I have high hopes for this one, looks like a blending of Ghibli with Pixar. First game from an indie studio though, prior to that I think they did animation work.
Out this August.
Too many smirks for me, but it does look cool.
Don’t smirk-shame, Dave!
I know a design consultant on the game. He’s an experienced combat designer (worked on Tomb Raider and Amalur). Might bode well.
I really liked the trailer, and I’ll definitely keep an eye on this.
Hands on previews happening, looks pretty good
Delayed until September.
Out tomorrow. No early reviews but it’s a small dev so not reading much into that yet. Launch trailer is very well done
Unless the reviews are absolutely awful, I’ll be buying this one (somewhere next week, probably). Looks great to me, and I think my daughter will appreciate it aswell.
Embargo has dropped. Overall good scores.
SkillUp really dug it.
Polygon not to so much.
Eurogamer didn’t care for it either:
Think I’ll just play it in 12–18 months when it’s free on PS+.
Some of the review quotes are interesting:
EG - “Kena is smooth as a pebble - a game engineered to be so unoffensive there’s no reason not to play it, or to play it at all.”
Gamesradar - “An agreeable adventure that’s transformed into something special by its enchanting aesthetic”
Destructoid - “I wouldn’t call Kena: Bridge of Spirits overly ambitious. More like “strategically ambitious.” Ember Lab avoided biting off more than it could chew with its first game, and I dug it.”
Polygon - " And when the formula is such an overwrought entity, how can anything really be magical? There are no real secrets in Kena: Bridge of Spirits , only collectibles. There’s no mystery, either; just more arena combat."
TheGamer - “Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a very good game that feels like it’s already been left behind by modern genre conventions. There’s nothing all that frustrating in that - we shouldn’t expect games, especially those made by studios the size of Ember Labs, to be constantly groundbreaking, but so much of Kena feels borrowed from elsewhere that it’s difficult to call it great. It’s a solid, enjoyable experience, and charming enough that you won’t care that you’ve played versions of it before. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a pretty nice wheel nonetheless.”
There are of course more positive ones.
You can form a solid idea of how the game is in your head, by reading them.
Picked this up last night, and mostly just got to watch my 7 year old play for an hour. First impressions are that I would hire this team for art design in a moment. The cutscenes are a bit better looking than the game itself, but not so much that you would really notice, but they also just have a movie quality to them that feels like watching a well-made, modern animated film.
The gameplay itself seems fine. It’s standard double-jumps, dodge, parry, and swing combat and exploration. Nothing groundbreaking, but it all seemed smooth enough. No noticeable jank here.
I’m a few hours in and liking it. It’s pretty polished. I’ve seen some folks complain about boss difficulty but I haven’t found it too bad, cleansed the first spirit mask. It’s vibrant visuals and audio is also top notch. Gameplay is of that explore areas and unlock abilities so you can get to other places. Combat so far has mostly been arena style and bad guys stop spawning once you beat the area.
I played a few hours last night as well! Gorgeous game. I really love the little rot design. And having to send them out to accomplish tasks during combat is an interesting wrinkle.
After three hours played, I dropped Kena. And the interesting thing here, imo, it’s how hard was for me to decide to drop it.
It’s a beautiful game, and the gameplay is decently polished in both platforming and combat, so there was no obvious reason to drop it. No part of the gameplay was inherently bad, so it was to consider dropping it.
And still, I did it. It’s just so… dull. Bland. Derivative. From start to finish. Maybe it’s the definitive proof that an absence of jank doesn’t make a good game.
From the overall game structure, to the moment to moment gameplay which at this point it isn’t even a copy, it’s more a copy of a copy, which you have played before a dozen of times, to even the art style (as nice as it is, it’s derivative of Disney/netflix modern animation films, with a bit of Mononoke style thrown in there) to the story.
Maybe I don’t like third person action adventures games as much as other genres, so I’m less forgiving here than with other games.
And man, the story. I don’t know if it improves later, but I can say is, in those three hours, you start by knowing nothing (except the obvious, you are a guardian spirit on a quest of saving some poor lost spirits) and from there simply imagine a story written by AI like gpt3 with the following words as inputs:
guardian
spirit
sacred forest
shrine
corruption
tree
energy
I finished it this morning and it’s gonna be in my top 10 of the year for sure,maybe even top 5.
What surprises me are the YT videos showing how hard it pushes 3090s at 4k.
I’m enjoying Kena but I’m stuck trying to cleanse the fishing shrine.
I shoot four magic pillars with arrows and then two flying firebugs appear. But if I kill them, the puzzle resets. I’ve tried steering a rot cloud over to the shrine from the nearest magic bubble plant but I can’t find a path to guide it there. Maybe there’s a closer magic bubble plant I’ve overlooked?
I do not want a hint! But I might want the vaguest general suggestion of a shadow of a thing resembling a nudge in the right direction. I gotta get that plant to open so I can sic my rots on it.
30 SECONDS LATER: I just did a google image search to add a picture to this post and accidentally found an image with circled hints on it so I think I know what to do. I had the right idea with two torch-like pillars near the shrine but it seems the firebugs need to light up something else.
As always, thanks for helping, Qt3! The price was right during the Epic holiday sale and I’m glad I picked it up. It’s a pretty fun and challenging game plus it’s got appealing vibes.
If you’re still stuck I can drop a hint