Kena: Bridge of Spirits Review (☽ Shamura ☾)
I always find it hard to answer the question of my favorite game 'cause there are just too many good games out there and each is special on it's own, but if I really had to choose a standalone game, I would go for Kena. I just love everything about this game. The graphics, the artstyle, the lore & main story, the battle- & level system, the worlddesign, the OST, the characters, the looting parts, the difficulties..Yeah, simply just..everything. ^^
All in all is 'Kena Bridge of Spirits' a beautiful written- and designed actiongame, that directly hoovered me in it's stunning atmosphere.
If you're in love with soulslike-genre games, you'll simply love Kena. Don't get fooled by those cute looking images and trailers on the store page. Kena gets pretty dark and challenging real quick.
So, the dark-themed 'Lordran' atmosphere you're searching for will catch you anyway.^^
(Tho I loved playing Kena on normal difficulty in my first try, I really recomment you playing it on master difficulty in a second run. It's no wonder Kena got the "soulslike" -tag, master difficulty can be pretty challenging (and frustrating at some points), but it made the game so much more "realistic" than playing it on hard or normal. You'll really need to perfectionise those parries (I literally ignored them on normal difficulty 'cause dodging was totally fine), or you won't earn rot points for special attacks and combos. So you really have to recognize the different enemy attack patterns and master your parries and counter attacks to simply- not die.^-^)