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Kena Bridge of Spirits Review Thread

Shakka43

Member
What a hell, all my ability points just vanished, I had been saving them up for 2-3 hours, had something like 200 and they all disappeared and the counter reset. Now I'm at 10.
This hasn't happened to me but I've had to reload my save point about four times cause either Kena loses the ability to interact with loot boxes or the Rots refuse to move objects to were I command.
 

Bragr

Banned
Man, Tekken 2 looks ugly.
Tekken2.jpg
 

XXL

Member
This might be my GOTY.... I'm absolutely in love with this game.

You give this studio more expierence, money and manpower... they're going to create a fucking masterpiece in the future.

It's honestly unbelievable that this was made by 14 people and this is their 1st game. Wtf.
 

dano1

A Sheep
I played this game for 40 minutes, and refunded it on EGS. It feels ... a bit lifeless or soul less. I can't put my finger on it but while the graphics look great everything feels super static, yeah it's a small team I get it. But if you don't even make a stylistic HP bar, for the main character and for the enemies that's a shame in a way for me.

The Dreamworks faces just annoy the shit out of me.
The graphics while look nice are just too static, nothing really moves when your character moves.
The gameplay is fine, I like the parry system, and reactiveness of the enemies
Audio design is great.

But it just feels so .... lifeless I have never felt this with a game before

It's a shame cause playing The Pathless was a great experience when it came to indie stuff but this feels like they just used a lot of basic assets and cranked up the visuals for them.

You barely made it to the title screen 😂. It’s actually a pretty good game. Getting better as I go. But yes I want to smash things that I can’t!
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


Though it relies on familiar combat and exploration mechanics, Kena: Bridge of Spirits gives a new perspective through its beautiful art direction, emotional story, and super-cute Rot companions.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is, in some ways, a familiar action-adventure game. You'll see similarities in it from the likes of titles such as Okami, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and a host of other titles in the genre. But developer Ember Studios does a great job of giving a new look on the familiar throughout the game, both to tell the deep and emotional story of a spirit guide helping traumatized ghosts move on from this world, and in how it uses gameplay for some deceptively tough combat and smart puzzles.

You play as Kena, a spirit guide trying to find out what has happened in the area around an abandoned village, where all the inhabitants have fallen to tragedy. The pained spirits have been twisted by what has happened to them, causing the land around the village to be poisoned by a spreading corruption. Kena's role as a spirit guide is to help heal those ghosts, and to do that, you have to fight their twisted forms with a combination of melee attacks, dodges, and parries.

But you also have access to the Rot, a group of tiny spirit companions who change up everything about the way Kena plays. The Rot can be used in battle to distract enemies or to power up Kena's special spirit energy attacks. They also work together with your combat abilities to make most fights feel like a puzzle to be solved. The Rot are essential to destroying the poisoned hearts that spread the corruption, and you'll need to think tactically to deploy them at the right time, and in the right way, to defeat Kena's tough enemies and bosses.

With a big world to explore, lots of innovative puzzles to solve with the abilities of both Kena and the Rot, and some excellently designed boss fights, Kena does a lot to stand apart from similar action-adventure games. Its combination of story and mechanics make it a beautiful journey to take. For more, check out our full written Kena: Bridge of Spirits review.
 

DZ_b_EZ

Member
I'm going to wait for the physical copy launch in November. I've been anticipating this game since the reveal but I can wait a couple of more months. I hope you guys have fun.
 

dorkimoe

Member
This hasn't happened to me but I've had to reload my save point about four times cause either Kena loses the ability to interact with loot boxes or the Rots refuse to move objects to were I command.
Assuming you are using suspend/resume on xbox as well it messes up some gameplay sometimes. And you have to kill the app to fix. I havent experienced it on ps5 yet but I assume thats what it is.
 
Lovely charming game but I had to turn down the difficulty to Easy. Was getting my ass whooped in one of the bosses. Now I’m enjoying it more.

The first boss killed me twice as well, but that was more of an issue of fighting tactics that I chose. I tried to fight him at a distance. Staying in close was the trick for me, and lots of dodge rolls.
 

ahtlas7

Member
I’m happy my original impression was wrong.
Felt to flashy to be true but seems they pulled it off! Great.
Another game for the library.
 

