4/5 ★ – beemancer's review of Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Kena is great piece of storytelling, and an okay piece of gaming. Even at first glance you can tell it has obvious Pixar vibes, but that goes beyond characters with overly rounded facial features - the most important aspect is how emotive faces can be using this formula. There was never a question what Kena was feeling as the story progressed, which made for a really well told adventure. The developers know it's better to show than to tell, and Kena keeps its cards tight. You never really learn everything about the heroine herself, even. You know she's had some trauma and is working on finding her own inner peace, but the story is about the tragic fate of the village that lays at the foot of the Mountain Shrine and how she's helping the spirits find peace. She doesn't need to tell the characters she comes across her story, so you don't really get to hear it either. The story telling is accentuated by gorgeous visuals and a very fitting soundtrack. The OST is excellent, but not something that is going to win awards. It just fits exactly what this story needed, and that's all. The environment is a little repetitive, as the story takes place entirely within the forest and the game doesn't want to make up tiny little biomes. However, this forest is filled with stunning examples of contrast. Obviously the blue shine of the spirit energy alongside the dark red of the corruption and the greens and browns of the natural forest is the most forward, but that makes way for sparse uses of gold and purple that allow the developers to highlight important objects. The few times the weather changes, it's drastic and dramatic - never a drizzle, always a dark, foreboding storm. There's not a huge variety of enemies, but I really dig their aesthetic, and they feel like a common cohesive threat. The gameplay was a little drier than the weather, though. The combat was actually pretty fun, but it wasn't well incorporated into the world. Instead, there were bursts of combat in between streaks of platforming and exploration. It made sense for what it was, pockets of corruption that needed to be cleared, but it didn't work well for me from a gameplay perspective. Combat was appropriately difficult, and you unlock a harder difficulty by beating the game, and you can turn it down as well (which I did, because I found myself not interested enough in repeating the couple of fights I died in). Kena's combat techniques are varied enough to keep things interesting, and a lot of the bosses are pretty cool. The platforming also wasn't very interesting or varied, and the puzzles were quite simple. The real joy was experiencing the story, so I just turned on story mode and sped through most of the gameplay. There's also a lot of collecting and dress up to do if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not necessary or forced. The game is short - I did pretty much the minimum because that's how I am and that took about 8 hours. But it's the right length for the story it wanted to tell. I really, really like the way this story was presented, and if you like spiritual foresty stuff (and let's be honest, The Legend of Korra) you'd probably like this.