Review — Kena: Bridge of Spirits for Switch 2

One of my fondest gaming memories of the last couple of years was playing through Kena: Bridge of Spirits with my wife when it launched on PlayStation 5 back in the fall of 2021. It’s a gorgeous game that we both fell in love with, but I found myself often wishing I could jump in and out of it a little more easily instead of having to park in front of the TV. Four and a half years later my wishes have been granted, as Ember Lab has ported Kena: Bridge of Spirits to Nintendo Switch 2, and now I get to enjoy one of my favorite games on the go, no TV required.

 

A Spirit Guide’s Journey

 

In Kena: Bridge of Spirits you play as Kena, a young Spirit Guide searching for a mysterious Mountain Shrine. As a Spirit Guide, it’s Kena’s job to help troubled spirits reach the afterlife if they end up stuck between the world of the living after they die. On her journey, she arrives at a village that is spiritually connected to the Mountain Shrine, but it’s been taken over by some sort of corruption and seems to be home to several restless spirits. The corruption in this village bars Kena’s path forward, so it’s up to her to help the spirits of the villagers as best as she can to clear the path to the Mountain Shrine.

 

 

Despite looking beautiful and having a touching “help spirits to the afterlife” theme, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is far from the cozy and spooky adventure you’d get from something like Cozy Grove or Spiritfarer. A lot of the spirits Kena is helping are tormented due to severe tragedies or losses, and the game doesn’t shy away from that in the slightest. As Kena learns more about these spirits in order to help them, she witnesses flashbacks to the exact torment that caused them to get stuck in the world of the living. These flashback scenes are very nicely presented and they don’t pull their punches. There’s nothing graphic or gratuitous, but seeing the circumstances of each spirit’s background is an effective way to understand their heartbreak. Of course, as you help each spirit come to terms with their fears and regrets, you also get to witness touching reunions and impactful realizations — completing an emotional journey that feels all the sweeter because you get to experience each spirit’s entire story.

 

Clarity in Combat

 

In contrast to the more serious stories of the spirits and fitting in with the Pixar-like character designs, helping Kena out on her journey are the adorable mascot-esque Rot: small, fuzzy spirit creatures that Kena can find hiding throughout the game. As she collects more, they can gather together in large numbers not only to help Kena accomplish tasks and solve puzzles, but also to fight alongside her. Kena’s main weapon is her staff, which can be swung for either light or heavy melee attacks, or transformed into a bow to allow for long-range fighting and puzzle solving. During fights, Kena can infuse her staff or her arrows with the Rot, allowing them to do more damage or to damage multiple enemies at once. As you progress through the game Kena also gains access to Spirit Bombs and a dash attack that allows Kena to break through an enemy’s guard or stun them.

 

 

Fights in Kena: Bridge of Spirits are fast-paced. Smaller enemies are a breeze to take down with one or two quick combos with the staff, but as you’re required to take on multiple waves of enemies or fight a boss, things get much more complex. The flexibility of options available to me in difficult fights is one of my favorite things about Bridge of Spirits, especially when it comes to some of the game’s Cursed Chests: treasure chests you’ll stumble across that have you tackling a variety of fights with certain limitations or objectives in order to unlock the chest. Boss fights are also a blast thanks to their difficulty, diversity, and abundance. I often found myself having to take multiple tries to take down some of the bigger bosses, figuring out new strategies, or stubbornly trying to perfect a strategy I felt like should work until I succeeded.

A new experience I got to have with the Switch 2 version of Kena: Bridge of Spirits was tackling the various challenges in the Spirit Guide Trials, which were added to the original release as part of an anniversary update. Having long-finished the game a year after it first released, I never went back to check out these new trials, so getting to test my mettle with them in this release was a real treat. Like the Cursed Chest challenges turned up to 11, the Spirit Guide Trials test your skills with Kena’s various abilities and their upgrades, rewarding you with new outfits for Kena and unique upgrades that enhance the way the game plays called Charmstones.

 

 

I do want to mention that even though I had long wished to be able to take Kena on the go, and despite my love for throwing myself at these fights over and over until I beat them, I found out pretty quickly that my hands were not appreciative of tackling tougher or longer fights while playing in handheld mode with the Switch 2 Joy-Con. Younger, more spry hands may fare better in this regard, but I ended up having to resort to using my trusty Switch 2 Pro Controller to keep my hands from hurting if I was going to be attempting any harder bosses or multi-wave challenges. The combat is, of course, easier to manage on a full-sized controller in general, but I was holding my own pretty well with the Joy-Cons before my realization that handheld mode wasn’t the most sustainable option for me.

 

Seeking Balance

 

With its Pixar-like art direction lending itself well to the rustic, mountain village vibes, Kena’s world is gorgeous, and I was happy to be able to experience it again on Switch 2. Not everything looked quite as striking as I remembered now that I was experiencing it on a less powerful platform, however. There was plenty of texture pop-in, especially during cutscenes, where a lot of objects like relics Kena was hunting for or the masks worn by various characters appeared fuzzy for quite awhile on screen before suddenly becoming clearer. I also noticed some textures and objects in the world flashing in and out as I explored, either disappearing completely and allowing me to briefly see the skybox behind them or turning bright white for a split second before returning.

I also experienced a number of other glitches during my time with Kena on Switch 2 — once, after dying during a Spirit Guide Trial, all of the game’s sound disappeared, leaving me to play in silence until I restarted the game. I also experienced the Rot floating in mid-air in the middle of a room after defeating a boss more than once, and I also had a moment when I tried to grapple to a grappling point with Kena’s bow only to die mid-traversal; once I respawned, every time I jumped I was quickly pulled towards that same grapple point and then dropped to the ground when I hit an object. This continued until I managed to make my way within range of the point and shoot it again, fully pulling me towards it and clearing the glitch. Overall these glitches were brief and I was still happy to be re-experiencing this beautiful game, but combined with the few graphical issues I did end up getting taken out of the experience pretty frequently.

 

Walking the Path

 

The many intricate layers of Kena: Bridge of Spirits fit together just perfectly so to evoke a feeling that you don’t often get from adventure games in this day and age, hearkening back to the era of GameCube and PS2 action/adventure games that had you exploring well-designed maps looking for collectibles and solving puzzles while giving some bad guys a well-deserved beat down. Seeing my wish to have this game on a handheld fulfilled is a delight, though I definitely learned that it’s not without a few drawbacks. While the Switch 2 is not the absolute best way to experience this game, it’s certainly worth checking out if you’re dying to take a fun, touching little adventure on the go.

 

 

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