MagnesG

Banned
Controls are fine. Plays better than eurojank

The movie tripe is getting stale now. Come up with something else
Nah. I don't think it's worth my time playing games with less emphasis on gameplay, it's kinda insulting playing fakes. And I very much loathe these generic action rpg, same old same old game loop tropes. Played them a couple of times and you'll see the pattern, some may enjoy that but definitely not me.That shit is only worth for YouTube playthrough at best these days.

Such a waste of indie potential only focusing on the tried and true graphics, I guess PS casuals would like it.Game movies market is big though so they may have catch up to their target fanbase. Congrats.
 

Malakhov

Banned
Which boss are you guys talking about? I dont think i've encountered a tough one yet

Man this game is great, I have tried about 6-7 games in the last week and couldnt get into any of them, I was getting desperate and this hits me out of nowhere.

Throw them millions, let them make a triple A game.
 
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mhirano

Member
Don’t mean this in a console war way, but this game looks better than anything Nintendo has ever developed, and it’s made by a team of only a dozen or so people.

Truly a remarkable achievement as far as graphics are concerned.
Are you telling me a 4k/10-teraflop-machine exclusive game looks better than the 720p-tablet games????
No way man!
 

Shakka43

Member
Assuming you are using suspend/resume on xbox as well it messes up some gameplay sometimes. And you have to kill the app to fix. I havent experienced it on ps5 yet but I assume thats what it is.
Happened after a fresh boot up. An update was just pushed for the game, hopefully it fixes that plus some framerate issues that occur from time to time.
 

dano1

A Sheep
Lovely charming game but I had to turn down the difficulty to Easy. Was getting my ass whooped in one of the bosses. Now I’m enjoying it more.

Just did also. Made it through a couple bosses. But I’m here for the adventure not the combat.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Which boss are you guys talking about? I dont think i've encountered a tough one yet

Man this game is great, I have tried about 6-7 games in the last week and couldnt get into any of them, I was getting desperate and this hits me out of nowhere.

Throw them millions, let them make a triple A game.
Ember Lab's Jak and Daxter?
 

tommib

Member
Only 5 minutes in, just giving impressions
-Graphics amazing
-60 fps amazing
-cutscenes appear to be in 30fps? yuck

I hope these devs get bought up and get a chance to make a big sequel. I dont know where the game is going to go as i said only literally 5-10 minutes in. Id love to see ability to upgrade gear/loot type mechanics. Sony could buy this studio and have their own fable franchise on their hands.
Cutscenes are not real time right?
 

Justin9mm

Member
I won't have time to play until Friday but it looks amazing. So far the only negative I'm reading is control. If it's "clunky" that would drive me crazy.

That's the only reason I can't play R* games. Hopefully it's not too bad as this looks awesome.
I've finally gone back to playing RDR2 after shelving it 4 hours in not long after launch. Playing on PS5, controlling Arthur walking and running is painfully painfully bad. The fact that R* does not address this is a testament to how much they don't give a fuck lol
 
Right? I think this is the next The Last of Us, only better in every way.

On a serious note, I wonder why the physical release is so much later.. need to recoup some of the Digital Edition costs early?
Yeah that actually is kinda annoying. I sent a message to ember labs, but I won't hear back from them I guess. I want to know if the pre order dlc will be up on psn in the future.
 
Nah. I don't think it's worth my time playing games with less emphasis on gameplay, it's kinda insulting playing fakes. And I very much loathe these generic action rpg, same old same old game loop tropes. Played them a couple of times and you'll see the pattern, some may enjoy that but definitely not me.That shit is only worth for YouTube playthrough at best these days.

Such a waste of indie potential only focusing on the tried and true graphics, I guess PS casuals would like it.Game movies market is big though so they may have catch up to their target fanbase. Congrats.

Go back to your dogshit switch threads
 

GymWolf

Member
Anyone else think the boss difficulty is off compared to the rest of the game?
I heard people saying that the game is kicking their asses more than sekiro and returnal on normal, mostly the boss fights and some mid bosses.

Great news if you ask me, i was ready for yet another cakewalk like ratchet.

Sure i would prefer to have a constant challenge with normal enemies too instead of boss spikes, but better than nothing i guess.
 
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