Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Review

Platforming games have been dominating the year 2024. Another title among these perfect games is – Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. Published by EA Originals and developed by Surgent Studios, ZAU is available on PC, Xbox, PS5 and the Nintendo Switch.

We reviewed Tales of Kenzera: ZAU on the Steam Deck.

Let’s dive into the world of a Shaman in a journey of acceptance.

Exploring ZAU

The Tale of Kenzera is set in a magical past between the mortal realm and heaven, where souls find themselves stuck due to the lack of acceptance or a burden.

Our story begins in a futuristic setting where a child has recently lost his father. When the father knew his time was coming to a close, he wrote a story for the child that would eventually help him overcome his grief. This is where the tale began.

Upon entering the realm, Zau is agitated and only has one goal, to bring his father back into the living world. This is only possible with the help of a prophecy. It is known to the Shaman that if the god of death is assisted by sending the three powerful spirits to kenzera, he will grant the Shaman whatever he wishes.

Zau embarks on his journey to explore distant lands, climbing peaks, falling deep in a cave, and overcoming challenges through Shaman shrines and their blessings.

After helping the spirits that have their reasons to be stuck in this place and failing to find the courage to move on, Zau slowly realises what letting go truly means and further enables him to grow as an individual but more importantly become a legendary Shaman.

The World of Kenzera

The game offers a smooth flow of platforming experience, backed by all the movement mechanics a modern-day platforming adventure game would get you. What it does differently is primarily the ability to switch between his styles. Zau can wield a fire-type attack pattern which is close range in fighting and is backed by a spear for range attacks. His other ability allows him to take a ranged form of attack and also can freeze enemies and structures for a brief period.

Apart from this Zau is not doing anything different from the other games. Especially if you have played Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, you will see a lot of similarities but not as much attention to detail or the flow of the world as compared to Zau.

The perk system of Zau just seems off, and slow to progress. You don’t seem to be getting stronger after each encounter and even skillwise you are facing the same enemy across the entire map with only a few changes. The character progression in ZAU is easily forgettable and didn’t excite me enough to be grinding for it.

Not just the progression, but equipable perks or talismans barely make any difference except a few of them. Therefore attempting a full-on side puzzle doesn’t feel rewarding at all. I personally only attempted it for the fun of the puzzle design, but the true motivation with the reward does not exist. The only collectable that I would personally seek out would be the health-increasing trees. These are often slightly hard to reach but are beautifully designed to visit and take a moment as well.

The only true mechanic that keeps the gameplay system fresh is the shaman abilities that you unlock. These provide a brand new way to traverse certain areas, therefore making replayability a bit more fun and keeping the gameplay fresh.

ZAU however is not free of bugs. At a certain level where an NCP should’ve disappeared, didn’t. And after speaking to her, the entire boss fight triggered itself again. The boss fight wasn’t tough at all but takes a good chunk of time to get over with. This threw me off playing the game for a while.

The Colors of Kenzera

Visually ZAU is guaranteed to be one of the best-looking platformer games this year. It does not shy in utilizing deep colours of the pallet and capitalizes on featuring designs that would compliment the blue and red colour of Zau himself.

The background designs of many areas are just visually mindblowing, but the cherry on the top is the world design itself. Except for connections and a better fast travel system, the platforming was always a joy to conquer. The design is extremely smooth and well-thought-out.

The overall UI, narrative, and music just perfectly fall like a puzzle piece making the game as a whole a great experience. The narrative and voice-overs have been surprisingly really good. In modern times having a theatrical form of narrative just kills the energy of storytelling, but ZAU sticks to the character well, pouring emotions of anger, fear, sadness, confidence and more to pure perfection.

Verdict

Tales of Kenzera ZAU is a brilliant platformer adventure game which is visually appealing and backed by a solid storyline with heart-touching voiceovers. The game is not free of bugs, and may not excite you in terms of progression, but the exploration will keep you hooked. If you’re a platformer aficionado, ZAU is the right pick for you!