GameSpot - 9/10

"The act of meeting and understanding all those other characters is powerful, though. Kena: Bridge of Spirits is ultimately a game about making those connections, just like it's about making a connection with the game world around you through the Rot. It centers on characters who tried valiantly but failed to help one another, and what dealing with that pain did to them. It's about exploring a world and seeing what it once was, and helping to restore it again. And while Kena: Bridge of Spirits is full of familiar-feeling combat and exploration, its ability to find different ways to look at those ideas makes for a beautiful, emotional, and exciting journey."

Game Informer - 9/10

"Bridge of Spirits stumbles a little in spots, yet confidently sprints into the heart of the adventure, rewarding the player with secrets galore and visuals that are almost always worth admiring. If you love Zelda-like games or are just looking for an experience that will make you smile every step of the way, you can’t go wrong with Kena: Bridge of Spirits."

Screen Rant - 9/10

"Kena: Bridge of Spirits is absolutely brilliant. It's one of those rare games that feels like it belongs to the new generation thanks to its magnificent world, and its developers knew exactly how ambitious to be while still providing a top rate experience."

Destructoid - 8/10

"I wouldn’t call Kena: Bridge of Spirits overly ambitious. More like “strategically ambitious.” Ember Lab avoided biting off more than it could chew with its first game, and I dug it. I hope there’s a sequel! After a much-deserved break, of course."

IGN - 8/10

"With its elegantly simple combat and beautiful world, Kena: Bridge of Spirits harkens back to the days of the N64/GameCube-era Zeldas, Okami, and Star Fox Adventures, while also adding modern sensibilities and a distinct personal touch."

Eurogamer - Unscored

"To me, Kena: Bridge of Spirits very much has first game syndrome - something with all the right ideas, weakened by their execution. If it does well - and given the fever with which it's been followed leading up to its release, I expect it will - it'll be because we often value AAA looks and mechanics more highly than attempts at innovation. I'm sure with this foundation Ember Lab has a great game in it, but this isn't it just yet."

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For my part, I'd just recently finished both Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Psychonauts 2 this past weekend and instead of deciding I'd had my fill of retro-tinged platformers this month I figured having just pushed through two really, really good ones would provide the proper perspective for Kena as well. While all the rest of you are out here playing your time loop mysteries, I'm over hearing hopping across ponds and swatting things with assorted melee weapons. Huzzah!

I'm roughly 2 hours into the game, give or take some pause breaks to eat, read an interesting article, and/or make this thread. I won't go as in-depth as I always wind up doing when I post in these threads just yet because it's become clear I'm at the tip of the iceberg, though I'll be curious to see how deep the berg goes. While the game initially presents itself as a fairly melee focused game, from the moment you acquire the bow it seems clear that's the real mechanic Ember Labs is interested in. It provides a small number of perks and environmental benefits I won't go into here since the game doesn't either, in my mind implying a hope of surprising the curious player. Let's just say it wasn't five minutes before messing around with the bow made me smile and nod, "yup, I'll finish this game."

That being said, the tutorial section is also a bit of a red herring in another way - while I'll bet most of the Giant Bomb userbase will wind up disagreeing with me, the game's first "real" boss post-bow ("real" in that it doesn't seem solely intended to teach a new mechanic but actually challenge the player as well) is kind of an ass-kicker. What early fights might not make entirely clear is that the dodge is not a get out of jail free card, remembering to activate the shield when you're desperate isn't just a pro move but essential, and sometimes you're going to have to be very aware of your Rot meter, where various rot charges rest on the battlefield and whether or not you want to be picking them up. It's a very engaging fight, with hints of Souls and God of War though decidedly less polish in the aspects that bring those two games to mind. That being said (© Mike Mahardy) the game mostly animates really, really well, belying the studio's history as a commercial cinematics producer. I think the Pixar comparisons are a bit hyperbolic, but Dreamworks is fair play.

This is where I'll wrap by saying the game does exhibit some rough edges pretty early on. Despite just praising the animations, the jump doesn't feel great, merely good, and I'm not entirely sure that the developers want you playing in Fidelity mode (which locks at 30fps and displays at true 4K) since it defaults to Performance (targets 60fps and upscales to 4K) and some of the Wood Knight's attacks are, well, I s'pose blurry is the word I'd used. Side by side, I'd say the lighting comes off a bit more flat in Performance mode than it does Fidelity, causing the game to look a bit less shiny and new, but that could just be my bias - I've always been fine with 30fps, and really couldn't tell the fidelity difference while goofing around with Ratchet's various options, but here I may just switch over to see if it makes the combat a bit more legible.

