(Image credit: Ember Lab)

Charming Side Kicks with Brutal Enemies

One might expect an artful fairy tale about cute souls set in a forgotten village on a cursed mountain in Kena: Bridge of Spirits since a team of former Pixar animators developed the game. However, the difficulty of some enemy encounters and some tricky platforming caught The Load Screen by surprise. We review the third-person single-player title debut from Ember Lab out now for PlayStation and PC.

Kena’s story centers around her duty as a spirit guide as she heads to a forgotten village searching for the Mountain Shrine. The town and mountain have a Southeast Asian aesthetic to buildings and decorations but not one derived from a particular culture. As her journey begins, the corruption of the land and an evil spirit dominates the village and mountainside. The corruption is the source of the village’s downfall, and Kena must stop it.

Along the way, Kena meets many poor souls that will aid her, but she must also help them. While bordering on sadness from the loss of death, the game takes a joyful and hopeful look at passing on that is kid-friendly but not without its tear-jerking moments. The generous spirits that Kena meets most often are called Rot, and they steal the show. In fact, the developers should have called the game Cute Rot and some Girl named Kena. These little guys hide all over the mountain, standing only about six inches, covered in thick black hair, and will follow Kena anywhere. They have big Pixar-style eyes and little mushrooms growing off their heads that intensify their lovability.

(Image credit: Ember Lab)

Ember Lab further emphasizes the Rot’s domination of the game by giving them the only cosmetics: hats. At first, I thought the hats were a weak cosmetic, but since Kena can get so many Rots later in the game, they are one of the best cosmetic systems I have utilized. In what other game can one see thirty or more personalized characters on a screen at once? Add in the camera mode, and the cuteness level goes off the chart, but their dark black fur makes getting their finer details hard.

The Rot and their cuteness even show up in the combat system, but so do some issues with difficulty. The combat system is unforgiving since enemies do a lot of damage even at lower difficulties, and dodging takes precise timing. I could never dodge or counter some boss attacks, and those nearly unblockable moves easily take away half of Kena’s life. The combat is simplified with only two primary attack types, dodging, blocking, and only a handful of other attacks like bow and bombs, but since the timing is tight, the game feels more like Dark Souls.

Adding to that feeling of player punishment, the developers made some boss fights more difficult by putting an enemy with big animations and attacks in a tiny environment. This situation makes maneuvering and dodging the target hard, let alone keeping them on the screen. The worse part about these deaths is that the game often autosaves before a set of unskippable animations or scenes where the skip function barely works. The fights are challenging, but the double punishment for failure is acutely painful in this game.

(Image credit: Ember Lab)

Kena: Bridge of Spirits also had some other issues that focus on third-person platforming. The game is not open world, despite the map and several sections feeling this way. Invisible barriers block paths that would be available if the developers made the game fully explorable. There is some parkour exploration layered throughout every zone, so it feels awkward when Kena runs into unseen obstacles. Further, the climbable edges often force Kena into a slow jump that places her grasping the ledge instead of landing on top. The confusing player map adds to the platforming madness since it does not precisely detail the winding paths of the region.

Ember Lab made a stunning and heartfelt game in Kena: Bridge of Spirits but has some clunky gameplay details. The cuteness and unexpected difficulty found in the title are worth its value, mainly because it is not an AAA-priced game. The third-person exploration single-player game is flawed, but The Load Screen team will look forward to more Ember Lab projects, especially anything more for Kena.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

• Developer: Ember Lab

• Publisher:  Ember Lab

• Release Date: 9/21/2021

• Played on: PC and PlayStation 5

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