Kena’s journey to aid spirits – alongside the awfully cute little ‘rot’ creatures – had a pretty good reception back in 2021, as a PlayStation 5 console exclusive. The game has received a massive anniversary update last year and, finally, is coming out to Xbox consoles as well. Let’s figure out what Xbox players had been missing out on with Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and how the game fares on a technical level on Xbox Series X, where I tested the game.
Ken-a game look this good?
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: this game looks as gorgeous as it did on PlayStation 5, no compromises anywhere. The colourful yet incredibly detailed locales, the lush forests, the gorgeous particle effects and shadows – yep, that’s the Kena I remember from the PS5 days, albeit at the time I only briefly tested the game, whereas now I played it in its entirety. There’s still two different settings: quality, focusing on a 4K resolution with the highest level of assets and shadows but at 30fps, with a more compromised performance mode that sticks to 60fps instead.
While the quality of shadows is indeed higher in the former mode, and the image looks a bit sharper, it’s not a huge difference overall and I vastly preferred playing the game in 60 frames per second mode instead, as the game’s Pixar-esque graphics still stood out very well. The game does a good job of constantly hiding all HUD when outside of action, allowing us to marvel at said graphics more and perhaps snap a nice little picture – even outside of the powerful photo mode.
Speaking of updates, Kena: Bridge of Spirits‘ journey hasn’t ended on its release date, and the game has received several patches – most importantly, an Anniversary Update last year, bringing an extremely well-made photo mode into the mix, a new challenge mode with various combat and platforming activities that can be used to unlock new skins for our main character; a New Game+ mode that allows players to restart the entire story but with all unlocks in place, and so forth. This Xbox version already contains all of this goodness from day one, bringing us what was already the definitive version of Kena’s adventure. But is it an adventure worth jumping into?
Spirited away
The most concise answer to that question would be: yes. We jump into the shoes of Kena, a young girl set out to restore order in a village and its surroundings, afflicted by a mysterious wave of energy coming from a mountain, that devastated said village. Now spirits roam the area, unable to move on from their earthly past, needing a spirit guide to move on. That role has fell on Kena, who will encounter multiple such spirits, who will only be able to move on once certain objectives are met. That’s the basic premise for this third person adventure, set in a semi-open world structure that keeps opening up as the player goes, with then souls-esque shortcuts and quick travel that allows us to go back to previously seen before areas with ease.
The story isn’t anything special, though there’s a handful of emotional moments. The in-game map isn’t too detailed and there’s no minimap, so sometimes navigation can be a bit tricky, but I’ve never found myself lost for long. There’s also plenty of invisible walls and some areas where the game glitched out a bit due to faulty hitboxes, but given the game has generous checkpoints and saves, this wasn’t a huge issue.
Early in the journey, we encounter the main travelling pals of our adventure: little black blobby creatures called Rot, who are like the Minions if they were cute and not obnoxious as hell. These little creatures not only follow us around wherever we go, cutely populating rocks, tables or anything we encounter, they also are part of the gameplay in more ways than one. Kena can sit down at any given time, playing with them, cuddling them and so on. But most importantly, they can be used in fights and puzzles, as they can be sent to distract an enemy mid-fight, assuming our “Rot meter” is filled, be used to get rid of the corruption of certain places and plants, and even used to move certain objects, usually to open up new paths or to solve puzzles. Rots are not just very cute, they also give Kena’s adventure a unique bit of personality via various gameplay ideas.
I’ve played this before, haven’t I?
The game’s marvellous visuals and the cuteness of Rots certainly does a lot of heavy-lifting in Kena: Bridge of Spirits, because the gameplay itself plays it fairly safe. Kena has a staff, which can be used for an increasing variety of things as the game progresses: evoke a barrier that can parry attacks, shoot magical arrows from a distance, spawn explosive blobs and then some.
The combat does get increasingly varied, with the cooldowns for the various abilities dictating the pace, but in truth it’s a very safe approach: it’s all about light and heavy melee attacks, dodges, parries, enemies can have shields, fly, many have shiny weak points and so forth. If you played a third person action adventure game in the last decade or so, chances are you already know how Kena’s adventure plays. Hitboxes seem a little hit and miss, to be fair, making parries and dodges feel a bit off at times, which renders some of the harder combat challenges slightly frustrating.
And this feeling of “playing it safe” very much applies to the game world’s structure. It’s an open world-ish approach where the areas open up as the player progresses. This is achieved via story events, puzzle-solving and metroidvania-esque paths that become unblocked via the unlock of new moves.
It all boils down to a very similar, forest biome, with the occasional cave structure or mountain to spice things up. Various puzzles and repeated combat encounters do pad out certain areas a bit, such as a series of four puzzle shrines near the end of the first main plot point.
A lot of paths open up at the end of certain combat encounters – usually the ones with bosses or mini-bosses, with a lot of optional paths hiding little puzzles, collectibles like hats for our Rots, or entirely new Rots to unlock and more.
There’s even a hub of sorts – the village, where players get to solve the “mysteries” of the inhabitants’ spirits, and where we can always go back to for a breather – or to play the various combat and platforming challenges the game has to offer.
Through the customs
Player agency comes in various forms in Kena: Bridge of Spirits. There’s a skill tree that allows the customization of all the various skills – everything can be unlocked eventually, but naturally the order the player chooses ends up dictating the optimal playstyle throughout the playthrough. The staff itself can be customized with various charms, usually having both pros and cons: for example a larger damage output but lower health, an increased efficiency of healing plants and so forth. Lastly, Kena finds various hat shops across the map, where she can buy various unlocked little hats for their cute little Rots. Mushroom heads, cat masks, cowboy hats and more – the already cute little creatures can become even more charming!
The game’s story only takes about 10 hours to complete, but it can easily take at least twice as much if not more to clean up all collectibles, find all Rots, complete all challenges and so forth. There’s even a New Game+ mode, 5 different difficulties and several accessibility options, allowing every kind of player to have a pretty good time with Kena’s gorgeous little adventure. Special mention to the game’s excellent photo mode, absolutely packed with all kinds of options, filters and features, including custom lights, being able to move time forward to find a better moment to shoot and so on. Special mention goes to a magnificent and epic soundtrack though, with very memorable and impactful symphonic sounds, whereas the voice acting is a lot less efficient, with many voices sounding like reading off a script without the best of emotions.
A very solid game in a gorgeous package
Playing through Kena: Bridge of Spirits was a great time for me. A cool concept, a gorgeous art-style, the cute little Rots, a lovely soundtrack and just the right length make this adventure flow nicely, with the end credits rolling before the fairly safe gameplay loop starts becoming too stale.
The game is just a blast to look and listen to, which pardons some of the less impressive combat encounters and the play-it-safe game design. It’s not a game that reinvents anything, but it sets out to do specific things, all of which it does pretty well. Fans of third person action adventure games should definitely consider playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits, with accessibility options and a story mode difficulty allowing even newcomers to videogames to enjoy this colourful, cartoon-esque journey.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Gorgeous, almost Pixar-like visuals
- Fantastic symphonic soundtrack
- The Rots are cute as hell
- Various emotional storylines with the spirits
- A lot of quality of life updates since the original release in 2021
CONS
- Basic combat with some hitbox woes
- A lot of the game design plays very safe
- Voice acting isn't too great
