
Developer Ember Lab also says that future patches will contain Rot optimization improvements, among other things. The number of visible Rot on screen is a factor, and there is a setting that limits how many are visible at once. From the second half onwards, however, I started to run into significant framerate drops, and had to lower the graphics settings to tease out the performance I was getting at the beginning. With my GTX 1650 and 8 GB RAM-sitting at the lower end of what's required-Kena ran pretty smoothly for the first half of the game. I enjoyed exploring them all, despite having to fiddle with the settings to get performance I was happy with. It's enjoyable enough to play that its characters and environments-sun-kissed forests, moody caves, a snowy mountain-aren't wasted, even if they aren't used to the fullest. If I weren't having any fun at all, Kena's cute little spirit pals and unnerving enemies wouldn't have kept me going. The greatest challenge, really, is locating the crystals you need to shoot on rotating platforms. Although you're not required to make the shots in mid-air, you're always on a strict time limit. An explosion temporarily raises debris into the air, meaning you need to quickly jump from one chunk of masonry to another (and sometimes rotate them with a well-placed arrow).

It's useful in combat (and compulsory for one enemy type), but it's also used for some traversal puzzles. The sticky bomb mixes things up a little once you unlock it, too. One of the final bosses is quite good, forcing you to constantly look around and switch between your bow and staff. The art and story help prop up the so-so gameplay, then, but there are still combat and platforming highlights to be found. Its comments on grief-and the terrible things people can do when driven by that dark engine-are nudged toward the player gently and easily identified as everyday truths. However, it doesn't hurl its themes at you like a pie filled with sentimental life advice, which plenty of media is guilty of.


On the surface, it's another conventional choice: a village and land ruined by a magical evil, spirits that need help leaving the mortal realm.
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The story feels a little incomplete-cutscenes sometimes come across as deleted scenes from a movie I haven't seen, and none of the characters are particularly fleshed out, least of all Kena herself-but it did generate enough curiosity to keep me wanting to move forward. Strategic use of game design conventions isn't inherently bad, but in no area does Kena reach beyond convention. The ledges you can grab on to are, as is tradition, marked with what I can only assume is bird poo. There are targets to shoot within a time limit. There are giant flowers which act as grapple points. Combat is very familiar, complete with enemies carrying glowing weak spots. The fundamental issue with Kena, which rears its head almost everywhere you look, is that you'll have done almost everything on offer here a hundred times before. There are a few neat implementations of this but, generally, the potential here is agonisingly underexplored. They're used to destroy areas of corruption blocking your way, and you can order them (at specific points) to throw switches or carry objects around. The Rot are also essential to progress while exploring the overworld.

Seeking out personal items in order to gently move a soul on, I can understand, but repeatedly hitting them in the face with a stick? Seems rather unorthodox, but I guess that shows what I know about spirits. This means searching three areas for relics attuned to the spirit, clearing corruption and defeating lesser unfriendly spirits on the way. It's her job to help souls move on from the mortal plane. Overall, Bridge of Spirits is a pleasant cruise through familiar action platforming waters. It keeps the story moving throughout its 8-10 hour runtime without too much friction outside of some potentially tricky fights, depending on your chosen difficulty. The map is dotted with warp points anyway, and the game autosaves regularly, so you're never in danger of losing much progress or repeatedly running through the same empty areas. Kena: Bridge of Spirits might look like a Zelda game at a glance, but it's a largely linear action-adventure game that takes place in one large map, and you're rarely required to retrace your steps.
