There has been a large resurgence of metroidvania’s lately, and to be honest, I’m here for it. We’ve been getting fantastic games like Blasphemous 2, Metroid Dread, Ender Lilies, and even larger publishers are getting in on it with the recent Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Now EA is stepping up to the plate with Tales of Kenzera: Zau, using its EA Originals publishing arm that supports promising indie games. Tales of Kenzera: Zau caught my eye when it was announced at the 2023 Game Awards. The founder of Surgent Studios, Abubakar Salim, came on stage and gave a heartfelt speech about his game and how he is putting his heart and soul into it. The trailer absolutely showed his passion providing us a look at a 2.5D metroidvania with a deep story and themes. Also, a game that features a less covered setting and cultural folk lore immediately gets me interested.

When Abubakar Salim talked about Tales of Kenzera: Zau he explained that the story was shaped from his own personal experience with grief and love. This definitely wasn’t just advertising speak because there is truly a deep story here that I think most people would be able to relate or sympathize with. We open with our main character Zuberi mourning his father’s recent death. Not being able to say his final goodbye to his father at the funeral, his mother gives him the last story his father ever wrote. Trying to settle his emotions and possibly connect with his father again, Zuberi absorbs himself in the last thing his father has made.

The story takes Zuberi away to a universe inspired by Bantu tales where we follow Zau, a spiritual healer shaman known as a Nganga. Set on a quest to face his own emotions from losing his Baba, he seeks help from the God of Death, Kalunga. His quest is to bring peace to three great spirits that have cheated death and in return, Kalunga will return his Baba to him. Through these various trials Zuberi finds the strength from his fathers story to finally face his own emotions.

The story of Zau/Zuberi is an emotional one which I found very engaging, and while I haven’t experienced quite the same levels of loss, it was easy to empathize and feel for these characters. It isn’t all sad, however, there are still some joyful and playful moments throughout the game that help ease some of the heavier moments. That being said, this is a game that will make you feel something, and it does it very well. Perhaps you haven’t experienced loss, but you may have experienced frustration, rage, feeling like you aren’t enough, and even doubt. This is where Tales of Kenzera: Zau shines, because unfortunately, the gameplay falls short.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau starts off simple with its metroidvania level design and gameplay, but it starts falling apart towards the end when things get more hectic and requires more precise platforming. Zau is empowered by mystical masks that harness the power of the sun and moon gods, Impundulu and GaGorib. Being able to instantly swap between the mask enables variety in the combat and platforming. Essentially, the moon mask is more of your ice side while the sun mask is, well, kind of self explanatory. As you proceed through the game you will unlock specific key moves that will allow you to proceed through new or previously locked off areas in classic metroidvania fashion.

Each mask has its own upgrade paths that fit alongside their elements or combat style. The moon mask allows for long range attacks that can be upgraded with a charge shot, a well timed reload that enhances your next shots, deflecting enemy projectiles back at them, and an ultimate move that looks like a Kamehameha. You then unlock additional special moves like an ice ball that can be used in combat or in platforming to freeze water. I will say, I used the moon mask a lot more than the sun mask because of its long range capabilities. I was able to keep everyone away as well as take out flying enemies. On top of that I was able to redirect enemy shots and even enemies themselves into pit falls.

The sun mask is more of your melee focused combat offering combos and juggling enemies. Its upgrades are okay, you get to unlock an additional attack in your quick attack combo, a ground slam, and then separate upgrades to light enemies on fire with these moves. The sun masks ultimate move is a massive fire tornado that surrounds you. The special unlock for the sun mask is a spear that isn’t very good for combat, so it’s mostly just used for its puzzle solution.

The sun mask was a bit disappointing to me. There isn’t enough depth in the melee combat to really do anything crazy, and the damage delt felt a lot less than using the moon mask. Couple that with a much more useless long range attack and no way to block or deflect enemy attacks like the moon mask, it just feels much weaker. Even the special move isn’t as great, since it only does a small circumference around you and you need the enemies to walk into to. While the moon mask special move you can shoot across the screen and even move it up and down. Really the only time I used the sun mask is when I needed to.

