I think the boundaries of what indie games can be have really been pushed in recent memory. It’s easy to see the limitations creators faced back then compare it to now. We’re seeing indie studios create fully rendered environments and worlds about the size of most typical Triple A releases. It actually feels like these sorts of games are being made by Triple A studios! That’s not to say it’s mandatory that you have a big team of developers, experienced professionals, or a high budget to create a polished product. Return of The Obra Dinn was made by one person and it’s absolutely stunning in every aspect. Meanwhile, Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night had a crowdfunding campaign which made more than one million dollars and was produced by Koji Igarashi of Castlevania fame, but Bloodstained has a ton of rough edges and you can see the areas where they cut corners. Point is, indie games are starting to utilize modern hardware and the more expensive they look the more comparisons they’ll probably get.
Last year we received Sifu, Stray, Neon White, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Tinykin, Tunic, Signalis, etc. All of which used current or next generation technology, and 3D environments and models. I like to call these types of games, “The Expensive Indies.” The ones that required the most work, love, and care from the developers. I’m happy indie games and the quality of them are setting new standards for the industry, and would rather support these passion projects instead of half baked garbage. Anyways, let’s move onto today’s topic indie game which just so happens to be one of those “Expensive Indies”. Kena: Bridge of Spirits, a fantasy esque adventure inspired by southeast Asian culture, The Legend of Zelda series, and was made by a small animation studio. Okay, do any of you remember that Majora’s Mask animated short? The incredibly good looking one that had incredible voice work, sound design, and retold the origins of the Skull Kid. The people who animated it went on to make this game. Which is really surprising as you would expect them to make their own animated film or series. It does make sense though, as I guess Zelda fans went on to make a Zelda inspired game that recaptures the formula of the originals.
Using their skills in animation, programming, and much more they got working on what would be a love letter to all they took inspiration from. Crafting a heavily detailed world, cutscenes that feel practically drawn from a film, and managing to carve their own identity. The result was one of the more advanced indie games to ever be made. Kena was then revealed during a Playstation showcase in 2020, and one year later it was released for both PC and Playstation consoles. Expectations were high for Kena: Bridge of Spirits and you just had to wonder if it would live up. The answer was, “Yes.” Kena: Bridge of Spirits was one of the most highly talked about indie games of 2021. It even received The Best Indie Award during The Game Awards. It looked nice, played nicely, was well designed, and had some stupendous presentation and cutscenes. A majority of players loved Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and I’m on that boat too. I think this is a great game and the passion put in really shows. I love how a small animation studio took the risk of making a full fledged game and managed to stick the landing. The game has a well constructed world that doesn’t waste your time and offers a tightly designed experience. It’s all very good, but I don’t think this is one of the best indie games to come out. Just because it looks pretty and has the quality of a Triple A product doesn’t mean it’s flawless, and there are a lot of other indie titles that are more deserving of Best Indie. Despite all that, I still think this game is great. Today we’ll be talking about why I loved Kena: Bridge of Spirits and why it deserves your attention.
Story
The story follows Kena, a spirit guide, as she journeys to an abandoned village sitting at the foot of a tall mountain. The purpose of a spirit guide is to help deceased souls move on. A majority of souls tend to move on easily, but there are some souls who were either troubled in life or had a bit of unfinished business before death. Hence why they aren’t at peace and require a spirit guide to help them. Kena makes her way to a sanctum known as the Mountain Shrine. The inhabitants of the village used to pray to whatever guardian or higher being protected their village, but one day they all vanished. Once Kena makes it to the outskirts of the village, she discovers the entire place is covered in this root-like corruption and weird monsters are out and about. There is a mad spirit on the loose and he’s doing whatever he can to stop Kena from completing her little journey. Kena is unable to help the spirit at the moment, but these strange chubby creatures called Rot are willing to help her on her journey. Move objects, interact with the world, and help Kena get to where she needs to go. Kena finally makes it to the village to find only one person remains, Zajuro the elder, and he states the path to the Mountain Shrine is locked until Kena can help all the spirits within the area move on from their regrets. To obtain these relics she must journey to different parts of the land, and these relics are being guarded by root creatures and the unease spirits in the area. So that’s what your journey is basically all about. Locate three relics per area, help these spirits, obtain new spells, and learn what happened to the inhabitants. Maybe it’ll connect back to the rot monsters, and why things are the way they are.