Ah, shit, there goes me promising not to ramble on and on only to turn out four full paragraphs about barely two hours worth of gameplay. Bottom line so far: the music is fuckingincredible, which I apologize for forgetting to mention until now, and there's a niceness to the overall vibe that's really refreshing. The combat doesn't seem like it'll get too complex but I also wouldn't be surprised if it remains harder than it initially seems as what few systems there are pile on. Based on trophy rates and general hearsay it seems like this is a fairly brisk experience as well - at $40, from what I can tell this is a really safe investment if you get any fun out a platformy semi-Metroidvania type game at all. Looking forward to hearing more people get their hands on it!

I’m one of the people still stuck in a time loop and with Metroid Dread coming out in little over two weeks, I’m not sure if I’ll check Kena before that, but I definitely will at some point.

Not much to add other than to say: the boss in the Forest makes you work for it. I went from feeling pretty good about this game to getting some serious Bloodborne vibes in an instant, because this boss isn't exactly cheap (though it does steal liberally from the Chain Ogre in Sekiro's lamest attack) but it is in no way willing to hold your hand.

Unless you're the sort of person that finds just about every non-FromSoft game to be a cakewalk these days, Kena is not the fleeting little romp it pretends to be early on. The Wood Knight I mentioned previously is nothing compared to this fucking guy.

That cool to see. I got a Kena tee-shirt, stickers, and figueen from their shop in 2019. The art and anaimation they showed off at e3 2019 was really evocative and impressive.

I'm still SUPER early (haven't even gotten the bow stuff), but wow I just want to chime in and say that I agree that the music so far is just incredible. Sometimes the music in games will make me not want to continue exploring (for instance an issue I'm starting to have in F.I.S.T), but Kena's music almost adds to the exploration element. I do not mind searching every nook and cranny just so I can keep listening to these jams.

I'll add more thoughts on the game once I'm deeper in.

Just checking in now that I'm in the real meat of the game. I already got pretty in-depth about my thoughts over on the subreddit in the Bombcast discussion, which I'd link to if Reddit didn't appear to be having server issues right now, but I'll drop some bullet points here. This time, I promise, less wordy!

• This time I just want to lead with the music. It's got a lot of cool dynamic stuff going, has singular battle music for seemingly low stakes encounters, and just sounds great with really unique instruments and awesome bass notes.

• I'd compare the overall structure of this game to God of War more than Breath of the Wild. You have a central hub with very little to do, surrounded by thematic hubs you unlock one at a time. You play a sort of shell-spiral game in each hub, unlocking relics in primary activities that open up other smaller activities, some of which contain keys to larger activities back in the main hub, and repeat that activity spiral until you've exhausted everything at which point you go fight a boss.

• The encounter design gets pretty clever pretty quickly, and again similar to God of War the Normal difficulty feels like Hard for many other games. It doesn't quite have the variety of that game, or really any character action game, so unless this game's combat completely clicks it might not be much fun on the harder difficulties.

• That being said, I've seen a lot of people get reductive and directly compare this game to PS2-era platformers, which might be true if you're playing on the story mode just to see what's going on and get an opinion out there, but I would take that comp with a grain of salt. Aside from the deliberately throwback name, this game feels very modern right down to its extremely sincere core themes and the ways the mechanics of the game play into those themes at all times rather than simply add to combat. You can feel the budget at times, and that can make the game feel small, but I don't get the impression this game wanted to remind people of 20 years ago at more than a skin-deep level.

• I'm now about six hours in and am standing outside of the third boss fight with no idea what to expect. I'd say about half my playtime so far has been exploring the world knocking out smaller challenges, and about the other half has been solely dedicated to beating the two bosses I've taken down so far. So for anyone on the fence about this for one reason or the other, I think it'd be extremely valuable to be made aware just how much this game is a bit of a mash-up of two styles of game in a way I can honestly say I really haven't seen before. I don't know if that will fate it to being somewhat niche, but it's neither Ratchet & Clank nor Bloodborne, but it is kind of both.

