Tales of Kenzera: Zau review

Our VerdictTight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

Our Verdict

Tight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

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Need to knowWhat is it?A metroidvania based on African folklore.Expect to pay£18/$20Release dateApril 23, 2024DeveloperSurgent StudiosPublisherEAReviewed onRTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAMSteam DeckVerifiedLinkOfficial site

Need to know

What is it?A metroidvania based on African folklore.Expect to pay£18/$20Release dateApril 23, 2024DeveloperSurgent StudiosPublisherEAReviewed onRTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAMSteam DeckVerifiedLinkOfficial site

What is it?A metroidvania based on African folklore.

Expect to pay£18/$20

Release dateApril 23, 2024

DeveloperSurgent Studios

PublisherEA

Reviewed onRTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAM

Steam DeckVerified

LinkOfficial site

Most of the freshness in Tales of Kenzera stems from its setting, given that African mythologies (ancient Egypt excepted) remain a largely untapped resource in games. Playing as young shaman Zau, there’s a real sense here that you’ve been dropped not only into an adventure but a legend passed between distant ancestors, drawing on regional lore of magical artefacts, spirits and gods.

(Image credit: EA)

A bird-like boss

Zau’s mission is as much about his personal growth as his aims, as he quests to reclaim his deceased father from the land of the dead. In order to get permission from Kalunga, God of death, he first has to send three great spirits the other way, as they’re running amok about the country, refusing to acknowledge their time is up. In the process, Zau might just learn a thing or two about accepting the cycle of life.

As for the Sun and the Moon, their power is infused into a pair of shaman’s masks that previously belonged to papa Zau, and our hero can quick-change between them to banish the plethora of smaller hostile spirits loitering around the otherwise deserted tribal lands. Don the moon mask and you can run and gun, slinging magic bullets as if wielding an automatic pistol. The sun mask is suited to closer encounters, letting out a flurry of melee blows or a launching strike that leaves enemies flailing in the air.

The fact that your moon shot needs frequent reloading and some spirits come equipped with shields that can only be broken with a specific element means you need to get used to juggling both attack styles. In later levels especially, combat in Tales of Kenzera becomes a kind of frantic puzzle where you try to stay mobile, make use of harmful scenery for quick kills and select the right rock to blunt your opponents' scissors. That your quick heal power draws on the same rechargeable resource as your mega blast super attacks also leads to some tricky balancing.

(Image credit: EA)

Two big water wheels

Switch hitter

These powers don’t, however, fold into your acrobatic leaping routines so much as function in specific circumstances, like when a strategically placed waterfall gives you the leg up you need if you freeze it, or a hook point for your slingshot grapple move bisects an otherwise uncrossable gap. Yet once you get a few of these techniques under your belt, Tales of Kenzera gets busy with some pretty intricate platforming sequences, asking you to flick through your repertoire with speed and grace. In some of the game’s optional challenge rooms, you may wish that control of Zau was a touch tighter, but for the most part he’s pleasingly nimble and chaining moves is intuitive.

(Image credit: EA)

Fighting multiple enemies

A little more curiously for a metroidvania, what these new powers don’t do much is open up fresh paths on roads already travelled for further exploration. So, when you complete your first trip out to meet and beat a great spirit then return to the centre of the map, there’s not a great deal that’s newly accessible with the gear you picked up since you were last there, so off to the next region you go. Many of the game’s non-critical temptations, from lore-drop echoes to max health boosts and those challenges, then, merely dwell in short offshoots from the main track that you can choose to tackle as you find them.

The Verdict73Read our review policyTales of Kenzara: ZauTight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

The Verdict

73Read our review policyTales of Kenzara: ZauTight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

73Read our review policy

Tales of Kenzara: ZauTight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

Tales of Kenzara: Zau

Tight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

TOPICSElectronic Arts

TOPICS

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‘It’s our way of making a statement in the face of targeted harassment’: Tales of Kenzera: Zau director lowers the price of the game on Switch

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