Later on in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, enemies will start getting an over-shield that is either red or blue matching up with your masks. You’ll need to use the corresponding mask in order to take down these over-shields so that way you can kill them. It’s a simple concept that basically forces you to use both masks. However, later in the game when combat gets a lot more hectic, this is such a pain. You see, when enemies have an over-shield they don’t flinch to your attacks which means even when you’re beating them up. This creates a really annoying situation for the sun mask who needs to get close to attack. You’ll end up getting smacked around or launched backwards while trying to just do your simple combos. If you can’t get back to that enemy and continue damage, they regain their over-shield.

What I ended up having to do in a lot of cases was just spam the ground slam attack with the fire upgrade, because at least catching them on fire would do damage over time so they didn’t regain their shield. Spamming the ground slam also kept me off the ground for the most part so they couldn’t easily smack me while I stand in front of them attacking. It was frustrating, and frankly, boring. Not only that, but there were a lot of annoying bugs and inconsistencies in the controls that made me want to rage. Often times the reflect move wouldn’t grab onto an enemy projectile, the enemies acid spit would stick to mid air and poison you if you got near it. There were also times when enemies would just be frozen and not move.

Unfortunately, the same things can be said about the platforming. It starts off simple and fine, nothing revolutionary for the genre, but it serves its function. However, later in the game when it wants to do fast paced escape sequences or precise platforming combining all the moves you learned, the issues start to rear their head again. During fast sequences the camera would sometimes get confused on where to pan so it either wouldn’t move or bounce back and forth. Controls, again, just don’t feel responsive enough for these types of situations and there were plenty of times where I’d die because he just wouldn’t double jump in time after a dash. To rub dirt in the wound, there also isn’t any checkpoints in-between these long segments.

The last couple hours of Tales of Kenzera: Zau had me raging more than any Souls game ever has. For me, it’s one thing if I’m dying because I’m the one making bad moves or decisions, but when I feel like I’m fighting the controls more than the game, I can’t excuse that. When walls aren’t breaking even though you dash into them, or when you die in the lava pit because of the auto clamber animation that dips his toes into the lava, or when you die because the spike barely touched your toe. There was just too much frustration in the gameplay later on that really soured the whole experience. 

Visually, Tales of Kenzera: Zau is pleasant to look at; it features some nice level designs from lush forests, to dry deserts filled with skeletal remains, and the nasty heat blasts of a volcano. There are three main regions to explore, and each three have some additional variety within them. Powered by the Unreal Engine, all regions are detailed thoroughly, and it has a great color palette. The only downfall of the visuals here is that in bigger fights you can get a bit lost in the shuffle and there isn’t a wide variety of enemy designs. Besides the bosses, the enemy design is a bit lackluster. Unreal Engine is a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand it can looks visually great, but on the other it just feels sluggish for a platformer.

Sound design is definitely one of the best aspects of Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Composer Nainita Desai’s original score is beautiful offering a wide range of rousing upbeat boss and combat moments to solemn sad songs that match the emotional narrative moments. The music is genuinely great and really enhanced every moment. General sound effects are done well also, with the combat moves and ambient sounds from the levels. Voice acting is surprisingly well done, which is a relief when talking about such emotional content. Too often a game will have extremely stilted voice acting with bad writing for emotional moments, but luckily it is well done here. You can hear the pain, anger, and sadness with all the characters.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a great concept that was clearly pushed forward by a good writer and storyteller. There is a deep narrative here that I enjoyed and it really carries the whole package here. While it starts out as a fairly simple, run-of-the-mill metroidvania gameplay wise, it is unfortunately brought way down by its lack of polish and design. Too often I felt like I was fighting the game itself instead of actually enjoying a good challenge. While the story shines bright, its enjoyment is diminished by its frustrating gameplay design.

 

Graphics: 7.5 Visually Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a pleasure to look at with an impressive color palette. Enemy design lacks variety.	Gameplay: 6.0 Gameplay is unfortunately let down by some lackluster combat for the sun mask and questionable platforming design.
Sound: 9.0 Sound design is really well done with a fantastic soundtrack and well performed voice acting.	Fun Factor: 6.0 Unfortunately, I felt like I was fighting the game more than playing the game and it let to more frustrations than fun.
Final Verdict: 6.5

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.