Kena Bridge of Spirits is an Indie Action adventure game developed by Ember Lab a small studio which was founded in 2019 and they began publishing short animated shorts such as Dust which earned them their
first award and the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: A terrible fate which helped their popularity to rise even more. The game Kena Bridge of Spirits was their first attempt into the video game industry and needless to say,
they came in with a hit as Kena was met with alot of success. Since it's Announcment trailer back in June 2020 Kena became one of those titles that people kept mentioning and demanding more and more about it. The trailers
showcased amazing graphics that reminded pixar movies, the gameplay showed promise and overall it looked like a pleasant package.
A year and a few months later in September 2021 the game was finally released and it became
the most downloaded game of the month in certain countries. A physical release became available a bit later after the initial digital release of the game. The feedback of the game was mostly possitive which lead to it's
nomination in various awards including the Game of the year Indie sub category. In the Game Awards 2021 Kena : Bridge of Spirits succesfully won:
Game of the Year (Indie Category)
Best Debut Indie Title
The Deluxe Edition consist of the game, in game cosmetic DLC (Golden Rot, Rot hats, Kena's alt. Staff), Digital soundtracks, Sticker sheet(with the Physical release).
Story of Bridge of spirits (No Spoilers)
The story of Kena Bridge of Spirits is really simple and it's easy to follow. The players are given control of Kena a spirit guide. Spirit guides are special individuals who posses magical powers
and they re tasked to help spirits that re trapped in the living world and escort them during their journey to the after life. In the world of Kena there are unique wooden Masks that are carved to honor the dead. These
masks are then placed in shrines to honor the dead. Once a mask turns into ashes, it resembles the idea of the spirit succesfully making it to the other side. However there are masks whose spirits failed to pass and thats when
the guides come to play. By equiping the mask, they try to find the troubled spirit, understand their burden and then help ease their pain in order for them pass peacefully.
Kena, the main protagonist and the player's playable hero is a young spirit guide, whose goal is to reach a sacred mountain shrine for her personal reasons. On her way to the shrine, she come across an abandonned village where she further
discovers a powerfull masked spirit who claims he himself is the cause of corruption that is currently destroying the land and also unleashes deadly creatures. The spirit then leaves and Kena reaches the core of the village where she meets
the fromer elder who asks Kenna to free the spirits of the village that are trappped if she wishes access to the shrine.
The elder proceeds to give her a mask which will allow her to look for the spirits whose mask it used to belonged to. And so in order for Kena to reach the sacred mountain shrine, she ll have to free the trapped spirits found within the
village. Further more, Kena and the player themselves are aware that there is one more masked spirit who kena will have to eventually comfort in order to save it or at least try to help it.
On this adventure, Kena is not alone as along the way she meets Rots( Small black spirits), who keep her company and help her along the way. Each time Kena is on her way to help a spirit she is joined by spirits whose pressence is there
to help their troubled friend. At the same time some of the guardians/protectors of the land are still alive and fighting the corruption on their own. When interacting with Kena, they re all willing to teach their wisdom to Kena, either to
help her skills or simply her knowledge.
Gameplay
Abilities
Kena is an open world action adventure game that shares a few key elements with the famous Legend of Zelda series such as puzzle solving , platforming and dungeon exploration. Kena begins her journey with very little abilities, but during her
adventures she gains a few more abilities. Kena begins her journey with a few platforming abilities such as jump, double jump, sprint and roll. In combat she can use her staff for both light attacks and heavy attacks which take more time to charge
but deals more damage to the enemies. For defence, the players can rely on Kena's dodge to roll away from an upocmming hit, but they can also use her magical shield that she can cast which comes with it's own stamina. Given certain power ups, the shield's
power can sustain more blows before recharging and more importantly it can help Kena parry any enemy if the player perfect times the hit and the shield. Moreover, each time the shield is used the aura used to create the shield spreads around and interacts
with the environment which will cause items to react back. For example, certain flowers and seeds only interact when the shield interacts with them.
