YMMV / Kena: Bridge of Spirits

• Awesome Music: The soundtrack, done by Ember Lab collaborator Jason Gallaty (Theophany), brings in an Indonesian influence, carrying compositions of traditional Balinese music to create a calm oriental feel to the game. Special mention goes to the trailer music, which smoothly combines an orchestra with the Balinese music to great effect.
• Cliché Storm: A common criticism of the setting, seemingly a product of its 6th-gen influence.
  Zero Punctuation: Living in a classic example of “video game generic primitive spiritual society” that’s a little bit Viking and a little bit ancient Japan and just enough native American that it keeps insufferably bringing it up in social settings.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Formed one with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart due to both being vibrant action-platformers exclusive to PlayStation platforms and getting announced at the same time. It helps both are also constantly being favorably compared to Pixar in terms of visuals.
  • Has one with Sonic Frontiers, thanks to the presence of the Kocos, little coconut-shaped creatures that resemble the Rot, including their plot purpose.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Kena received generally positive reviews upon release, but several outlets have been generally critical of the title due to its reliance on gaming conventions and design ideas borrowed from games such as God of War (PS4), Pikmin, and The Legend of Zelda, as well as basing its design around old-school Platform Game formula without providing many innovating ideas to the table.
• Nintendo Hard: For all of its whimsical setting and western animation-style characters, this game is a deceptively brutal game in terms of difficulty. As many reviewers and players have come to discover, combat requires quick timing and awareness at all times. Bosses and minibosses have numerous deadly moves that can easily kill Kena in a couple of hits, and dying to a boss (up to, and including, a five-stage final boss) requires starting from the very beginning. Moreover, since the game does not feature health potions or other healing items apart from specific locations within an arena, the player only has a limited number of heals. And even outside of combat, the game does not hold the player's hand in terms of finding collectibles or Rot located throughout the map, making 100% Completion difficult to obtain.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Many reviews praised the visuals, combat, presentation and music, but consider the story to be So Okay, It's Average and carried almost entirely by the aesthetics and Kena herself.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Everything seen in the first trailer is absolutely breathtaking, looking very much like something straight out of DreamWorks Animation or Pixar (with some people even mentioning Studio Ghibli and vibes of The Legend of Zelda; considering Ember Lab's last endeavour, the latter makes sense). This alone was more than enough to please many gamers.