Game Review: Kena: Bridge of Spirits

 I really want to give top praise to Ember Lab for what they accomplished here. Founded in 2009 by Mike and Josh Grier, up until this point the company was best known for animated projects over the years. Their biggest project I remember hearing about and watching was The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask fan video they animated called Terrible Fate. Terrible Fate was a brilliantly realised fan video which impressed loads of people for its movie-like quality and ability to capture the tone and style of the video game with ease. Knowing what Ember Lab are capable of in terms of animated content, it seemed an easy decision for them to move on to video game development as the next big adventure. That adventure resulted in their debut indie game for PlayStation consoles called Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a 3rd person action-adventure game in which you play the role of Kena, a young spirit guide. Kena’s responsibility as a spirit guide has her travelling the region in order to find the lost spirits of ones who have passed and seek to help them cross from the physical world into the spirit world. To help the spirits cross over is no easy task, personal motivations and emotions tie their spirits to this realm and the corruption at the heart of the land plays a part in keeping these entities trapped here. As Kena you will navigate through the region, cleaning the corruption where you can, while going on deeply personal journeys with several spirits to help them pass on to the next world. In order to help with this objective, Kena finds and befriends small and charming spirit companions called Rot; don’t let the name mislead you as these creatures are the most charming and endearing aspect of the game. Together with the Rot you will seek to cleanse the region and help in whatever capacity you can to get these spirits to move forward. I think as an initial concept there is so much originality and beauty to this set up. There is no complicated or long-winded narrative at play here. Ember Lab knew to accompany the artistic style of the game, they needed something compelling but approachable for nearly all audiences to appreciate and I think they nailed it brilliantly. 

Speaking of the narrative, I have to say there is some really grounded aspects to it all. Defined visually by its beauty, the game is defined narratively through the heavy mix of emotions it utilises. As the game tackles the concept of bridging spirits from this life onto the next, it’s easy to assume this game deals with the topic of death. I think the way the story deals with the concept of death is very mature but again subtle enough to be approachable for all ages. The spirits you help all are defined through memories you find in objects called relics. These relics help you glimpse into their past and see the events that defined their characters before they met their untimely end. It’s a great storytelling device because it shows, rather than explains and lets you as the player piece together the mystery behind their death and allows you to further empathise with them in order to help their spirits rest. While I consider the initial concept of the narrative endearing, there is one notable weak link to it all which I consider Kena herself. I am familiar with the argument that having a blank slate of a character better allows you to imprint yourself onto them and better experience the game on a personal level, but I don’t believe that was the intention here. Kena seems notably underdeveloped on a personal level when compared to the spirits she helps save. I think it’s a shame too because there are underlying hints of a history and backstory to her character, but it doesn’t get explored all that much. It’s not like Ember Lab were incapable of defining good characters, they showed that with how well written these spirits stories are, so it just feels like a real missed opportunity to not do the same for Kena herself. Despite the missed opportunity with Kena herself however I can’t sing the praises of the narrative enough. From beginning to end its themes and concepts are layered so beautifully within the world and are helped majorly by Ember Labs top notch animated work within the cutscenes. It’s a story filled to the brim with heart and emotion, and it encompasses a subtle yet all around compelling approach to storytelling.

Accompanying the sublime storytelling is the graphical design for the game. Kena: Bridge of Spirits looks utterly fantastic in every sense of the word. Visually, this game is miles ahead of the game in realising the technical potential of the current generation of hardware. Ember Lab used the Unreal Engine here to its utmost limit, crafting environments and character models that feel truly original and wonderous to behold. During a lot of my time playing this game I felt I was watching a high-budget movie, it was that seamless an experience at times. The region this game is set in is deep within the heart of a mountain valley and the game has such a variety of locations within this valley that showcases a lot of natural beauty. There is so much charm to the world design of the game that you feel an inherent desire to explore every nook and cranny to simply see it all in its wonderous splendour. It’s not just the world design, but also the character and creature design that stands out. As I’ve already noted, the inherent design of this world feels akin to a high budget animated movie and that’s further reinforced in the design of Kena and the spirits she meets. The way they can emote and express themselves during cutscenes is amazing, their overall design and facial animation get across so much emotion within a few frames. There’s a reason this development studio is known so well for animation, they can do so much with in it and it’s easy to tell just from the look and feel of everything in this game. Considering the inherent themes of the games visual design is nature in it’s purest and most compelling form, it’s duly appreciated that the corruption of the land and the enemies that spawn from it reflect nature but in a darker and more tainted fashion.  By having a lot of the game showcase a lot of natural beauty and colour, it’s a clever choice to use a lot of darker colours and crooked angles in the design of the corruption to play an appropriate conflict that is layered into the story as much as the world design.

During my time with the game, I found the gameplay element was divided into two areas: exploration and combat. Exploration of the world and its many locations is already made inviting enough from the games visual design as previously noted but I like how the environments feel smartly designed and encourage progression-based exploration as you work through the game. I say progression-based exploration in the sense that you will often face blockages and limitations in fully exploring and acquiring everything in one environment and it expects you to return back to these places later on when you acquire more abilities from the games story. Environments are littered with so many collectables and puzzles that reward you in more ways to customise and gear up the Rot that you acquire throughout the game. I think every aspect of the worlds environmental design offers you a lot of positive reinforcement in doing everything each location has to offer in order to unlock everything. I never felt like I was wasting my time of doing mindless busy work and that’s such a notable achievement to have in your world design, especially for a first-time developer. Combat gameplay however is a double-edged sword in my eyes as it both works really in some moments but falls short in others. I think the way combat is implemented in this game is nice enough, you get a variety of different ways to work through combat situations as you work through the game and it’s nice to feel a constant sense of development in the way you fight as you progress further through the game. For me however I found the controls of the combat notably clunky and unreliable in key moments. During high stake fights with bigger enemies or bosses, I found a lot of my deaths came down to the controls just not responding quick enough for me. Plus, there isn’t a very charitable checkpoint system implemented into these fights either so when you do die you’re forced to repeat it all again from the beginning and it just makes the clunky combat controls all the more glaring an issue in light of this. 

Despite a few minor hiccups however I really encourage people to pick up and play Kena: Bridge of Spirits. For their debut title, Ember Lab hits so many positive marks with this game that you could easily mistake this for a AAA experience.  Whether it’s the sweet and endearing storyline or the beautifully realised visual design, this game has so much to offer you as a player and you will find a lot of value in picking this game up. In my book it’s a must-own video game and you are doing yourself a disservice by not playing it.