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The Lowdown
Pros: Artistic graphics, pre-rendered backgrounds look great, excellent
use of movie soundtrack, represents the movie well
Cons: No control over camera, problematic controls, shallow gameplay
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
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If you haven't heard about Kaena at all, that is not too surprising. The
game Kaena is based on a French computer graphic film entitled Kaena : la Prophétie
(that's Kaena: the prophecy in English). The film has had numerous
delays and even name changes. Finally in 2003 it had its first release
in Europe. Supposedly the film has a US release sometime in 2004.
Although it is unclear if it will come directly to video or it will be
released in theaters. When Namco heard about the game they were quick to
jump on the license. Did it pay off for Namco? Maybe, read on.The
story of Kaena revolves around a girl of the same name. Kaena lives on
an alien planet called Astria where the center of the world is a giant
tree named Axis. The inhabitants of this world rely on the tree's sap
for life, which has been rapidly running out. The desperate people call
the village priest, who happens to be Kaena's guardian, for help. Yet no
signs of help have arrived and day after day the people get more
desperate. Kaena believes that through her dreams Axis is calling her
for a task. The highly traditional village doesn't believe her, mainly
because of her spunky and slightly rebellious personality. Instead of
waiting around Kaena defies the grand priest and the people to venture
inside of Axis, to find a solution for the world.
When you step right into the game you're on a quest to save Essy, the
nine year old brother of Kaena's sole friend, Zehos. Impeding your way
are numerous organic looking alien beasts. Of course, you have to fight
them. The combat engine is rather simplistic. You can maneuver Kaena
around with the D-pad and X is used for basic attacking. You can perform
combos with your first weapon the "vecarian knife" by pressing a
combination of X, square and triangle. Kaena benefits from attacking
numerous enemies because the higher the combo the higher the bonuses.
Defeating enemies leaves one of three shinning balls. One increases your
weapon's experience, one increases your berserk meter and one recovers
your health. Leveling up your weapon is the primary means of growth.
Doing this makes your blows give more damage, which is essential for
fighting some of the larger monsters. When the berserk meter is full
Kaena can unleash a powerful attack that will hit all of the enemies on
the screen.
The combat system doesn't offer anything you haven't seen before,
except for some new problems. First of all why Namco didn't include
analog control is puzzling. This is a 3D action game and Namco opted to
use the D pad only. Moving Kaena around is rather frustrating, you move
forwards and backwards by pressing up and down on the pad. Pressing left
or right just makes you turn around or if you're locked on to an enemy
you'll side step. When you're first starting the game you'll intuitively
press left if that is the direction you want to move left. Instead you
have to turn around and press up. When you're battling enemies the
control scheme is just awful. One of the earlier battles pits you
against a monster with bones covering his head and top half, forcing you
to hit the enemy's back. To do this you need to side step to avoid
attacks and then quickly run behind the monster to hit it. This sequence
became extremely frustrating because the control system is just so
unnatural from any other video game. Another huge problem with the
battle system is the lack of a moving camera. Namco chose to use
beautifully designed pre-rendered backgrounds with a static camera. The
static camera provides some unique camera angles that give the game a
cinematic feel, but they don't help during the combat sequences. From
screen to screen the camera angle changes and each screen is quite tiny,
so you'll be switching screens a lot. The problem arises when you're
fighting monsters. You could run into a new screen and not even see that
there is monster right in front of the next screen. In this case you
might even be fighting a monster, or worse multiple monsters, that you
can't see. Kaena can also be hit so she gets knocked into another
screen, in which she will completely lose sight of the monster she was
fighting. Not exactly the brightest gameplay concept. Speaking of
combat, it is plentiful, maybe even too plentiful. To progress from area
to area Kaena is forced to eliminate all of the monsters in the area.
This wouldn't be too bad, if the combat system was better.
Even though Kaena has some glaring gameplay faults the cinematic feel
and style of the game captures the player. The game was based on a movie
and Namco took full advantage of this. The graphics are phenomenal. The
rendered version of Kaena looks awesome, its so close to the
pre-rendered movie version shown in the opening video. Namco also has
some really well done backgrounds. They captured the tree world of Axis
by using a sepia palette and had plenty of branches around. They even
used clever lighting, that shines through the openings of the tree's
branches. The monsters look cool too. One of the first monsters you see
looks like a giant poisonous frog, complete with red eyes and webbed
feet. The monsters have an organic quality to them that is similar in
style to ICO. All of this art is inspired or pulled directly from the
movie, if you've seen the trailer for the movie you'll know what I mean.
To add to the great graphical style Namco took full use of the
movie's soundtrack. The main theme is a chime melody, that
sounds like it is out of a sci-fi mystery movie. It is atmospheric
enough that it meshes well with the naturalistic art style of the game,
but not too atmospheric that you'll turn on other music. When you switch
to battle mode the music seamlessly switches beats to an upbeat battle
tune, which is more appropriate. The transitions are so fluid it almost
feels like they're pre-mixed. Namco has added in Japanese voice acting
for the game, which is slightly surprising. The movie was originally made
in French, the translated in to English. Originally, it looked like they
might use the English or French score since the first screen shots had
subtitles. Instead they have full Japanese dialogue.
While Kaena isn't the most fun game to play, it is still an
engrossing game. For gamers that are looking for something to suck them
in and can deal with some gameplay flaws should pick up Kaena. Namco has
done such an excellent job creating the game with so much style you just
have to wonder how the game would have turned out if they put half of
that time into making better gameplay. Sadly, they didn't so Kaena turns
out to be a mediocre package.
Import Friendly
The story's voiceovers are entirely in Japanese complete with
Japanese subtitles. Most of the important menus are in English and the
game automatically saves your process so it is far from unplayable.
US Bound?
With all of these English menus it seems like Namco is planning on
bringing this to America after the movie is released.
Overall
Kaena does a phenomenal job of capturing the movie it
represents, but the gameplay just isn't there.
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