During her stop on the village, Kena obtaines masks from the elder that allow her to see and search for the spirit's life. when wearing the mask, Kena cannot move, but she can see things she couldnt before. As mentioned earlier, during her adventures she gains
new allies that can escort her journey. The Rots that Kena collects are always there to help Kena in both the Combat of the Game and for the various puzzles. To start things first collecting Rots is important as they power up Kena herself. They re
seperated at certain points and allow the players to gain more power. During combat, on the bottom right above Kena's healthbar there are yellow Circles. These yellow circles represent a courage system which it self stands for the courage and confidense of
the rots who go and hide upon the glimpse of the enemies. Each time a set of Rots is gathered(25-50-75-100), more circles become available maxed 5. When Kena deals damage to enemies, the circles slowly fill themselves (unless played on easy) but she can also instantly
gain a complete circle, by killing enemies whose name has a circle, or hitting enemy weak points. How it works is that the enemies will drop a yellow circle and Kena will have to walk on them or cast her shield energy. These circle's can be spent to command the rots
to do a certain task. For example, by aiming at a monster and pressing the appropriate buttons the Rots, will jump on the enemies and stunt them while also hurting them. In a similar way Kena can sent the Rots, to flower's to release a healling aura to heal Kena or
to purify the core of a curropted area in order to cause it's explotion with her Shield's energy or with an arrow. Last but not least, and most importantly Kena can use her friends to cause some serious damage as all of her weapons can be empowered.
Arrow
Fussing an Arrow with Rots will deal significantly more damage to the enemy and also stunt them.
Staff
Kena can fuse the staff with the Rots in order for her to smash the ground dealing heavy damage and aerial damage.
Grappling Hook
A hook that that helps the player manuver like spiderman when certain items are available. R1 graps items nd come closer to sack boy for him to toss around.
Bombs
Combinning Rots with the bombs, will create a temporary area where time freezes for the enemies who stepped inside.
Outside of Combat, the Rots can be used to move around objects and platforms that Kena can use to move around or solve certain puzzles. Carry statues from one place to another which will eventually trigger something elsewhere, or even move rocks to open or even create
a path for her. The last usage of Rots is combined Forest Tear, (a glowy plant) the Rots temporarily join and shape a weird creature which is pieced together by them. the more she collects the bigger it becomes. In this form,Kena can guide them to break large corrupted
barriers, restore ancient shrines that will award money and bushes that will grow fruits to power up the Rots. Last but not least in this form they are capable of attacking enemies. During this way of attack, Kena is very vonurable and any hit will destroy the combination
of the Rots.
Two NPC teach and give Kena two more abilities. Transforming her staff into a bow, and the other one allowing her to throw mana bombs. Each of them can be used both in combat and once again outside while free roamming. The bow is a powerfull long range weapon and
allows Kena to shoot 5 arrows. Enemies hit on their weap point will also be temporarily stunt, whilst enemies hit on the head will receive more damage. Outside of combat, the bow can be used to shoot items found on trees or even for platforming. To elaborate, some rocks have giant
cyan flowers that react when Kena is at reachable area. The flowers will bloom and the player should aim for the center of the flower. Once the shot is land, the arrow will release a string that Kena will use to move to the area the flower is. Another way to use the arrow is to shoot
crystals on flying rocks in order to spin them.
The bombs on the other hand as the name suggest are explosives boubles that stuck on enemies or the surface they land on. The player can then wait for them to explode, or either shoot them with an arrow or shield energy. Outside of combat, there are rocks across the land that have
a weird cyan aura. If a bomb detonates on top of them the pile of rocks will explodes revealing what was underneath. Bigger pile of rocks, upon exploding will temporarily fly on air for Kena to use as stepping stones in order to cross or reach a higher Area. While the rocks are levetating
a timer starts to tingle indicating how long the rocks will stay up. When the timer ends the rocks will drop in the same posistion they were before killing Kena if she is nearby.
Game maps
While playing Kena Bridge of spirit the map structure personally reminded me of Ice Age Scrats Nutty adventure, where the maps connected to the hub world ( this case the village) can only be accessed after a certain tasks are done. Visiting an area back allows
the player to unlock further parts of the map with Kena's new abilities. For example returning from the first mission allows Kena to use her bow in order to shoot down the forest Tears from trees or even shooting the lock to bring down a bridge. Using the explosive bombs will reveal the location of hidden Rots
and passages that may lead to something new. The point is, each map offers a reason for the player to return back to. Furthermore, exploring is very rewarding as all maps have plenty of collectables and plenty of amazing views for the player to take screenshots. There is a fair ammount of puzzles scattered left
and right for the player to solve. The puzzles are realy clever and easy if the player understand the concept. For example, shooting targets based on the ammount of candles that are placed in a near by area or pay attention to the star signs.Moreover, each map is unique to it's area, most of them have a different
task. For example, heading to the top of the mountain Kena is jumping and hanging from one mountain to another, on her way to another spirits she is combinning creating platforms with the bombs and passing through teleportation portals. Last but not least the collecting the appropriate treasures and delivering
them to the spirit mail will unlock further gates.
