Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Review: Metroidvania Action with an Emotional Story

Metroidvania fans really can’t complain this year. After the excellent Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in January, the next promising representative of the genre is already waiting in the wings. Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, as the game is called, scores with an emotional and gripping story, but has a few drawbacks when it comes to gameplay, as our test reveals.

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Tales of Kenzera: ZAU at a glance

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Test: A story about loss

Anyone who has had to deal with the loss of a beloved family member will find themselves in the story of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. The game tells the story of young Zuberi, who mourns the death of his father at the beginning of the game.

Deeply grieving and torn inside, his mother gives him a book written by his deceased Baba, who was known as a Bantu shaman, and he is drawn directly into the mystical realm of Kenzera.

There Zau, as the protagonist is called in the mystical world, meets Kalunga, the god of the dead, and demands that he bring his father back from the dead. According to legend, death must grant a shaman a wish if he has guarded three Great Spirits.

And so you set off on your journey, with Death in tow, to collect the spirits and resurrect your father.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU drives the story forward in excellently voiced and emotional cutscenes, in which not only Zau but also the player learns a lot about themselves. About anger, sadness, hate or boundless love.

Perhaps the game’s greatest strength is its coherent storyline, excellently voiced in English by BAFTA award-winner Abubakar Salim, which offers a decent length of five to eight hours of gameplay.

Great graphics meet fresh ideas

The first thing that catches the eye when playing Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is the unique and coherent graphic style of the indie adventure. The colorful and varied graphic style of the African-inspired scenario suits the title perfectly and looks simply outstanding.

In a total of four large acts, you will visit a variety of sections, ranging from picturesque mountain slopes to dark caves and much more. They all score with dynamic environments, a convincing level of detail and are simply beautiful to look at. In combination with the harmonious animations and the excellent soundtrack, this quickly creates an enormously dense atmosphere.

But Zau also has a lot to offer in terms of gameplay. The game takes the typical Metroidvania conventions and cleverly spices them up with some fresh ideas.

Of course, the entire game world is connected, while you are denied access to most areas until you have acquired a corresponding skill or power or found the right key.

Of course, there is a certain amount of backtracking, but this goes a little too far in places despite the fast travel system. This is mainly due to the fact that the fast travel points are a little too scarce and you sometimes have to hop for minutes through previously visited areas.

Of course, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU also involves fighting for all it’s worth. A few more enemy types would have been desirable for the standard opponents, but basically the game is absolutely fine.

Moon and sun

The title also makes use of a unique game mechanic here: Zau can wear two masks as a shaman, which fundamentally change his movement and attack repertoire and which you can switch between at the touch of a button.

With the mask of the moon, for example, you can attack from a distance or manipulate time, while the mask of the sun allows powerful melee attacks or the hurling of a fire spear.

Switching between the masks relatively quickly becomes essential in order to progress through the game. As is typical of the genre, you also collect new abilities that strengthen your attacks, but can also be used when exploring the game world.

For example, Bamba’s Stone gives the Mask of the Moon the ability to freeze flowing water or enemies, while Akida’s Speed gives the Mask of the Sun the ability to activate switches from a distance.

The varied abilities are perfectly integrated into the gameplay, especially as both masks can also be improved in a skill tree as you level up.

Nevertheless, the selection of skills and attacks remains manageable; a little more variety would have been nice here. Especially as the options are quite rudimentary, especially in comparison to the gems of the genre, and lack the rich variety of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, for example.

Monotonous battles

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU looks beautiful and playing around with the masks and their abilities is motivating. Unfortunately, the title cannot maintain the same level in the battles, which are simply far too monotonous and always follow the same pattern.

In most cases, you enter a larger room that is quickly closed off by a magical barrier that only opens once you have defeated all the waves of enemies that pop up.

Not only is the process always the same, but the positioning of the enemies is also the same. More so than in other representatives of the genre, the battles here feel like an unnecessary stretch that interrupts the otherwise good exploration and puzzle passages.

There are also some unpleasant spikes in difficulty. Although Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is actually a rather easy game, the somewhat imprecise controls sometimes throw a spanner in the works.

Especially because Zau makes a small leap forward with every attack, landing in dangerous spikes that are deadly even when touched.

In an elevator passage towards the end of the first act, for example, we were stuck for almost an hour because – due to the controls – we were dying one unnecessary on-screen death after another. Also because the somewhat sluggish camera is sometimes a little bitchy and doesn’t keep up with fast dash movements.

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Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Review: Conclusion

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a Metroidvania for beginners and, although it can’t match the high quality of Prince of Persia or Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the game still offers largely successful gameplay that is particularly motivating thanks to the unique mask mechanics.

This also applies to the emotional storyline, which creates a dense atmosphere thanks to the harmonious visuals and successful soundtrack.

Otherwise, the title offers good standard genre fare, but noticeably falls short when it comes to the variety of enemies and the variety within the battles. Despite the rather low level of difficulty, there is occasional frustration because the controls are sometimes not as responsive or precise as they should be.

Nevertheless, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is definitely worth a recommendation, and not just for genre fans, and is a good introduction to the world of Metroidvanias, which in many other cases are much more challenging.