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Kill the heart, and the corruption recedes, along with the corrupted enemies.Ĭombat itself is mostly familiar, with Kena fighting off enemies with the use of her spirit staff. Your goal is usually to beat back a host of enemies, freeing up the ability to destroy a nearby corrupted "heart"-a sort of evil flower bulb-with a blast of spirit energy you can pulse from Kena with the touch of a button. Most every interaction comes down to a combination of combat and puzzle-solving. In practical terms, you do that by wandering the large, semi-open space of the village and its surrounding environs, battling the corrupted spirits of both the people who once lived there and the nature their pain has twisted. Her link to the spirit realm allows her to help the ghosts of the village find peace, and in so doing, she's able to push back the corruption that has gripped the land, restoring it to its former glory. That pain has drawn Kena, a young spirit guide, to seek out the trauma at its center and heal it. Its inhabitants are all gone, wiped out by misfortune, and their pain has physically poisoned the once-vibrant land around it. The story and world of Kena: Bridge of Spirits center on a village beset by tragedy. Combined with emotional, character-driven storytelling, some tough-but-excellent fights, and mechanics that make the world feel alive around you, Kena is an exciting, often heartbreaking journey that will make you want to explore every corner and crevice to see all that you can.
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Though the game is filled with some fairly common action-adventure genre tropes-it has melee combat that feels akin to titles such as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or even Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, climbing sections similar to Uncharted or Tomb Raider, platforming that recalls games such as Ratchet and Clank, and puzzles like what you might see in The Legend of Zelda-it manages to combine a familiar approachability with some fresh spins on the ideas. Looking at common things with new eyes is a running theme of Kena, and that theme often applies to its gameplay as well. Locations that were once the sites of vibrant and happy times are scarred with the pain and trauma suffered within them. Objects like a construction hammer or a box filled with food are tied to memories of people who have been lost. A wooden mask is a link to the spirit of the person for whom it was made. In Kena: Bridge of Spirits, everyday items are imbued with new, unseen emotional significance.
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