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Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

Ember Lab, a small studio founded in 2009, started out in digital animation, producing commercials and animated shorts for clients like Coca-Cola and Hisense — until the studio decided to make a game. A few years later, we saw Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

This may be the reason why "Kana: Bridge of Spirits" seems so strong at first glance. Over the course of nearly 10 hours, players follow the soul guide Kana through the mountains, helping souls trapped by obsession and purifying polluted lands and villages. In the beautiful scenery and cheerful music of the teaching period, I once thought I was watching a Pixar animated film, full of dreaminess, innocence and the carefree characteristic of a family story.

Of course, this is an action-adventure game, and once advanced to the combat part, the game quickly shows a less relaxed side.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

A story about the liberation of the soul

<h3>Play to your strengths: stunning graphics and cinematic performances</h3>

The biggest attraction of "Kana: Bridge of Spirits" must be the picture of a paradise and the intimate and warm character design.

The game's worldview and graphics are the most amazing parts of the game when you first see it. It adopts a fantasy style as a whole, inspired by the oriental elements of Japan and Indonesia, and the depiction of natural scenery has a Ghibli ideal temperament, as far as the eye can see, it seems that no material is artificial. The cottages are unpolluted, the fields are green, and the shrines and houses are wooden buildings that look quite pristine.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

The art of the game is very fresh and rustic, emphasizing the natural atmosphere

The story's worldview is based on Eastern pantheism, advocating animism and natural balance. For example, the little guys called "Rot" who act as Kana's helpers throughout the process, often appear under stones or in hidden corners, seemingly the products of natural circulation, and they can still find their place and value around Kana. The root cause of the whole story is the attempt to break the natural balance and the cycle of life, old age, illness and death.

The delicate expressions and dynamics of the characters must be the best stage for Ember Lab to play its many years of animation technology experience. The refreshing and warm smile of the protagonist, Kana, has a touching appeal. Whenever, whether in danger or not, even on a sad occasion such as witnessing a farewell, that smile is one of the most memorable things in the whole journey.

Every NPC you meet along the way is also friendly and simple. The whole game flow is not long, there are only 3 chapters in total, and there are few NPCs, but whether it is a cute and innocent twin child, a carpenter and cultivator, a village wise man, or a mountain hermit, it is like a classic genre that comes straight out of a fairy tale. Their images convey well the 3 core human emotions depicted in the story – fear, love, and regret– which correspond to the 3 relics scattered on the world map by souls in need of rescue, and collecting these relics is the player's main task.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

Such a cute little friend as the Rotten Spirit is like the standard in Disney and Pixar animations

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

Kana's first impression was very flattering

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

To help these souls, their relics must be found in each level

The game takes great care not to visually cause too much negative feelings from the player. The pollutants that serve as a sign of erosion are all red flowers and plants, and the enemy's body is made of decaying wood. Although the main gameplay is combat or puzzle solving, there will be no scenes in the whole process that will make people feel bloody or uncomfortable.

Kena's movements are light and agile, and the operation feels very flexible, like a weightless soul itself. The Rotting Spirits are a group of cute companions who circle around her, and they can clear the rotten plants that stand in the way in a non-combat state, and can bind enemies and help them recover blood in a combat state. Usually, Kana can sit down and interact with them, scratch their stomachs or kiss them, or buy a variety of strangely shaped hats to wear in the game.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

Interacting with the Rotten Spirits is the most relaxing thing to do after a battle, at least one of the most relaxing

There is also the music with aboriginal characteristics that rings in the ears when running in the forest field, as well as the meticulous composition and light and shadow in the scene, "Kana: Bridge of spirits" fully deserves the praise of "animated film level" in audiovisual effects, and the quality is close to the cinema-level animation works, and the wonderful world is easy to immerse in.

<h3>Gameplay Design: Some strenuous battles and not very interesting puzzle jumps</h3>

Specific to the gameplay, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is less family-friendly. Under the warm appearance, the battles in the game are actually more difficult. The game offers 4 difficulty options, the highest difficulty can only be unlocked after completing the level for one week. Most of the battles in the game are encounters, and the enemy configuration is often an elite soldier or even a boss with many mobs. In one-to-many situations, even if you choose the standard difficulty, you can't take it lightly when fighting.

The combat system ostensibly has the shell of an ARPG, but the properties of the RPG are so weak that it is almost impossible to find. Kana can use a variety of resources in the game to level up, but the main improvement is not the strength of the character, but the unlocking of more attack skills. Aside from being able to increase her character's health at meditation points around the map, Kena has few other ways to boost her defenses and attacks. From this perspective, the game mechanics are more in favor of ACT.

Of course, the work's action system doesn't have the complexity and freedom of the ideal ACT, there are no moves or combos, only basic melee, shield, bow and arrow, and bomb skills. In the case of enemy attacks with high blood, players can only return to the turn-based system of stealing knives in the gap most of the time. At the same time, many bosses in the game are mechanic enemies, can only use specific methods to attack weaknesses, there are creeps next to harassment, the output window is very narrow, so that each battle more or less with the taste of sawing. If you're in a hurry to play at a high intensity, it's hard not to feel a little tired in the middle of a boss battle.

Puzzle solving and platform jumping are another focus beyond the battle. Jumping and climbing alone are not difficult, and the puzzles are also biased towards simplicity, but after gaining the bomb skill, many puzzles become mandatory time-limited levels, which have certain requirements for operation.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

The game offers upgrades, but upgrades are essentially learning skills

It's acceptable for a family-friendly game to be difficult, provided it either makes me feel hot in battle or has a desire to keep me learning and improving my skills. Unfortunately, the combat in this game can not be called a highlight, the battle design is decent, there are not too many enemies to impress me, as a game that emphasizes the world atmosphere and plot, the delayed battle disrupts the narrative rhythm more obviously - the encounters in the map are too frequent, and the enemies that appear are simply sent to you to fight, and there is not much deep connection with the plot, and there is not much reward for fighting. These encounters are essentially about clearing the way of poisonous plants and opening up the next area.

