Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is an ambitious. This is a Metroidvania not content with only including the usual genre constants of an underpowered protagonist, plentiful power-ups, and a vast labyrinthian land to explore. Instead, developer Surgent Studios has woven the theme of grief throughout everything the player does and experiences. From the visuals, to the combat, to even the rhythm and pacing of exploration; grief underpins it all. The only problem with this is that, so intent were the developers in building a palace of elaborate emotional adornments, they seem to have forgotten about some of the Metroidvania bits.

Zau is a young warrior shaman, grieving the death of his beloved father. Decides to do something about it, he strikes a deal with the God of Death. Should Zau successfully be able to survive the land of Kenzera and vanquish three mighty spirits, then his father will be returned to the realm of the living.

All this information is delivered to the player in rather staid comic book cutscenes, and unfortunately, Zau is a character that’s difficult to like. Irritating, whiny and petulant, his character is one that’s hard to empathise with as the player, and that immediately makes the game’s lofty ambitions to explore grief in a meaningful manner more difficult to engage with.

More successful are the levels that player will explore, so even while they lean into some tried and true gaming conventions – a cave, a swamp, a desert – there is always something wondrous that feels refreshingly new to see. The enemy types don’t share in this same masterful design, though. Forgettable and bland, blasting away at the same interchangeable spirits soon grows tiresome.

These matters aren’t helped by the floaty and impactless combat. Collision detection is an issue throughout the game – every spike you encounter must be much bigger than it looks, like an iceberg or something – but even more so in combat. It never feels like you’re actually hitting an enemy, nor that they are