Nevermind, I guess I just can't help myself and drop some minor points, haha. Last thing for now: I'm so shocked by this game, truly. I expected a fun, light time, especially seeing the 10-hour number and PS2 throwback stuff thrown around a bunch. And it starts kind of slow compared to where I am now. But right now I'm really, really, really falling for this game in a way I haven't for any other game released this year. I'm at a point now where unless things start getting a little tedious/repetitive in the late game or something I can't think of comes along and equally blows me away with some added production value, this game is in a real race with Psychonauts 2 for my favorite game of the year. It's really cool.

Musics great. The rot are a great character(s). Games got a lot of charm but the combat is pretty basic but somewhat challenging. The world and graphics are great.

Thank god its short.

I'm an hour in. First PS5 game I'm playing with headphones on, and I feel completely immersed. Very early but I'm loving everything it's doing.

I'm several hours in. I'm on "The Farm" for the second spirit. The combat starts out kinda weak, but gets a lot better once you start unlocking new abilities. Overall I'm having a good time. It's surprisingly challenging in spots and some of the environmental puzzles are quite good. And it obviously looks gorgeous. I'm currently going with performance mode.

@marino: forgot to mention in my follow up but Performance seems like the play. The lighting is “notably” better in Fidelity, but too much of a trade off compared to everything else. And I’m normally the weirdo saying 30 is better than 60.

Having never owned a PS4 Pro, this is the first time I’ve understood Jeff’s complaints about these “options”. It feels really esoteric and far too nuanced for the average player.

30 doesn't generally bother me, but it was definitely noticeable when I tried fidelity mode. And performance is just so buttery smooth.

Kena is incredibly endearing and its really nice to look at, sounds great too. The combat is simple but satisfying.

The only blemishes are the occasional half frame rate cut scenes, it can also look a touch soft up close on PS5.

And the weird difficulty spike on boss fights, it wouldn't be so bad but sometimes the checkpoints are a touch too far back. Replaying a minor encounter or platforming bit just before the boss fight.

Just finished the first spirit, and this is quickly becoming my favorite game of the year. It plays really well, the audio/visual package is second to none, the cutscenes are hitting me on a deep level, and I like its pacing.

I hear it's a short game, which I'm happy to hear because that means I'll probably replay it a few times.

The first boss made me drop the difficulty down, which definitely made it a lot easier, but I think I prefer that to the alternative of me banging my head against the wall until I don’t want to keep playing at all. Still hiking it up for the combat outside of bosses, until that becomes too difficult too.

Outside of my terrible skills, I’m liking it plenty. The world’s pretty as heck and the audio really is something special. It’s not especially complicated gameplay-wise, but that’s fine for me.

So I'm at the final boss and I can see why people complain about it. The ramp from Wood Knight through to the trial bosses you have to take down to get the final three relics is a real trip. I can say with absolute confidence that if you'd happen to follow the same path I did (which isn't super likely, since you can do the three in any order) that the last boss you fight before the final boss will be, like, the easiest encounter in the entire game, some regular combat and challenge chests included. That felt great.

And then suddenly there's this guy, who basically behaves like a simplified Orphan of Kos and also rejects 2/3rds of your move set outside of highly specific windows. It seems clear that this is a boss designed around patience and small openings, but after a game full of fodder enemies to keep your rot charged and a series of enemies beggaring you to get in that ass and rewarding you for it, this guy is not the most fun end cap to all that.

Edit: Well, turned out, that guy has a pretty specific move that takes him out fairly easy, and then there's this boss I won't even get into. Truly a test of patience and annoyance. Oh well.

Anyway, that aside, pretty sure this is my game of the year so far. Psychonauts 2 dragged a little bit, triggered my need to collect 'em all a little too much and had combat that quickly became drab. Ratchet & Clank, despite everything, just didn't have the same charm for me as the 2016 remake. It also felt a little too big, and dabbling with the NG+ made me realize that they really went and hid the super fun, classic R&C-style weapon chaos in the 2nd playthrough which is a bit of a bummer.

At least as platformer semi-throwbacks go, this game is really something special even with the rough edges that come with it being a budget title from a first-time dev and a bit of a let down final boss. I'm blown away by how much this game grabbed hold of me, it gets just enough right about what it's inspired by while having a bunch of its own good ideas. A sequel seems inevitable and I'm extremely excited for it.