more punishing (both in the amount of damage you take, and the courage loss it incurs). I actually died once during the tutorial because even those fights were revamped.
And yet, despite this increase in difficulty, I found that the game already gave many useful tools for handling all of the combat scenarios. Virtually every attack in the game is parry-able, even if the timing is painfully tight on a lot of them. Many attack sequences are staggerable using dash, at the cost of draining your shield meter (and risking getting caught without that valuable resource). Enemies deal more damage, but they die in the same amount of time, meaning that the gameplay heavily rewards reading the enemy's attack patterns, split second reactions, thoughtful target priority, and freely swapping between defensive and aggressive play. Several bosses also picked up new phases and attacks in NG+, overall making the second playthrough equally, if not more, interesting than the first.
--Kena's toolkit--
In fact, Kena's toolkit is the element of the game that has grown on me the most. As mentioned before, the combat expects you to fully utilize the tools she has on hand. I really appreciate that these same tools are used in puzzles and traversal: it really gives off a classic Zelda-like feel. For example, the puzzles involving her spirit bomb ability can activate various types of machinery and, most important, can temporarily activate various forms of debris into little platforms. This same underlying logic comes into play with some enemies and bosses, where you can "activate" parts of their armor and rip it away from them temporarily to expose weak points.
--Story--
The writing is a little basic but overall gets the job done. Given Kena's inspirations, I wasn't expecting much more than what we got (after all, Zelda games often have plots that boil down to "Link does heroic things because he is a heroic dude"), but I appreciated how the characterization felt very grounded. No one in the game is doing evil things because they are a bad guy: most of them experience very real and relatable pain that they just can't let go of (until Kena... beats it out of them I guess?). Despite Kena's vibrant, cute aesthetic, the writing is not really for children: it would not have resonated with me as a child, but it certainly resonates with me as an adult.
--Platforming and Exploration--
The platforming mechanics of Kena were a little bit basic. The climbing elements were drawn from the likes of Uncharted or Tomb Raider, but don't get any more complicated than just shimmying along or hopping between ledges. I found the platforming puzzles overall enjoyable, even if they were a bit simple at times.
The usage of Kena's toolkit in platforming was a very enjoyable start. Lining up grapple points mid-air is fun (if a little easy), and the spirit bomb puzzles added a mixture of control and dynamism to the platforming.
The exploration mechanics of the game could have used a little bit of work. The map UI could have used a way to add player waypoints, and there isn't really a clear way to detect things like extra rots for those who are trying to 100% the game.
--More!--
However, overall, the feeling I got from Kena was "I want MORE!" because the elements we did get were woven together very nicely. I could imagine adding two or three more skills into Kena's toolkit, adding more regions to explore, with more complex platforming, and more complex bosses, and it would go from being an enjoyable ride to an incredible one. I see this as a good thing: as this is Ember Labs' first game, I feel like they nailed most of the elements they needed to, and the overall degree of polish feels indicative of great future potential. I look forward to seeing how they grow for their next game! (Kena 2 when?)