Impressive first game for Ember Labs - a real indie game jewel.


Difficulty ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (based on master difficulty. there is also a very easy story difficulty)

This game has such a good presentation, that I hardly could believe it was a first game of this studio. But after recognizing that the developers usually do digital arts work for ads, it is understandable why it is done so good. Usually, in the indie section, you have coders who want to make games, here we had graphic artists who made a game. The result is close to AAA titles.

The game itself is a 3D platformer which focus is on Zelda like exploration and battle system. You get a lot of (mini) boss fights in a soullike manner. A very good mix indeed. The game world is wonderful and full of lovely details. The story is exciting and the whole game concept works out pretty well. The only downside in my point of view are some bugs / flaws in the fighting system, in combination to a strange control layout which you have to get used to first. I made the obvious mistake to play it on master difficulty on my first playthrough. Don't do that. You get a new game+ option anyway so you can go for it in your second run if you want to go through some pain (later more on this topic).

Pros in short:
* awesome graphics (characters mimics are a little Disney style)
* thunderstorm is made awesome
* good level design
* a map that marks all already collected collectibles and statistics to show you where to look closer

Cons in short:
* character collision sometimes bad (floating objects)
* default camera turn speed too slow (you can raise it in the settings)
* no auto-detections for PS controllers (you need to set the correct button display in the options)
* only English dub (for a first work and indie game it is fine though)
* the snow was made pretty bad (no footsteps, only white sprite particles while walking over it)
* camera auto focuses on wrong enemies sometimes (you can change that in the settings)
* overview over the battlefield is sometimes not good
* there could be even more side quest things

Bugs:
* bow sometimes gets stuck in aiming animation and wouldn't fire even pressing the button (you need to release the bow and re-aim to fix it)
* spirit bomb got stuck one time. I wasn't able to use it anymore although both bombs were ready (had to reload checkpoint)
* got softlocked once by activating a holiday hat chest (enemy spawned, I couldn't move or die, had to reload the last checkpoint)
* spirit bomb: I throw the bomb at the right enemy shoulder, the sticky version appears left shoulder. Also the hitbox of sticked spirit bombs on some (mostly the medium sized) enemies are not working properly. You clearly see the arrow connecting visually but it will not detonate
* hanging purple fruits sometimes bug out (you can shoot them down but you cannot target them with Rots)
* on the speedrun parcour trials a platform got stuck once and didn't reacted to the spirit bomb again
* hitbox of Rot God is horrible, you sometimes get stuck inside him until he moves away
* Rot God spear targetting is aweful (too close or too far and you won't get any marker, sometimes he even walks outside of the zone so far, you cannot target it without risking dying)
* Rot God is able to fall far outside of the zone while dying. You cannot attack its heart to finish him off)

Personal opinion of the fighting system:
The basic system is pretty well done. Bow, bomb and staff are harmonizing good. Bomb and dash attack are very effective tools to even beat the meanest bosses, because both can tackle them. Everything is fine, when you play the lower difficulties. But if you play master difficulty, and the bosses put you under real pressure, some flaws are kicking in. Which are:

* parry is too risky, too narrow timing. It is better to use your energy for dash attacks (sad, because parries look awesome)
* bosses have too often 360 degree full auto aim attacks or melee attacks that crosses the whole boss arena, it is just too insane
* bosses auto-aim even in midair (sudden 180 degree insta-turns although physically not possible, Taro was one of the bosses that abused this a lot)
* bosses sometimes get a frame in which dash attack does not connect properly and you just phase through them leaving you in bad position (really annoying)
* sometimes Kena does not dash exactly in the direction you are aiming, making you miss a critical attack
* the new game+ special phase on the bosses are very mean (Rot God was the only one which didn't got signifcantly stronger as only the mob spawn changed a little)
* the airial smash attack has a too long stall time. It is not effective, but keeps you wide open, that can totally ruin a whole boss fight if you accidentally triggered it. With the analog shoulder buttons this can happen a lot of you want to use the bow. I wished for a feature to lock this attack again. It is by far the most useless attack in the game

The overall boss fight difficulty is pretty high on master difficulty, especially the new game+ phases. You have to train the bosses to beat them. But sometimes it was so frustrating, that even after finally beating the boss didn't feel really rewarding anymore. Which is not good tbh. Luckily every phase has a weakspot or two, and the special phases can be skipped totally by using special weakspots, a whole barrage of 5 Rot attacks, bombs and dashes tactically. This way master difficulty stayed barely on a fair level.

As it seems that the devs may want to make a sequel, it is vital that the fighting system gets polished a little more, and to make sure that weakspots stay a key element of (mini) boss fights. Else the game can get very frustrating quickly. Without those weakspots, I would have most likely given a bad review.

General advices:
There are a lot of QoL settings in the accessibility menu. Make sure to check them out. They make your life much easier. And if you want the special holiday hats out of season, you can change your system time to be able to get them.

Summary
Still Kena - Bridge of Spirits was an awesome game that kept me playing for a long time. I will definitely return to play it even more. I really hope that Ember Labs stick to make games in the future, especially that they gonna go for a sequel for Kena. There is a lot of untold things, so a sequel is possible. They are good at this. So this game is a must play if you like this genre, and Ember Labs is undoubtful capable to deliver more high quality games like this.

