"Kena: Bridge of the Spirits" is spectacular, and the comparisons to Pixar that have been flying around here and there are somewhat justified. The lush world and the big-eyed inhabitants' personalities shine through. Even the bulbs of decay that plague the area are oddly charming. Kena has the Hollywood look, but also the determination to play it safe, Hollywood style.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits may look like a Zelda game at first glance, but it is an almost linear action-adventure game that unfolds on one large map, with little need to retrace your steps. The map is dotted with warp points and auto-saves periodically, so there is no risk of drastically slowing down your progress or running through the same blank areas over and over again. Depending on the difficulty level selected, the story can be progressed without much friction during the 8-10 hours of play time, except for the possibility of tricky fights. Overall, "Bridge of the Spirits" is a pleasant cruise through a sea of familiar action platformers.

Kena herself is a spirit guide. Her job is to help souls move from the human world. That is, she searches for relics that are in tune with the souls in the three areas, removes corruption, and defeats less friendly spirits along the way. While it is understandable to search the immediate surroundings for relics to gently move the soul, it seems unorthodox to repeatedly hit it in the face with a stick.

The fighting, while plentiful, is less than enthralling. There are light attacks, heavy attacks, block and parry, and other abilities to unlock (including a bow that will be essential both in combat and for switches used in light traversing pazzling). Some enemies require special tactics to defeat or are difficult to defeat effectively, but generally speaking, they are all button mashing. It doesn't help that the arenas tend to be quite small and enemies often approach from off camera. I would have to dodge many times.

The little creatures that accompany you on your journey are called lots and are quite adorable. They can sit and watch and play with them whenever they like, but they also have practical uses. If you charge them with "courage" during battle, you can send them to distract enemies, help them destroy enemy spawn points, or activate unlocked abilities (such as the lot hammer, which scrapes away enemy health bars). I occasionally discover new little followers when I wander off the main path, which suits my playstyle well. One boss was very irritating, digging up the ground as soon as I approached, until I realized that I could command my adorable army to stay where they were for a few seconds until I got a few hits in.

Also, corruption is essential to moving forward while exploring the overworld. They are used to destroy corrupt areas that block your path, and you can command them to throw switches (at certain points) or carry objects. There are some clever implementations of this, but by and large, this possibility is surprisingly untapped.

The fundamental problem with kena, which rears its head almost everywhere, is that almost everything offered here has been done a hundred times before. The combat is very familiar, and the enemies have glowing weaknesses. There are huge flowers that serve as grapple points. There are targets to shoot at within a time limit. The ledges that can be grabbed are marked with what can only be traditionally thought of as bird poop. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the strategic use of conventions of game design, Kena does not go beyond the conventions in any area.

The story seems a bit incomplete. Cut scenes sometimes look like deleted scenes from an unseen movie, and none of the characters are fleshed out, especially Kena herself. The village and land have been ruined by a magical evil, and the spirits need help getting out of the human realm. But it doesn't throw out themes like a pie filled with sentimental life advice, as many media outlets are guilty of. Comments about grief and the horrible things people might do when motivated by their dark engines are gently brought to the player's attention and are easily recognizable as everyday truths.

The art and storyline help to support the gameplay, which is adequate to begin with, but there are still highlights of combat and platforming. One of the final bosses is quite good and requires constant looking around and switching between bow and staff. Sticky Bombs also make things a little more interesting once you unlock them. They are useful for combat (certain enemies will force you to use them), but they are also used for some moving puzzles. The explosion causes the rubble to temporarily rise into the air, requiring you to quickly jump from one block of masonry to another (sometimes rotating them with well-placed arrows). There is no need to shoot in the air, but there is always a strict time limit. The biggest challenge is locating the crystal on the rotating platform.

If I wasn't having any fun at all, Kena's cute little spirit companions and unnerving enemies would not have let me continue. The characters and environments - sun-drenched forests, moody caves, snowy mountains - are fun to play in, even if they are not fully utilized to their fullest extent. I fiddled with the settings to achieve a satisfactory performance, but all were enjoyable to explore.

With my GTX 1650 and 8GB RAM (at the low end of the performance requirements), Kena ran fairly smoothly for the first half of the game. However, in the second half of the game, the frame rate began to drop significantly, and I had to lower the graphics settings to get the performance I was looking for in the beginning. The number of lots on the screen was a factor, with some settings limiting the number of lots displayed at one time. The developer, Ember Lab, has also said that future patches will include improvements to Rot optimization, etc.

If you're wondering where the spirits go after Kena generously bumps them off, "Bridges of Spirits" answers the ultimate question of life. What is life after death like?" the answer is apparently "just a little purple."