3.5/5 ★ – brudanos's review of Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Full Review + Trophy Review and Tips Below Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a beautifully animated action adventure where you play as a Spirit Guide that is uncovering a mystery behind a village that has been plagued with rot. You’ll platform, puzzle solve and fight your way through stunning locations during this roughly 10–12-hour game. Kena is the perfect game to play in between some bigger highly anticipated releases as it both doesn’t overstay its welcome but also doesn’t leave a lasting impression. The gameplay is standard enough as you will platform through gorgeous environments until you are hit with a couple of waves of enemies that once defeated will allow you to cleanse the area. This in turn will allow you to continue searching for items or continue your journey. You will play three large areas, each with a final boss at the end that ramps up the difficulty and makes what seemed to be a casual game into more of a challenge. Although I enjoyed the challenge these bosses presented, it felt jarring when enemy encounters leading up to the boss were typically a piece of cake. I also didn’t really engage with the story as I found myself drifting off in thought and skipping scenes all together later in the game. You kind of get the gist of it early on and there wasn’t anything interesting to add further on until literally the end cut scenes. With my issues aside, I really did enjoy my time with Kena and am looking forward to more quality games form these talented developers. Trophies Difficulty: 7/10 Time: 25 hours Trophy Guide: Recommended Trophy List Score: 7/10 Oh Kena, why? Why do you hate you me? This trophy list was easily a 9 out of 10 if not for one simple trophy that requires you to beat the entire game a 2nd time in Master Difficulty. A trophy list that requires a 2nd unnecessary run is a point deduction for me, a “hardest” difficulty related trophy is another deduction and doing both by locking the hardest difficulty and without the option of NG + is just the cherry on top. Unfortunately, having to play the entire game again, including upgrading all your weapons again which require karma and rots to unlock in a game that doesn’t really deserve a repeat play is a tall order to ask. The difficulty spikes in the boss fights married with the less than tight controls just make it a trophy not worth going after for me. The rest of the trophies are well paced out and fun to achieve, even the collectibles which aren’t too hard to keep track of thanks to on the map tracking of each area. Tips: - Keep an eye out for your combat related trophies and get them early on when enemies are still easy to take out. - Really that’s it, the rest of the trophies will come naturally. Happy Trophy Hunting! Beat: 2/14/22 Time: 18 Hours