This is a game of two halves. Tales of Kenzera hangs its hat on its narrative of grief, and it realizes this terrifically. The performances are great, and the themes of the story are well-developed all throughout the game. Each Act of the game presents and explores some different elements of what Zau is going through, and it all just feels so organic. This, combined with fantastic music and environmental design, really brings to life this game's central goal.

The rest of the game, however, is the gameplay itself, which I have less glowing things to say about. It epitomizes the concept of a death by a thousand cuts. No single issue with this game is itself a massive problem, but they're all just constant.

I wish this game relied less on insta-kill spikes, and I wish those spikes were better implemented. I wish the melee combat style was more agile, and I wish the ranged style was more effective and easier to aim; I wish didn't keep running into death spikes because I was trying to shoot a bird that was too high above my head to smack. I wish the movement wasn't so floaty. I wish I didn't get caught in weird wall geometry. I wish I didn't have to react at the last possible moment to succeed at platforming challenges. I wish the camera would show me where I'm jumping so that I'll know what's expected of me.

I wish most of all that I was not almost always dealing with one or more of these issues.

This game is a 3/5. I am thoroughly impressed with the narrative achievement of this game, but I have to warn anyone who reads this about how damn annoying this game can be.

To leave on a positive note: I DO look forward to this studio's next game! The issues I have are numerous, but they are small and fixable. I have full faith that this talented studio will be able to address such issues better in the future!

What a fantastic game! It's got a great, unique control scheme and some really inventive level design. There's a ton of content here, and it never really gets stale? Very impressive!

My only thing with it is a personal one. I probably won't beat this game because I kind of can't? I suffer from migraines, which means that I tend to be pretty sensitive to sound and "noisy" visuals, which are core to this game's visual style. They're done very well, too!! It's just a lot for me, to the extent that, after a normal play session, I usually need to cover my eyes and let them rest for a bit.

That was longer than my actual praise for the game lol but really! It's a great game! I just want to be clear for anyone with my sort of accessibility concerns.