Gameplay
Bridge of Spirits has a similar structure to that of the older Legend of Zelda games. Explore the environment, overcome obstacles, unlock new power to solve puzzles and open new pathways, and face the many threats that step into your way. It’s a formula a majority of you Zelda fans may feel familiar with, but there are a couple key differences that separate Kena from the likes of Zelda. For one, traversing the world will require skills in platforming and navigation. You can’t always just walk from Point A to Point B, and there will be times the environment works against you. The spells you unlock throughout the game like your magical bow and spirit bombs are not just tools for combat, but devices you have to use to interact with your environment. Bows can be shot at the glowing flowers which grapple you instantly towards them and reach areas you would normally not be able to get to. The spirit bomb can be detonated and certain resonating rocks and these rocks will form platforms you can use to travers gaps. You have a double jump to boost yourself a little higher and provide a bit of air time, and you can cling onto ledges. Pretty simplistic stuff if you’ve played a platformer.
You will also get these puzzles which require you to interact with crystals in your surroundings. You may have to shoot at them using your magical arrows or use this pulse ability. To perform a pulse you must charge this magical barrier and then release to make it echo across the environment. It will interact with crystals around you, but sometimes you’ll have to rearrange the crystals so that it hits all of which you need it to hit. Kena has this core gameplay loop of traversal, solving a few light puzzles, and progressing until you reach a combat encounter. That may get repetitive after a certain amount of time, but trust me when I say the core gameplay loop is solid and doesn’t get stale as the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are a considerable amount of secrets to be found while exploring and it’s easy to tell where you have to go next. Now, onto another area where Kena truly separates itself from Zelda.
Combat in Kena is rather intense. It’s less about understanding an enemy’s gimmicks and more about actual skill. Dodge their attacks, parry at the right time, hit them when they are open, and try not to take too much damage. Quite a few of these encounters can be grudgingly difficult and you want to master a couple key mechanics if you want to survive long enough. The pulse ability is activated by forming a barrier, but that barrier can also be used to block attacks. The barrier is not an unlimited resource though, because everytime you are hit the barrier will drain. Get hit too much and that barrier will pop. Leaving you heavily exposed to enemy attacks. Trying to activate the barrier while it’s energy is recharging will form a faulty barrier which most of the time does not block damage.One thing you can do though is form a barrier just when an enemy is about to hit you. This will release a pulse which stuns the enemy for a few seconds, otherwise you parry their attacks for critical damage. If blocking and parrying isn’t to your liking then you can always just dodge their attacks. The dodge roll offers a few seconds of invincibility frames as long as you time your dodges right.
Your main method of killing an enemy is by hitting them with your staff. You have a light attack and heavy attack, and new combos can be unlocked through a skill tree. You also have your spells and these can be quite useful when used right. The bow may help deal with flying enemies, foes on high perches, or pick them off from afar. It can also deal critical damage if you land headshots. The bomb can deal a ton of damage if latched onto a foe and detonated using your arrows. It can even be laid along the ground as a trap. New enemy types will require you to use different strategies and approaches to defeat them, and some of them can be really annoying to deal with if you don’t know what to do. Shielded enemies cannot be hit unless you destroy their shields using a powerful attack. Flying enemies cannot be hit with melee attacks easily, and brutish enemies will deal a ton of damage up close if you are not careful. I can go on about the many enemy types in this game, but after a while you just have to get good at the combat system. Certain brutish foes will have yellow crystals dotted along them, and these can be shot at to deal a bit of damage. Picking up the yellow energy dropped will fill this energy gauge along the left bottom side of the screen, and an alternate way of filling it up is by wailing at foes. What can you do with this energy? The Rot, the chubby creatures you befriended, are here to help you out. They can distract foes for a short period of time, activate healing flowers in the arena, or charge powerful Rot attacks you unlock throughout the game all at the expense of spending a little bit of energy. Use them wisely, as trying to get more energy during a hectic moment can be frustrating. The game gives clear signs of when you enter an arena by putting a corrupt withering look to an area and a red bud. These red buds open up once every enemy is defeated, and using the Rot will turn it blue allowing you to purify the area.
Everytime you clear a combat encounter you obtain these points. I forgot what they are called, but basically these are the experience points used to unlock new skills on the skill tree. A lot of these skills are really useful and are necessary if you want to survive future combat encounters. These skills include new combos, a high limit to your spells, a more effective parry, Rot attacks, and much more. It’s one of those skill trees where what you unlock isn’t useless or situational. You actually feel stronger as you unlock more and every upgrade feels well spent rather than a waste. Unfortunately, not every upgrade will be available as you have to find Rot hidden around the world to unlock higher tier upgrades. Rot are cleverly scattered about and are basically the Koroks of this game. Search carefully and you will eventually increase your Rot level. The only other currency to this game are these crystals and they can be used to unlock new hats for the Rot and new outfits at the shop. Most of which do nothing and are just there and serve as collectible cosmetics. Besides that, there’s really nothing much else to talk about. Hopefully you can help put these spirits to rest, reach the Mountain Shrine, and bring peace back to the land.
