For all of you that have been waiting to play Kena: Bridge of Spirits but don’t have a PS5 and are averse to the Epic Game Store, your 370-day wait is over. Yes, one year and five days after its debut, Kena arrives on Steam with an Anniversary update and a Deluxe Edition bundle including fun bonus items and even a soundtrack. Having already played Kena on the PS5 when it launched, I was excited to revisit this magical adventure and see if my RTX 3080-equipped PC could power its way through a few of the performance issues I had on the console.
For those unfamiliar with Kena, you’ll be playing as a young female spirit guide on a mission to rid the world of a spreading corruption and maybe send a few lingering and restless souls to their final destination. Armed with a staff and later, a bow, as well as a few dozen adorable plush creatures called Rot, Kena will explore this enchanted, and sometimes scary, world engaging in plenty of casual combat as well as numerous and significantly more challenging boss fights that will test your expanding knowledge and skill sets. Between encounters you get to explore a highly detailed world full of secrets and collectibles. Crack open barrels and chests to acquire in-game currency that can be used at various vendor carts to buy costumes for Kena and hats for your Rot. This is all purely cosmetic and has no effect on gameplay, and you’ll likely end up with more money than you could possibly spend.
The PC version definitely blows past the PS5 on a statistical level with native 4K and smooth 60fps animation that will often make you feel like you are interacting with a Studio Ghibli movie in real-time. The cuteness factor is off the charts; especially if you leave the game unattended for a few minutes and the idle animation of Kena sitting down to interact with the Rot triggers. You can also trigger this moment with the D-pad as well then use other inputs to kiss, dance, and many other adorable emotes. It’s fun one or two times, but you get over it pretty quickly. Controls are excellent with either an Xbox or PlayStation gamepad but given the nature of the platforming and combat I’d stay away from keyboard and mouse.
Combat is surprisingly great with a nice mix of melee and ranged combat once you get the bow. There is a nice variety of enemy types that will constantly have you switching up tactics and the bosses all have interesting patterns to learn that will help you defeat them. The combat loop basically consists of you beating on the enemies that slowly fills the Courage meter for your growing “army” of Rot. Once activated, you can point to specific enemies or sensitive parts of a boss and send them rushing in to assist where they will do damage based on their level and abilities as well as momentarily stun the boss or creature allowing you to get in a few free strikes. A nice slow-motion ability can be triggered, which definitely helps in lining up those tricky bow shots when you are trying to knock yellow crystals off a boss’s body or trying to line up that perfect grapple shot.
My only issue with combat was trying to parry; not something I normally do outside of games like Sekiro that actually require it, but Kena does offer specific and powerful counters that are based on your ability to parry. The only issue here is that the window of opportunity to successfully parry is about five frames of animation, and if you don’t hit the button within that strict window your parry will fail or just turn into a simple block. Difficulty settings don’t seem to matter on this, so if enough people complain maybe they’ll change the timing in a future patch.
The Rot also assist Kena in exploration by being able to pick-up and move objects at your command to create a stepping ledge or maybe repair a toppled statue. Perhaps what I love the most about these creatures is how seamlessly integrated they are placed into the world around Kena. Being spirits themselves, the Rot will continually vanish and reappear ahead of Kena as you explore, so even if you have only a few rescued it looks like you have more because they are always waiting ahead of you. To unleash their true power, you’ll need to activate a special plant that will assemble all the Rot into a giant blob you can direct to attack with light and heavy strikes; a great way to clear patches of corruption. And don’t forget to feed your friends if you come across a berry bush.
Behind the scenes there is a nice skill tree for both Kena and the Rot that will slowly turn your collected Karma into more powerful abilities that you will definitely need as the story progresses. Kena: Bridge of Spirits turned out to be longer than I had originally assumed, clocking in at around 15 hours to finish but not 100% complete. Add a few more hours of backtracking and careful exploration to find and collect everything this game has expertly hidden.
The Steam release includes the anniversary update that offers a New Game+ mode as well a new Spirit Guide Trials, Outfits earned by completing those trials, Charmstones that can be equipped to tweak your playstyle with certain buffs, and an enhanced photo mode that is dangerously addicting. The Deluxe bundle on Steam comes with the soundtrack, which is just as enjoyable outside the game as it is while playing – I’m listening to it right now while I type this.
Overall, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a fantastic and delightful game that will appeal to the entire family thanks to scalable difficulty that allows casual gamers to experience the story and exploration while combat aficionados will find an increasingly challenging series of boss fights waiting for them. The visuals are just as good as any feature animated movie with cutscenes that seamlessly integrated into the gameplay. A stirring score and professional voice acting complete the package, and I can’t wait to see more adventures of Kena or whatever Ember Lab has in store for us next.
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