Author: Rich Meister
Over the past week, I’ve seen a lot of people in and around the games media refer to Kena: Bridge of Spirits as a “great PS2 game.” It’s a fair comparison, but I think looking at Kena as merely an old style of game does it a disservice. Sure we don’t regularly get this brand of third-person action platformer anymore. Still, Kena excels at it and does so while bringing a Pixar level of charm to its characters and environments, even if it is a little rough around the edges.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits(PS4, PS5 [reviewed], PC)
Developer: Ember Lab
Publisher: Ember Lab
Released: September 21, 2021
MSRP: $39.99
Kena stars its titular lead character, a young girl serving as a spirit guide traveling to the mountain shrine of a remote village. Why Kena is headed, there isn’t explicitly clear at the start of her adventure, and that’s honestly something I really like about it. Kena doesn’t waste time. As you explore, you learn more about her personal goals, but ultimately, a lot is shrouded in mystery or open to interpretation.
Two of the first people our heroine meets are a pair of young twins, spirits that, like many others, are still lingering in this ghostly village beneath the mountain. The children agree to help Kena reach the mountain’s shrine if she first agrees to find their brother, who never returned from the nearby woods.
While this is just the start, the general loop follows a pretty basic formula. Kena will explore the area surrounding the village and aid corrupted spirits in crossing over and restoring balance to the land. She does so with the aid of the Rot and group of cute as fuck forest spirits you collect as you progress. The Rot behave a lot like Pikmin, you can order them to interact and move objects to help solve puzzles, and they’ll even aid you in combat once you unlock some of the abilities further down Kena’s skill tree.
You can even customize your little buddies with a ton of unlockable hats. Everything from cowboy hats to dinosaur heads are in play, and you can individually customize the 100 Rot followers you can find throughout the game. Not every one of these little guys is found via the main plot, and hitting specific milestones in your count of Rot followers unlocks new charges for you to utilize their abilities, so this is one collectible you’ll want to hunt for.
Combat is fun and surprisingly challenging. Kena fights corrupt spirits using her staff and later a bow. To make the most of a combat situation, you’ll want to combine staff and bow attacks with your parry ability that requires some pretty precise timing. Even on normal difficulty, some encounters can be downright punishing if you’re not bringing your all. Story mode, the game’s equivalent of easy, makes the combat a lot easier if you just want to see the game through, but beating the game unlocks a harder difficulty for those seeking a challenge.
You use two sets of currency in the game. One is karma which you get for performing tasks like fixing fallen temple statues or clearing areas of decay. Karma is used to upgrade your abilities for combat. The other is a gem-based system that you get from chests; this is used to purchase hats for your Rot. If you engage with any of the side content at all, you’ll be drowning in both. I had the entire skill tree filled out long before credits rolled.
In two instances where some strange camera views exiting a cutscene forced me to reload a checkpoint and enemies clipping through buildings required the same. These problems are hardly game-breaking and few and far between. Kena is rough around the edges, but it never hindered my fun in a meaningful way.
Visually Kena feels like it was a showpiece that the PS5 needed. This isn’t some photo-realistic Triple-A giant, but it has an undeniable style, and some of the lighting effects, particularly during some of the bigger story beats that see storms roll through the forest, are amazing to behold. Ember Labs has some history in character animation, and it shows here.
Verdict: Kena is charming, just long enough, and delivers some super fun puzzles, platforming, and combat. Strangely, we don’t get more of these Double-A character action games anymore, and I hope that changes this generation. Kena’s biggest drawback to me was how ambiguous the game leaves Kena as a character. While the story of the mountain shrine is neatly resolved, I still don’t feel like I understood our protagonist or her reasons for this journey. A lot is alluded to, and if Ember Labs has a sequel in mind, that might be intentional.
Just the same, Kena is short, sweet, and a lot of fun. This one is worth your time.
Buy it
[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer]