Tales of Kenzera: Broad is possibly the hardest platformer I’ve ever played – not because the game itself is mechanically difficult, but because my unwillingness to grapple with the themes of grief and loss made it nearly impossible to play and write about.
Tales of Kenzera: Broad is a Metroidvania developed by Surgent Studios and directed by Abubakar Salim, a voice and film actor turned game developer best known for his work as Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins and father in Raised by wolves. The game is set in… Kenzera – a lush and detailed African fantasy world where shamans oversee a land full of magic, spirits and monsters. According to Kenzeran legend, if someone is able to return three wayward and powerful spirits to Kalunga, the noble and grandfatherly god of death, that person will be granted anything they desire. Enter Zau, a young shaman determined to use this wish to bring his father’s spirit back from death.
Tales of Kenzera has cemented in me that platform games are my favorite game. The controls are responsive, making it feel good to move around the world, even if Zau’s movement abilities themselves aren’t particularly unique. There’s a double jump and a dash, but also a lasso that launches Zau to great heights, wings that let you ride air currents, and more. Despite these relatively basic powers Kenzera uses it very satisfactorily.
The game often triggered the feeling of “entrapment” I had while playing Prince of Persia: The Lost Crownand challenged me to perform multiple skills in a row so I could get where I needed to be without dying. Right after I received the wings, there was a moment where I had to ride air currents through a cave lined with spikes. You can’t use your combat powers while gliding at the same time, and the path was often blocked by breakable barriers, so I had to turn off my wing powers and destroy the barrier, but turn my wing powers back on before falling into the machine. Kill spikes. It was frustrating, required an obscene number of tries, and I enjoyed it in every way.
Vice versa, Kenzera has unique combat powers, but the combat itself can be rather monotonous. Zau has access to two masks that change the nature of his attacks. The Sun Mask gives him the fire element and gives him powerful melee attacks, while the Moon Mask is ice-based and allows ranged attacks. The most fun part of the fight is figuring out how to make the two sets of powers work together. My favorite combination is to launch an enemy into the air with my fire powers, then hold them there and juggle them with a barrage of ice projectiles.
However, there isn’t much enemy variety in the game, as most combat encounters involve being locked in a room until you defeat successive waves of enemies. Kenzera tries to compensate for this simplicity with effort. Monsters often have red or blue health bars that can only be depleted by fire or ice attacks, respectively, and will regenerate over time if the enemy is not defeated quickly enough. When encountering multiple enemies of different elements, it is difficult to focus on just one enemy to kill, allowing other enemies’ armor to regenerate, lengthening the fight. Although fights are trivial at the start, things can get out of hand when faced with tougher opponents with virtually unfair powers like the ability to deplete your health from a distance.
But one part of the game I struggled with the most was its story – it’s too real. When I heard Zau, voiced by Salim, struggling with his grief for his father, it was hard for me not to connect it with my own grief, and let me tell you – I Really did not want it. I rejected the sympathetic memories that came up every time Zau talked about his memories of his father. I just didn’t want to go there because I was afraid of drowning in all sorts of messy, painful feelings that I didn’t have the time or inclination to process. The deeper I got into the game, the harder it became to actually play the game because suppressing these little wells of grief caused them to bubble up at inconvenient times. And it’s hard to solve platforming puzzles when you can’t see because your glasses are splattered with salt water, you know?
I didn’t want to be too maudlin while writing Tales of Kenzera: Broad. There had already been so many good reviews talking about the grief the game brought about and how it allowed players to process their own grief that I didn’t want to traverse those waters again. But as I sat down to write this, I thought about what I thought of this game, what I liked and didn’t like, how it left an impression on me, and how I could best pass on those details, all of it was so stubborn. Finally I couldn’t resist and I started to cry. All the personal stories and feelings that I rejected during the game could no longer be denied and came rushing back to me in one big wave. I won’t share these stories here. I realize that I am different from Salim in this moment. I do not possess the deep kindness, selflessness and strength needed to share such personal stories – playful and dressed up as anecdotes from Zau and his father – with millions of people.
Once my bout of grief passed, playing became easier. It felt like my resistance to just take a moment and act with everything I tried to ignore stopping me from doing my job. As Tales of Kenzera and its origins are so beautiful that grief manifests itself in all sorts of unintended ways, as does healing from that grief. Sometimes you have to make a play. Sometimes you have to write about one.
Tales of Kenzera: Broad is now available for Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and PC.