Kena: Bridge of Spirits (Switch 2) review: old-school Nintendo with Pixar polish

Although first released as a PlayStation 5 console exclusive, Kena: Bridge of Spirits always felt like it should have been a Nintendo title. Indeed, prior to getting into game development, indie studio Ember Lab was primarily a commercial film and animation studio that went viral with the incredible animated short based on The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask called Terrible Fate.

That Zelda influence carries over in the studio's debut game, where you play as Kena, a young spirit guide, who's tasked with helping trouble spirits move on from the physical world, and does so with the familiar kind of toolset and progression that will remind you of Link's pre-Switch era adventures. There's also the charming forest spirits you encounter and collect, somewhat unfortunately referred to as the Rot, which feel like a Minions-style interpretation of the soot sprites in Studio Ghibli masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro, but also behave like Pikmin since they can help you in puzzles and combat.

However, given that the game was originally developed as a PS5 showcase (though it was still released on PS4), its highly polished visuals would presumably have been too much for the Switch 1 to handle without major compromises. So it makes sense that Ember Lab has bided its time to bring Kena: Bridge of Spirits to Switch 2, where its creative vision remains intact.

An animation heritage

Ember Labs' animation background is evidently why, even as an indie studio, it's got the experience and know-how to ensure Kena's presentation is on par with a Pixar film. Admittedly, this is also because many of the major story moments are pre-rendered cinematics, though the visuals are consistent enough that it's not as jarring as in previous generations, when flipping between CG cutscenes and real-time gameplay. This is very much one of those games where it's hard to resist hitting photo mode whenever you're traversing the forest environments or about to land an attack on a corrupted spirit.

Of course, Pixar isn't just renowned for groundbreaking visuals but also for amazing storytelling that resonates with audiences across generations, something Kena never comes close to matching. There's a sentimentality to its story of laying the trauma of past lives to rest that never quite lands. Sure, those faces are expressive, but this also needs to go in tandem with a script and voice performances to produce an emotional spark, which it lacks. That said, it has a wonderfully ethereal soundtrack that, much like the overall art direction, draws respectful inspiration from Southeast Asian cultures.

My bigger issue with Kena when it first came around was that it was announced as part of the upcoming PS5's release roster under a 'Future of Gaming' banner. That doesn't ring true when much of its game design seems to draw not just from older Zelda games but from virtually every 3D action-adventure game from the PS2 era. A few years later, though, as we're getting more jaded with modern game design, desperate to be infinite and all-encompassing, there's something comforting about a game more firmly rooted in AA sensibilities.

Visual flair

Which is not to say I'm now giving Kena a free pass. It still feels a bit too safe without a real, unique hook of its own. There's, nonetheless, a couple of novel twists and visual flair to some mechanics, such as using the bow to also double as a kind of hookshot when you shoot at a glowing blue flower, while its equivalent of bombs can be used not to blow things up but rather magically make rocks and ruins float temporarily for platforming puzzles.

Despite its family-friendly presentation, the combat is also genuinely quite challenging, where, even on the default difficulty, bosses can quite easily take a major part of your health in one hit. That your light and strong attacks are mapped to the right shoulder buttons while activating your energy shield lets you parry attacks, even gives it something of a Dark Souls flavour.

As a straight port, there's no exclusive Switch 2 content here, though it does include all the free anniversary DLC, such as cosmetics and a new game+ mode. It would surely have been cool if there could have been a Nintendo partnership where, say, Kena could unlock a Link-inspired outfit or your Rot could wear Nintendo-themed hats, maybe even something Majora's Mask-themed, which would've felt like a full circle moment. But on a more fundamental level, I couldn't help but feel that not adding the option for gyro-aiming with Kena's bow, as you can in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits' arrival on Switch 2 is then better late than never, and is still lovely to look at, delivering a serenity rush whenever you cleanse a part of the forest or find a spot to meditate. Beyond that, though, there's nothing exceptional about what it does, though this is hopefully where its recently announced sequel, Kena: Scars of Kosmora, will actually build on and refine.