Thoughts
The best description I can give Kena: Bride of Spirits is that it’s fine tuned. It’s well made and as Ember Lab’s first video game they absolutely knocked it out of the park. I can see a lot of people enjoying Kena and how polished of a product it is. Every area of this game is handled fine and it’s better to have a game that’s good in every area rather than middling. Let’s get my appraisals out of the way first before we address my criticisms. Kena is visually breathtaking. Every area is colorful, full of life, and makes use of next generation lighting and texturing. Traversing across the world feels natural, well paced, and it never felt like the game slowed down. Kena is always keeping you on track and making sure you get to your destination within a few minutes. It even offers warp points similar to that of Bonfires just so you don’t have to waste so much time to get back to a distant point within a dungeon to find an item or meditation spot you missed. Puzzles focus around your tools and abilities, and never get too confusing. This does mean Kena never really tests your intelligence or pushes it beyond the extreme, but most puzzles are fairly designed and Kena does challenge you in other areas. The game is just satisfying to progress through and every upgrade you pick up is useful.
The story is good. It’s not incredible as none of its ideas are original or were handled better in a lot of other games, but for the most part it is confident. This young woman goes on a dangerous journey to help out others. She could be doing this for herself or gaining the validation of others for being a hero, but she strives to do the right thing and help put people to rest. Every spirit who is unwilling to move on has an interesting backstory, and the main mystery of what is going on gets more intriguing the further you progress. The presentation is top notch, the voice acting is good as they hired top notch actors, and the animation of course is splendid. If you saw the team’s Majora’s Mask animation then you should know what to expect here. Fluidity, smooth transitions, and a lot of expression through just how a character poses and emotes. There’s a lot of cinematic moments throughout the game and they are all spectacular to witness. Tons of visual effects and special moments that cannot be witnessed within the gameplay. At times, Kena will transform into an animated film and you just have to sit back and enjoy what is going on screen. I swear, these guys better make a film someday because I am one hundred percent down to paying and watching it. The soundtrack is also spectacular too as a wonderful score is given to prepare you for fantastical fights, emotional sequences, and the peacefulness of the world.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a good game and at times I would even call it a great game. However, there are problems with it and they are what transform Kena into a flawed experience for me at least. The combat has a lot of rough edges. It’s not the worst combat in the world. I mean it is fun at times, it’s challenging, and the fulfillment of getting out of a tough encounter is great, I think they made a combat system that is quite compelling, but there are times when it stops being fun. Annoying enemy types, throwing too many at you at once, or bosses that make it very difficult for you to find a window of opportunity to attack. There are some foes where melee combat is just downright impossible, and this leads to you using your spells which all have cooldown rates to bring them down. Making some fights drag out longer than they should. Some boss fights are just difficult because of the mechanics they center around. For example, there’s this one stone giant you encounter in the Fields and he requires you to shoot weak points along his body. These weak points are quite small, the boss is constantly flailing about, unleashing heat waves along the ground, and summoning enemies to attack you. What is already an annoying gimmick fight is made even worse with more annoyances. Healing in Kena is also terribly designed as the only way to heal is by using flowers in the arena. Every arena in this game has at least two to three flowers, and they always want to fill you back up to max health. Meaning you have to deal with the limited amount of heals, which sucks. I mean Dark Souls made you manage your health, but at least you had the flask. An item you had equipped at all times and could be used to heal easily instead of using a system such as this.
Your attacks also don’t really feel good. All of them have a good amount of impact, but they feel finicky to perform. Trying to perform a well timed parry is wonky as well, because it’s either the parry does not work or it’s delayed because the way you parry is by forming a bubble. Which is an extremely dumb way of parrying, because any ordinary action game would give you a shield or repost with the tool you have. You already have a staff, so why not just block an attack with it at the right time? Platforming is fine, but doing it isn’t always great. Momentum is occasionally lost midair and sometimes Kena won’t make jumps she could have made easily. I missed many gaps by an inch and it got frustrating at times. Not enough to rage quit, but enough to make me ask “Why?” Final complaint is how cosmetics work. You would expect them to offer stat boosts or change the way you fight, but they are just there to serve as cosmetics which suck. It means I don’t feel motivated to unlock more of them, which makes collecting crystals throughout the game feel pointless. Kena: Bridge of Spirits is really flawed, but I do like the game. What it does well is done well enough and the game doesn't drag out longer than it should. It’s roughly ten hours long which is a good runtime for such a game. I do recommend Kena: Bridge of Spirits and if Ember Lab does decide to make another game I hope they can make one with both well polished graphics and gameplay. I give Kena: Bridge of Spirits an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
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