Impressive first game for Ember Labs - a real indie game jewel. [table][tr][td] Overall      ★★★★★★★★☆☆ - 8/10 Music        ★★★★★★★★★☆- 9/10 Graphics   ★★★★★★★★★☆- 9/10 Gameplay ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ - 7/10 Story         ★★★★★★★★☆☆ - 8/10 [/td][/tr][/table] Difficulty ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (based on master difficulty. there is also a very easy story difficulty) This game has such a good presentation, that I hardly could believe it was a first game of this studio. But after recognizing that the developers usually do digital arts work for ads, it is understandable why it is done so good. Usually, in the indie section, you have coders who want to make games, here we had graphic artists who made a game. The result is close to AAA titles. The game itself is a 3D platformer which focus is on Zelda like exploration and battle system. You get a lot of (mini) boss fights in a soullike manner. A very good mix indeed. The game world is wonderful and full of lovely details. The story is exciting and the whole game concept works out pretty well. The only downside in my point of view are some bugs / flaws in the fighting system, in combination to a strange control layout which you have to get used to first. I made the obvious mistake to play it on master difficulty on my first playthrough. Don't do that. You get a new game+ option anyway so you can go for it in your second run if you want to go through some pain (later more on this topic). [b]Pros in short:[/b] * awesome graphics (characters mimics are a little Disney style) * thunderstorm is made awesome * good level design * a map that marks all already collected collectibles and statistics to show you where to look closer [b]Cons in short:[/b] * character collision sometimes bad (floating objects) * default camera turn speed too slow (you can raise it in the settings) * no auto-detections for PS controllers (you need to set the correct button display in the options) * only English dub (for a first work and indie game it is fine though) * the snow was made pretty bad (no footsteps, only white sprite particles while walking over it) * camera auto focuses on wrong enemies sometimes (you can change that in the settings) * overview over the battlefield is sometimes not good * there could be even more side quest things [b]Bugs:[/b] * bow sometimes gets stuck in aiming animation and wouldn't fire even pressing the button (you need to release the bow and re-aim to fix it) * spirit bomb got stuck one time. I wasn't able to use it anymore although both bombs were ready (had to reload checkpoint) * got softlocked once by activating a holiday hat chest (enemy spawned, I couldn't move or die, had to reload the last checkpoint) * spirit bomb: I throw the bomb at the right enemy shoulder, the sticky version appears left shoulder. Also the hitbox of sticked spirit bombs on some (mostly the medium sized) enemies are not working properly. You clearly see the arrow connecting visually but it will not detonate * hanging purple fruits sometimes bug out (you can shoot them down but you cannot target them with Rots) * on the speedrun parcour trials a platform got stuck once and didn't reacted to the spirit bomb again [spoiler]* hitbox of Rot God is horrible, you sometimes get stuck inside him until he moves away * Rot God spear targetting is aweful (too close or too far and you won't get any marker, sometimes he even walks outside of the zone so far, you cannot target it without risking dying) * Rot God is able to fall far outside of the zone while dying. You cannot attack its heart to finish him off)[/spoiler] [b]Personal opinion of the fighting system:[/b] The basic system is pretty well done. Bow, bomb and staff are harmonizing good. Bomb and dash attack are very effective tools to even beat the meanest bosses, because both can tackle them. Everything is fine, when you play the lower difficulties. But if you play master difficulty, and the bosses put you under real pressure, some flaws are kicking in. Which are: * parry is too risky, too narrow timing. It is better to use your energy for dash attacks (sad, because parries look awesome) * bosses have too often 360 degree full auto aim attacks or melee attacks that crosses the whole boss arena, it is just too insane * bosses auto-aim even in midair (sudden 180 degree insta-turns although physically not possible, Taro was one of the bosses that abused this a lot) * bosses sometimes get a frame in which dash attack does not connect properly and you just phase through them leaving you in bad position (really annoying) * sometimes Kena does not dash exactly in the direction you are aiming, making you miss a critical attack * the new game+ special phase on the bosses are very mean ([spoiler]Rot God was the only one which didn't got signifcantly stronger as only the mob spawn changed a little[/spoiler]) * the airial smash attack has a too long stall time. It is not effective, but keeps you wide open, that can totally ruin a whole boss fight if you accidentally triggered it. With the analog shoulder buttons this can happen a lot of you want to use the bow. I wished for a feature to lock this attack again. It is by far the most useless attack in the game The overall boss fight difficulty is pretty high on master difficulty, especially the new game+ phases. You have to train the bosses to beat them. But sometimes it was so frustrating, that even after finally beating the boss didn't feel really rewarding anymore. Which is not good tbh. Luckily every phase has a weakspot or two, and the special phases can be skipped totally by using special weakspots, a whole barrage of 5 Rot attacks, bombs and dashes tactically. This way master difficulty stayed barely on a fair level. As it seems that the devs may want to make a sequel, it is vital that the fighting system gets polished a little more, and to make sure that weakspots stay a key element of (mini) boss fights. Else the game can get very frustrating quickly. Without those weakspots, I would have most likely given a bad review. [b]General advices:[/b] There are a lot of QoL settings in the accessibility menu. Make sure to check them out. They make your life much easier. And if you want the special holiday hats out of season, you can change your system time to be able to get them. [b]Summary[/b] Still Kena - Bridge of Spirits was an awesome game that kept me playing for a long time. I will definitely return to play it even more. I really hope that Ember Labs stick to make games in the future, especially that they gonna go for a sequel for Kena. [spoiler]There is a lot of untold things, so a sequel is possible[/spoiler]. They are good at this. So this game is a must play if you like this genre, and Ember Labs is undoubtful capable to deliver more high quality games like this.