This is the first game that I have paid full price for in over a year. I am simply not an early adopter of games because in many cases the game will be on special after the initial market rush and also because pre-sale reviews can not be trusted since all the reviewers who receive pre-sale copies will either say wonderful things about it, or say nothing at all lest they not be included in pre-sale copies in the future.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits somehow just did it for me in terms of marketing because there aren't enough adventure games that are worth buying on the market. I was always going to buy this game on release date after seeing just a little bit of the in-game footage.
I have my opinions both good and bad about this game but for the sake of keeping this short enough that people are actually going to read it, I will first focus on the pro's.
<center> **MILD SPOILERS AHEAD**</center>
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<h3> It's a beautiful, magic-filled, fantasy world </h3>
I'm a big fan of fantasy-themed anything. I love fantasy films, I love fantasy games, and before everyone stopped doing it I was a big fan of fantasy board games.
The world you find yourself in isn't named as far as I can tell but you play the role of *Kena* and it is your job to take people spirits from the "regular world" to the afterlife. It's a tragic tale because a lot of the people you encounter don't seem to be aware of the fact that they are already dead. In fact, this might be a mild spoiler even though it becomes pretty clear very early on. If I ruined this somewhat obvious aspect of the game for you, my apologies.
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The art style used in the main town is just lovely and even though I tried to discover the reuse of various attributes I couldn't find any so it seems as though the devs went out of their way to make every single aspect of the village unique, just like a real village would be.
Kena utilizes various magic skills in order to interact with her surroundings and like you would expect, these become more varied and powerful as the game progresses. If you like magic as well as a medieval setting, this is going to appeal to you as well.
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<h3> The cutesy "Rot" characters </h3>
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Just because I am an adult and am not Japanese doesn't mean that I can't enjoy some cute stuff in my life, does it? Well I really enjoyed the almost pet-like followers that your accumulate along your way called "Rot." These little squeaky guys follow you everywhere, will assist you in accessing certain things in the distance, and will even play a major role in combat even though they don't really seem like the fighting type.
They included various hats that you can purchase for your little helpers but unfortunately this is merely aesthetic and doesn't change anything about how they operate. At first this annoyed me but given how many rot you acquire in your journey and how many possible combinations of hats there could be (possibly in the trillions) it would be an absolute nightmare trying to sort out how this works. Initially this was annoying to me that the hats had no effect on gameplay but in the end I am glad it wasn't a factor because then the game would have involved online searches and I hate it when a game becomes something you have to research to do correctly.
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<h3> Easy to understand combat system </h3>
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[src](https://sm.pcmag.com/t/pcmag_au/review/k/kena-bridg/kena-bridge-of-spirits-for-pc_nqkr.1920.jpg)</center>
Strong attack that takes longer, light attack that is immediate, a block/parry, and a ranged attack. Simple. This may actually be a con to some players out there but for casual gamers like me this is exactly how I want my gaming to be. I think this is where the game ended up getting compared to Zelda because it functions in a similar fashion to many of the "3D" Zelda games in all ways other than the fact that you don't have to "lock on" to a particular enemy. You simply point in their general direction and the game determines which one of them you were trying to attack. It is correct most of the time.
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<h3> A nice mix of puzzles and combat </h3>
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I do not like games that are 100% puzzle-solving. I also tend to not enjoy games that are 100% combat. The mix of combat, puzzle, a bit of combat, a harder puzzle is a nice way IMO to mix up the gameplay in order to keep things interesting. Some of the puzzles are a bit too cryptic if you ask me, but we'll get to that in the next installment.
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<h3> Fantastic voice acting (for the most part) </h3>
With the exception of just one character whose accent doesn't make sense based on how he looks, the voice acting in this game is just incredible. I have played quite a few games where selecting the wrong person for the character can be kind of game-ruining. The things that stick out in my mind is the voice of Batman in the Arkham Asylum and also 50% of all the voice actors in any Resident Evil game made before 2015. The voice acting, even by the children, is absolutely perfect in Kena and I commend them for finding just the right people for the job.
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<h3> A reasonably sized world </h3>
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This game is not huge and some might even consider it to be a bit short. I feel as though we can expect some expansion packs down the road and I'll probably groan about that when it happens. It depends on how much they try to charge us for them I guess. In the meantime I actually enjoy the compact nature of the "world" you find yourself in because I am normally quite annoyed when the map in any game is unnecessarily huge and mostly filled with nothing. What is fun about a long run between objectives when there isn't even anything that happens in-between?
This doesn't happen a great deal in *Kena* and for this I am thankful. For about 80% of the map there is a purpose for every single part of the map you happen to find yourself in. You can also use "warp stones" to quick travel from certain points to other points and it's a good thing too because I hate it when in some games a victory in some small corner of the map necessitates a very long walk back to whence you came especially when it involves "fetch quests" which this game thankfully has none of.
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<h3> tl;dr </h3>
For the most part I consider *Kena: Bridge of Spirits* to be a really polished and wonderful game, especially for a small studio. The graphics are great (I'm playing on a PS4), the sound and music are great, the voice acting is great, and the combat system is simple enough that almost anyone will be able to play this with relative ease.
This isn't to say that I think it is a perfect game though and I will get into what I think they did wrong in my next installment.