Game #1135: Kena - Bridge of Spirits

 Somebody forgot to call the ghostbusters.

 Ever since it was first announced, Kena: Bridge of Spirits looked like a total stunner, not unlike something that could've easily come out of Pixar. While the game looks gorgeous, it's scope is much smaller, feeling more like something that could've come out of the PS2 or PS3, and I say that as a good thing.

 You play as the eponymous Kena, a girl that has the job of helping spirits move on. You're not told much about why she is where she is, how her powers came to be, you just start the game inside a cave, get to an abandoned, corrupted village and start mingling with spirits. I liked this approach, the game tells you just exactly what you need to know, when you need to know. The graphics makes the story-telling even more inviting, that said, maybe I was enjoying exploring too much, but I felt as if cutscenes sometimes took forever, and I just wanted to get right back into the action. Were they slow-paced? Was I'm just enjoying the game too much? I'm not sure!

 The game has two main components, exploration and combat. While you are free to backtrack anywhere, to search for more collectibles, the game itself is fairly linear. It's a rather pleasant affair, as exploration will reward with more Rots, tiny spirits that aid Kena in combat, hats for these Rots, experience points or meditation spots to increase your health. It's interesting because as you progress through the game you'll get new abilities that will work for either combat or puzzle solving. The bow and arrow is self explanatory, but it's also used to hit environmental stuff to trigger puzzles or levels, the bombs work as an offensive tool... or to make rocks float and turn into platforms, and there's the underutilized dash that is used to cross through gateways or hit stuff. It's not necessarily like a Metroidvania because the tools you get will help you going forward, as you can get most of the stuff in an area once you get the area's ability. You get the bomb in the game's second main area, but you could get every collectible, sans the ones in the game's main hub, before that area just with the bow, and so on.

 As previously mentioned, the game is gorgeous, which is one of the reasons it's so inviting to explore this very green, lush forests. The game has about 9 different areas, and only 7 of them have collectibles, so it's not overwhelming. Once enemies are defeated they don't respawn, ever, so you won't be annoyed by enemy encounters and can just focus on finding suspicious areas in which collectibles might be hidden. Since the game is rather small, every areas feels dense with stuff to find. Most of the puzzles feel fair and are not overly complex, sans for that one altar-order puzzle, geeze.

 The other part of the game is the combat, and that part isn't so much fun. Kena has a weak four-hit combo tied to R1, a stronger attack on R2, blocks with L1, can roll with O and, well, can use her tools like the bow and bombs. My issues with combat are plenty, for instance, the timing for the parry and roll are too precise. Roll to early and the enemy attack will track you. The problem with the parry is bigger, since you are never told of the parry, and since Kena's block involves her entering a protective bubble... it's hard and not explained how you should time the parry. Is it before the attack would hit the bubble or does it only depend on your L1 press? It depends on the latter, but you're not told or shown. Enemies have way too much health, particularly bosses. It feels like you are waiting for your chance to deal minuscule damage most of the time. I got so bored during the first boss that I lowered the difficulty and never looked back. Enemies were still soaking up damage, but at least in this mode so was I. And it's just boring. I wish I had gotten the Rot Hammer upgrade earlier as it's the damage boost I was looking for.

 Properly landing hits rewards you with Rot energy, "Courage", which can be use to enhance some attacks with your rots. You can call on your rots to "stun" enemies, but they'll take little damage and just start swinging widely, which is useful once you learned how to parry, but even the parry counter attack deals little damage. All in all, it's very unrewarding and slow paced. I didn't enjoy this game's combat very much.

 In the end, I think in the easiest difficulty setting I was able to tolerate the combat, which was welcome, as everything else about the game was just fun. Kena was a great first effort for the studio. From its small scope, to the more linear game design and simple gameplay... it feels like a game from another era, and that's just great as it focus on what matters and not the fluff.

 7.5