Collectables
The game does not have alot of collectables to be gathered, but it certainly has a few. The first type of collectable is the Rots. Rots are the small adorable black creatures that follow Kena around no matter where she goes.
The more Kena gathers, the more powerful she becomes.To elaborate, there's certain abilities that can be triggered with the help of Rots and the more she gathers the more she can cast. The Rots are scattered everywhere in the world
and the player will always have to look for them in every location possible. Locations such us: Under rocks/Tree logs, inside chests, lying around, rewarded after a main mission or even after being tested(platforming & Archery wise.)
There is a total of 100 Rots to be discovered and regrouped.
The majority of Rots can wear certain helmets, masks and hats. There is a total of 51 different helmets for them to equip. Most of them come from sealed chests. They do not add to anything game wise as they re simply cosmeticks
A collectable that adds more to Kena is meditation spots. When interacting with them Kena will sit down and meditate giving her extra boost to her health bar. There's a total of Meditation spots to be discovered.
Another form of collectable are the spirit mail. While moving around Kena can come across a shiny bag. The goal is to collect it and place it to a certain mailbox in the village (Centre of map) which will unlock a small area with it's own collectables
and puzzles.
Last but not least, the game's map has plenty of Chests, flowers and money to be collected. Chests as mentioned can include, masks Rots, money, food and mails. Some chests are cursed which will have a task for the player in order to open them.
For example, kill certain enemies within a time limit, don't get hit by enemies or survive for a certain time. Coins are self explanatory, it's blue crystals that Kena can use in the store to purchase masks of the type she collected. Finally Rots can eat
food found on bushes, chests, trees and in the farmer fields. When the Rots eat they reward point to Kena which she can use to unlock abilities and power ups.
Minor critisisms
There are mainly three things worth critisizing:
Kena
The swimming
Upgrades
The game has alot of smooth animations and swimming is no exception. However the main problem of swimming is that it is extremely slow which can be very painful. Thankfully, there are not alot of swimming parts in the game, however for someone who wishes
to explore every corner of the game, for either collectables, exploration or in search of a nice screenshot location. The sprint button doesn't do anything as Kena will keep the same slow pace every time. Another issue created during swimming is that Kena is
unable to grap on a surface in order to go on land and the player should always look around for an area in water that she can accualy stand in order to go on land. It's small issues( that can be easily patched) that again might trigger someone or may not,
depending on how often they occur to the player.
A fair critisism that the game received from players(such as the author) and journalists who experienced the game, is the fact that the game does not have enough upgrades to boost Kena's skillsets and abilities. Although it does have a menu with a fair ammount of skills
that the player can obtain, the majority of them feel completely generic and abilities that should have been with Kena from the start of the game. For example, spending points to simply allow Kena to attack with light Attackks while sprinting and then spent the same
points for the heavy version isn't the kind of unlockable skill that should cost as much as freezing time when focussing the bow, or getting an extra arrow as expensive as a focus charged mellee blast. Not all upgrades should be flashy nor powerfull, but they should feel
as if they re something the player needed or would be happy to use during his/her time with the game.
Last but not least and most important is Kena herself as a character. Unlike NPCs Kena gets little to none character development. The players are given control of Kena early on in the game and they get to experience her journey but little to non are known about her.
The players are given a little character development during the last chapter of the game which is a little too late. How can the player expect enjoy Kena when she doesn't help her case. When the player moves around the land in other games the hero will usually
say something to prevent the game for being silent or will have the worlds inhabitant to interact, giving a reason for the hero to reply. Games like Spiderman, Alloy, Kratos/Atreus and even in indie games with characters like Even in Lost in Random.
Kena does nothing. The only interactions given with her are with her main Rot if the player chooses to play with it. It's a bit of shame cause the concept of the spirit guide and Kena herself are interesting.
The Final thoughts
Overall, Kena Bridge of spirits is a very nice game. The graphics are spectacular and as mentioned prior, they are of movie quality. The environment reacts to Kena and her spirits and has plenty of secret passages for the players to explore. The animation of an area beeing
cured from corupt are unique and each time they re triggered they always leave an impact of satisfaction. The music of the game really suits its type and escort the player through the adventure. Whether the player visits a ghost town, a corrupted temple or even a dark forest
it makes sure to set the mood. The combat of the game is fast paced and offers a variety of options for the hero to use. The boss battles are all unique and very different which reward the player with the satisfaction of completion. The story of the game is really good and it's
delivered though amazing cinematography and good pace. Not many things happen at once to cause confussion. For an indie game it's length and content is enough to justify it's price and the awarded game of the year (indie).
This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game
There are mainly three things worth critisizing: