Last year I finished a playthrough of the story and some of the side content of Kena: Bridge of Spirits, a 3D action-adventure game. I enjoyed exploring the world, the fighting and progression systems, the score, and most of all the art style. Spoilers follow.

First and foremost: how in the world do you pronounce her name? Is it Key-Na, or Kay-Na?

Ah, Kay-Na. I played this game and for the longest time I coulda sworn that they pronounced it both ways in the game. Anyway.

I looks and plays like an all-ages game. It has Uncharted-style climbing, plus some platformer traversal (Kena can double jump from the get-go). The style looks child-friendly, the soundtrack is anything but subtle, and the script is very simple. The polish is quite nice (though switching between animation states (walk, run, jump, fall, double-jump, attack, roll) is a bit jarring after spending some time in the crunch-fueled shine of The Last of Us Part II’s animations), and it controls very straightforwardly. Mix in a cute little soot-sprite species that you can dress up (by discovering and purchasing outfits with one of the several in-game currencies) and it’s pretty clear who the audience is expected to be, right?

But then there’s the bosses. I can’t help but notice the influence of, yes, Dark Souls. You need to dodge, parry, and go after those bosses again and again until you “git gud” and learn how to beat them. And then learn how to execute on learning how to beat them. I was _not_ expecting a game so friendly and, well, easy to have such punishing boss fights.

I was also not expecting it to be quite so obvious when they changed engine between cutscenes and gameplay. I’ve been spoiled by recent fads where everything is rendered in-engine, even if they turn up the quality knobs for story beats where they can control the camera. It was almost nostalgic to see the seams.

A bug report: If you turn off the “button legend” setting (telling you which buttons do what) then there’s no prompt for the one action that lets you escape the tutorial area by ducking under a tree (an action you never do again). I try turning off more of the screen clutter when giving the option (video games are a visual medium, and I’m easily distracted by HUD elements), and this one had me lost for a minute.

Another juxtaposition with the childlike world is how muddled the philosophy is. You’d expect an easy good vs. evil, maybe a little redemption… but no. And this is in contrast with the politics, which are openly conservative. A bit of that is in the “conserve the environment” sort of way, but a lot of it is also “accept your fate” and “listen to the elders and do what they tell you”. Which not only doesn’t resonate with me in particular, it doesn’t flow through to how they paint the “bad guy”. There’s an evil worldview of… trying to save people’s lives and livelihoods? And the good worldview of… sometimes entire villages just need to die? And there’s no conversation between the “good” philosophy and the “evil” one. It’s very disconnected, and not in the “it is actively trying to have nothing to say” blandness I’ve come to expect from corporate art. I just don’t know what it’s trying to say?

If you want a less conflicting and simplistic view of the inevitability of death, you’ll have to play Spiritfarer, I guess. And if you want a more cohesive and complete and consistent set of mechanics and worldbuilding, you can dig out your PS2 and play Beyond Good and Evil.

Recommended for people looking for that Jak and Daxter experience, but with lush Ghibli visuals and rich orchestral score… and only if you’re willing to wipe and repeat the bosses a couple handfuls of times.