Time-limited platform jumps are more repetitive and appear too focused in the second chapter, and when players rush to advance the plot, these levels that do not have much benefit and sense of achievement will gradually feel tedious and irritable.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

The game creates a good atmosphere for the main battle scene, but the encounters on the road are not so exciting

Interestingly, these problems appear less frequently in chapter THREE. If the first chapter is mainly biased towards combat teaching, the second chapter is mainly biased toward jump teaching, and the third chapter, although it requires players to use these skills flexibly, it greatly reduces the frequency of encounters on the map, and the main bosses encountered along the way also have symbolic identities, and the battle process is more designed - at least the bosses that make me feel ritualistic and enjoy more during the war are mostly in this chapter. And I care about this sense of ritual, which is an important part of the core narrative of collecting relics and sending off souls.

In terms of jumping, the third chapter uses more special terrain and space traversal to design, rather than simply testing hand speed, and has greatly improved the overall rhythm and fun.

<h3>Shaping the World: Delicate Emotions and Regrets of stories</h3>

As I mentioned earlier, "Kana: Bridge of Spirits" has a strong sense of film and television, and has selected many elements with oriental charm in visual and world view shaping. Those elements reminded me more than once of my playing memories of the stop-motion animation film Kubo and the Two Strings, made by Laika Studios. This is an Oriental story told by Western creators, borrowing from the cultural shell of the East, which is a more universal family value and the protagonist's growth as a teenager. The same goes for Kena: Bridge of Spirits. The game's treatment of relatively grand narrative things such as naturally balanced themes is relatively shallow, but as the story progresses, in the treatment of personal emotions, "Kana: Bridge of Spirits" is quite delicate.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

Most of the bound souls have reasons why they cannot leave

Fear, love, and remorse are the primary emotions that trap these souls. Players need to defeat a number of small bosses to collect relics corresponding to these emotions, and finally truly liberate these souls in the battle at the end of each chapter. With each relic collected, Kana could see a small fragment of memory and finally piece together the complete story of the soul's life. The first two chapters belong to ordinary people affected by the unexpected disaster, and the third chapter deals with the origin of the disaster.

The player and Kana witness the outcome of the event before learning the cause of the event. It is these reasons that give more meaning to the people we have met, the places we have visited, and the scenes of battles. Knowing these moments of meaning, the emotional outburst that had previously been gathered was realized.

Try not to spoil it, there are two sections of the whole game that move me the most. One is that the twins they first met are finally reunited with their brother, and the other is to learn that the tower (which is also the battlefield of the boss) built by the carpenter on his own was originally a lighthouse. We already know on the way that the bonds and painstaking efforts of those bad spoilers are eventually destroyed, eroded, and become things that players need to work hard to purify, but they are initially born from pure love, pure selflessness.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

The love for those who have gone will not disappear, even one day we ourselves will eventually fade

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

What was once co-created will be preserved and remembered in different forms

That's why I think the sense of ritual in every battle is important. Not only because after defeating the little bosses we will get a small piece of the memory of these souls, but also because the relics that were given to us were once their most precious and lost items. Unfortunately, there are not many scenes that can meet this standard during the game, especially the fight with the small boss.

In the 4 levels of bosses, I can feel that the production team has worked hard to design various shapes and mechanisms that match their identities. For example, the corrupted carpenter has been circling around the device that looks more like a blacksmith's boiler, and only by destroying the boiler can it achieve armor breaking; the corrupted mythical beast is immune to all attacks from the player, and only by trying to pull out the spear inserted in its back can it finally purify it... While too many mechanic bosses can really make combat cumbersome, I think this plot-obsessed setting is the right direction. Considering that this is the first time Ember Lab has made a game, it can only be said that I hope that they will do a better job in the future in the balance of mechanics and fun.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

As a guide for the soul, every purification and liberation should be solemn

Another place where I think could have been done better was the depth of the plot. The protagonist of the game is a soul guide whose mission is to relieve the soul's obsession, a setting that has actually been used in many games, such as Spiritfarer, but it is clear that The final effect of Kena: Bridge of Spirits is not as good as that of Soul Ferryman. At the end of the game, the story "takes a sharp turn" to the seemingly very "oriental" theme of not interfering with the balance of nature, and the heavier themes of acceptance and farewell, which Kana herself has been exploring, have not been excavated much, unlike Soul Ferryman, which seems to be a profound death education for the player. This even made Kena's last meditation seem quite abrupt, making the "shell feeling" of the whole worldview and Eastern philosophy even heavier.

Obviously, the expression of emotion throughout the game is very good, but the ending does not show more deeply what the plot wants to express, such as letting go and releasing, which is even more regrettable.

Kana: Bridge of Spirits: What it was like for an animation studio to make a game for the first time

At the end of her journey, Kana must confront what she has been seeking

All in all, Ember Lab's first game in the game world has distinct characteristics and unsuccessful portrayals. "Kana: Bridge of Spirits" has a high degree of completion, showing a cinematic level of technical ability in sound and picture effects. During the game, I enjoyed the idyllic world created by the developers, and I was also emotionally affected by the fate of the NPCs I met along the way. I'm looking forward to their next work being more mature and profound in terms of combat mechanics and narrative performances. They have shown potential in these areas, and similar stories deserve to be better told.

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