Kena’s Lack Of Innovation Is Exactly What Makes It So Appealing

Ember Lab’s beautiful adventure is a hollow one, and that’s why it’s been such a hit.

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Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a good game, but it’s a blatantly unimaginative one. The debut title from Ember Labs relies on its gorgeous visuals and cutesy charm to get by while incorporating gameplay mechanics pulled from all manner of modern greats. God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Tomb Raider, Breath of the Wild, and more are all baked into its DNA with many of these games’ finer elements being imitated but never improved upon, like Kena is happy to be an easy-going copycat instead of carving out a worthwhile identity of its own.

Despite this lack of innovation, Kena seems to have taken the world by storm, establishing a sense of brand recognition and audience admiration that few new properties manage to muster. To be perfectly honest, I think playing it safe is precisely why this game has managed to resonate so much with so many.

Gamers don’t like new things, much like human beings, we are creatures of routine. Yes, gamers aren’t human, you heard it here first. There’s a reason why predictable sequels, live-service shooters, and homogeneous open world experiences like Ghost of Tsushima and Days Gone managed to light up the charts while more experimental efforts are left by the wayside. As an industry we’ve shown developers and publishers what sells, and thus they are compelled to build on these successes with similar ideas.

As a result, a number of games begin to feel the same, or at least adopt mechanics and ideas that can be incorporated into the same boat. We’ve seen it countless times in the past decade, with only a handful of games emerging to change the medium’s trajectory in groundbreaking ways. Kena: Bridge of Spirits feels like an obvious product of this culture, an encapsulation of established tropes that brings so little of its own to the table.

Even its visual design feels like a hollow pastiche of Pixar and Studio Ghibli. It’s cute and appealing, but in a way that never breaches beyond the surface. Disney’s animated films are beloved classics because there’s heart and soul found beneath the visuals, while Kena opts for an uninspired lead character and a selection of narrative threads that never reach their full potential. All of it feels like a means to an end, a reason to keep you exploring its beautiful world to solve puzzles and do battle with monsters while the wider purpose of it all passes you by. Despite its charming aesthetic, I’d even label a game like this as cynical, capitalising on qualities it knows will resonate with a wider audience and settling for little else.

But in a way, all of this is okay. As Stacey Henley said in her review, Kena: Bridge of Spirits isn’t going to be referenced by other developers in the future as a point of creative inspiration. It’s the gaming equivalent of comfort food – a soft, cuddly adventure with combat and exploration that are purposefully easy to wrap your head around. Sure, the battle system can prove challenging at times, but its relative simplicity compared to games like Dark Souls and Fallen Order mean you can turn the difficulty down and breeze through proceedings. Even the Rot feel like baseless mascots who are present to be cute and sell merch rather than add to the story. Their role in the world feels insignificant, and finding hats for them is a part of the game’s progression that doesn’t serve any purpose beyond aesthetics.

Everything about Kena is familiar. From a mechanical perspective it is something you’ve absolutely played before, but it’s presented in such an appealing way that it’s ever so tempting to be swept up in the hype. From the opening moments you’re climbing cliffs like Nathan Drake, fighting enemies like The Chosen Undead, and solving puzzles like Kratos. All of it has been done before and better in other games, with Ember Labs capitalising on their success with an adventure of its own. You’re here for the engaging gameplay and beautiful art design, and chances are you won’t remember much of it once you’re done.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is the sort of game that could have a masterful sequel. With just a little bit more originality, and a little bit more ambition, this could be one of the biggest properties in the world. Instead it settles to imitate rather than innovate, a trajectory that is both its greatest strength and its biggest weakness.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/kena-bridge-of-spirits-innovation/