Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU Reviews

The characters and the story are interesting. Movement is smooth and quick. It's quite linear by Metroidvania standards, but some backtracking here and there will warrant interesting rewards.

The treatment this game has gotten from the public along with mandragora and prince of persia the lost crown just goes to show how out of touch with reality fans of 2D games are with respects to the costs that go into making a video game. Voice acting is very costly, 3D graphics are far more difficult to do than pixel art. I am often the first to point out if a game is overpriced and I even got banned by a developer for calling him out on the ridiculous price of their minivania, but I equally hate when fairly priced are falsely accused of being too expensive. This is a little short compared to 2D platformers of a similar price but it more than makes up for it with the effort put into the artwork, graphics, and voice acting. The same goes for mandragora and pop: tlc. if you think they are overpriced, please keep silent as you are nothing but an unwelcome clown. As for the game itself, after many updates it has aged to become a worthy action adventure that is well worth your time, especially if you are dealing with deep loss and grief. With that said, this was marketed as a metroidvania and that was definitely a mistake, there is almost no exploring and after reaching the late midgame the game becomes 100% linear. I think reviews would have been more positive if the expectations were better managed. In fact, if you are strictly looking for exploration or a metroidvania, then you are adviced to avoid this. This is more for fans of super mario bros wonder, or Flynn son of crimson, or Iconoclasts, or cave story. Finally, Salim, I know you're reading this so I want to give you a bit of advice going forward: choose your allies carefully. It was a mistake to partner up with hated companies like sweet baby inc and EA. This mistake costed you dearly in sales.

The controls are off, Zau slides off platforms, jumps off ledges, can't aim right, and the camera often falls behind

Mostly linear, empty world with basic skills and weak power progression. It asks you to revisit areas after you gain the power to access it simply for a story and no upgrades. The fight patterns are off and unbalanced. You think theres a pattern but there isnt. I uninstalled after Act 1.

Ok game overall if you're looking for a 10-15h metroidvania. Liked the story and the atmosphere, graphics were beautiful. The fights become quickly confusing though and the arena system is not sthg I'm fond of.

nice gameplay, content for rogue like game, but not really good story

Great Platformer in the vein of Hollow Knight or Ori games. Has similar structure layout to maps. Very good interaction with controls. Not seen major issues - do not see a huge use of fast travel yet. Storyline seems interesting and unique.

Incredible visuals, gameplay is simple and satisfying. World is very linear, not sure about replay value but it's well worth the price tag. A few bugs but they didn't detract from the overall story.

The fact that this game calls itself a metroid-vania is one hell of a joke. I don't think I have seen a game that dares to call itself that come even close to the levels of linearity that this game offers. Along your path you very frequently unlock shortcuts which at the end of the game I considered to be some sort of inside joke because there is no way that you are ever going to use one of these shortcuts. Why would you go back? There is no point? The game also tends to forgets your old spells. In every area in which you get a new spell, you have to use that spell so often until you get to the boss/the end of the area. However, the areas barely ever require you to reuse your older abilities. The game couldve benefited a lot from some interesting combinations of obstacles that require you to use multiple spells. The camera might also be a contender for the worst camera in the history of 2D platformers. It happens very frequently that when you're in a fight and you move too close to some platforming obstacle, that the camera will completely move over to the platforming obstacles so that you can not see the enemy that is literally standing right beside you anymore. The game also makes a clear distinction between platforming and fighting. The two are never combined, making both of them somewhat boring. The arenas also all look pretty much the same. All in all, the game looks really nice. Unfortunately, that also ruins most of the visual clarity that is desperatly needed in fights (I'm not saying that having a nice game with visual clarity is impossible, but this just isn't it). Neither platforming nor fighting are particularly intersting and the extremely linear progression makes it impossible to recommend this game to anyone.

Good first game for an indie studio. Solid platformer/metroid type game. Don't expect anything mind-blowing. Not everything needs to break records or be game of the year. It plays it safe, which I think was smart for this kind of game. The game is great for people looking for more African fantasy in games or other media, which there is so little of. You can tell Abubakar Salim and the team cared a lot and put their all into it