Tales of Kenzera: ZAU - Review
When Tales of Kenzera: ZAU was first debuted, I wasn’t sure what to make of the guy on stage in the colourful clothes, but the more I saw of the game and the more I learnt of its story, the more I was intrigued. As the game clearly wears its Metroidvania inspirations on its sleeve I had high hopes going in. Were they met or was this clearly nothing but a tall tale?
There are two stories being told here in Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, the first is of Zuberi, a young man who has lost his father and isn’t sure how to proceed and the other is of Zau. Where the catch takes place is that Zau is fictional, a character created by Zuberi’s father in order to explain one of the stories he used to tell, something he put down onto paper before his passing. The parallels between the two are quite easy to spot, but whereas Zuberi is more about his life in the future, Zau’s life takes place within a more mystical realm. For obvious reasons I won’t discuss anything about either story, but I will say that its 95% Zau focused, which is either going to be delightful for you, or a bit of a letdown. While I do adore Zau’s story, I do wish there was a little more going on with Zuberi, if only because he is the character that we meet with first and it’s his tale we are encountering. The other point of concern is that if you are not paying attention, it is not immediately clear that Zau’s story is fictional as once you are in it, you are in it until the end, some break in the middle or some outside commentary once in a while would have helped there.
However, while story is important, this is a game billed as a Metroidvania and that means it had to get a number of things right and honestly, they succeeded. Zau is quite a nimble character, able to double jump, dash and dodge with ease and those moves help him out greatly in combat. As you progress through the game you will pick up new powers, which help you explore more of the map, but even without those, Zau is fun to control. The first power you pick up is the ability to freeze water, and with this you can climb up waterfalls or run up stream, the second is the ability to charge up special targets to unlock doors. Each of the powers has a bit of a learning curve and they can be fun to master, but the later powers don’t really get a chance to shine as much as the earlier ones. Once you pick up all the powers, I did discover that some of the button combinations required to activate some, were a little tricky to get right, more so as the game often wouldn’t register button presses if they were done too quickly together.
Combat is perhaps the area that I didn’t enjoy as much as they likely wanted me to, it wasn’t horrible, but it just didn’t excite me. Most metroidvania games don’t require you to fight enemies in the world, they are often there to farm for health or items, but you can ignore them if you choose to, that is sort of the case here. There are times when you can just run on past the enemies, unless you want to smash them to fill your health back up, but then there are times when the game throws up walls and forces you to fight. Now I am not talking about the boss fights, those later, but rather these are rooms that have a number of platforms and waves of enemies that spawn in. As the game sports a dichotomy of the sun and moon, there are some enemies that can only be damaged when you are wearing the appropriate mask. This as a mechanic sounds good, but the execution isn’t where I think it needs to be. When wearing the Sun mask, your attacks are all melee based, which means you need to get up close to your target, but some enemies are prone to dishing out severe amounts of damage if you do get to close. Why this became an issue for me, was that the bosses never had that same mechanic applied, they were just there to be whaled upon, or shot at, depending on the mask worn. So there are times when combat is needed, but only occasionally was it dependant on the mask alignment.
Outside of combat, there are quite a number of other things to discover, lore being one of the big ones. The discovery of these are usually just off the main path, which if you are a completionist, gives you a reason to explore everything you can. Each of these giant floating stone heads provides a little story, while you can listen to them when you find them, you can also do it in the menu, if you want to save them for later. Speaking of the menu there is an upgrade system, however its tied to the masks, so you can get another level to a combo, or charge up an attack. Upgrading Zau is done through spiritual trials and let me just say, they are a pain, but worth it. There are a few trials about the place and while they are all combat focused, they will test you unlike anything else the game has to offer, each has three tiers and the more you complete the bigger the rewards. These trials are how you increase your health, so you will want to undertake them and then pair it with some mediative breathing under some trees for enhancements to your energy.
As far as the games presentation goes, it is honestly quite stunning at times. The sports what I can best describe as a maquette inspired look, especially with its characters. Maquettes are sculptures that are made, primarily for movies or animated films, where they are made from clay and then used either as reference or scanned in as a model. The look suits the game, while maybe not so much the future world, as we don’t get to see much of it, but more so Zau’s world. That same look is applied to both the friends and enemies that Zau meets on his journey and while there are not a lot of smaller enemy designs, they do look good. I do need to call out the games music, it is phenomenal from start to finish, there were times when I would often just stop for a moment to enjoy the score, even when it was not the best time to do so, that is just how good Nainita Desai’s score really is. There is of course the fantastic vocal performances by the cast, all of which bring the characters to life, so much so that early on I wanted to slap Zau for being who he was and speaking how he did.
I did have some visual issues and one really weird problem pop up. The smaller concerns are around some low res textures in the background and getting stuck. The former of those two is something that is easy to pass over, more so if you don’t look for them like I did, however the second is not. I can’t begin to count the number of times that I got stuck, either in animations, on enemies or platforms, it just happened so much. The game was pretty good of breaking them after a few moments, letting me lose, but it is a shame that it happened in the first place. The weird problem was tied to my playing on PC with an ultrawide monitor, the game does not support a resolution that ultrawide requires to fill the screen, not uncommon. So what the developers have done is put two decorative items on either side of the screen, hiding the black, which is a nice gesture. The problem was that in turning them off, I also got the on screen prompts turned off, so when Zau had to press a button to proceed, I couldn’t see what was needed to be pressed, resulting in my being stuck. Turning the sides back on let me see what was needed, but it was just a really odd thing to have had happen and again, is unlikely to be something the vast majority of gamers will encounter.
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a great first effort from a new studio and first time game maker, it clearly is playing to its strengths for its 12 hour runtime. The games movement, puzzles and world are sublime and while combat has its moments of greatness, its often messy with encounters forcing you to swap between the masks to get through. For those here for a heart-wrenching story about loss, acceptance and everything in between, it doesn’t really show up to much and while it is there, its not in your face all the time. If you are a fan of the metroidvania genre, then you really need to think about picking this one up, it offers a tale that is worth listening to.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by Electronic Arts
The Pros
Gameplay is incredible at times, with fast and fluid actions across the game
The world is full of secrets to discover, some of which will really test your skills
The Cons
The story isn’t perhaps as strong as the developers have pushed, its good, just not great
There are a number of times when combat is forced upon you and it was never appreciated
