KENA: BRIDGE OF SPIRITS

This action-adventure will give you green fingers

What do you get if you cross arty adventure Concrete Genie with a Studio Ghibli film? Perhaps a little something like this – after all, we can’t be the only ones who thinks the spirits in it look like a mix of the soot sprites and the small Totoro as rendered by your favourite 3D animation studio. The fluffy little guys in question are known as the Rot, and they’re central both to maintaining balance in their forest home and to young spirit guide Kena’s journey.

Nothing new can grow if nothing returns to the earth. The Rot decompose whatever is wilting, then, but can also help protagonist Kena in a number of surprising ways. On a pilgrimage to a shrine in the mountains, she encounters a strange curse that’s trapping spirits inside a forgotten forest. As a result, wandering spirits unable to move on have grown hostile, and Kena herself cannot leave until this has been put right.

ONCE UPON A TIME

Exploring the forest as Kena, you discover lots of the rather adorable Rot. The more of these cute little creatures you can gather together, the more options you have in combat against restless spirits and in exploration. For example, we see a small mob of Rot clumping together around an aggressive spirit, immobilising it while Kena gets some bow shots in. In another instance, we see the Rot band together to help Kena move a pedestal and restore a statue to its proper place. We see them guiding her, and helping her to purge the curse from various areas of the forest.

Kena is far from helpless on her own. Combat is fast-paced and you need to be light on your feet to dodge enemy blows. Thankfully, Kena’s staff is a versatile bit of kit. In its bow and arrow form, you’ll be able to feel the tension of the bow string before every shot thanks to the DualSense’s haptic triggers. We also see Kena use her staff like a glowing baseball bat after invoking what looks like a time dilation ability after parrying one fighty spirit. We couldn’t be Kena to see more of this one.

“THE MORE ROT YOU CAN GATHER TOGETHER, THE MORE OPTIONS YOU HAVE IN COMBAT.”

The focus of combat isn’t so much to destroy spirits but to ‘disarm’ them. That said, Kena isn’t messing around.

Above In the forest, balance is key and that’s reflected in your journey. You’re not making the space your own, you’re trying to restore it.