Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Review

The reveal of Surgent Studios’ Tales of Kenzera: ZAU in late 2023 made more than a few heads turn with its setting inspired by African Bantu tales and colorful visuals, which made it easy to look past the fact that the game was yet another metroidvania, a genre that went from being extremely niche to being pretty much everywhere nowadays. While the game objectively doesn’t really push the boundaries of the genre forward, reiterating mechanics and features seen in countless other games, it is undeniable how Zau’s adventure in the treacherous lands of Kenzera is a solid debut for the studio led by Abubakar Salim and one that is definitely worth experiencing, thanks to its solid gameplay and visual design that are tightly woven with the narrative without relegating any of these elements to the backseat.

In Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, players take control of Zau, a grieving boy living in the afrofuturistic city called Amani who begins to read the Bantu tale written by his departed father to cope with grief. By doing so, he turns into the young Shaman of Amandla, who is also stricken by grief following the loss of his Baba. Determined to make a change and bring him back, the shaman sought the help of the God of Death Kalunga, not knowing that his journey to bring peace to the three great spirits of Kenzera would lead to something greater than cheating death and bringing his dead Baba back.

The story is definitely one of the best elements of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. Zau’s journey towards acceptance is a very compelling and relatable tale, and it’s made even better by its excellent pace and the unique way it conveys emotions through colors. The colorful biomes of the game represent the various stages of grief Zau is experiencing, going from anxiety and fear to finally acceptance. While this may be a little subtle at times, it is undoubtedly a great way to seamlessly weave narrative, gameplay, and visual design together, making every element feel like a part of a greater whole.

The Tales of Kenzera: ZAU characters, much like the story, are very well-realized. While Zau and Kalunga, the God of Death, are always in the spotlight, the other side characters are just as well developed, masterfully representing Zau’s feelings as much as the environment and its colors do, forcing him to face what he is struggling to overcome in reality as much as in his mind. With great voice acting provided by some amazing talent, including Abukabar Salim himself as Zau and Steve Toussaint, known for playing Corlys Velaryon in HBO’s House of the Dragon, the game’s characters couldn’t have been better companions for Zau and the player as they engage in this emotional dance with all sorts of emotions.

As much as Zau dances with his emotions, so he actually does while exploring the land of Kenzera in search of its great spirits and fighting the many enemies that will bar his way. As already mentioned, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU doesn’t really push the boundaries of the metroidvania, sporting the same platforming-meets-adventure formula made popular by the Nintendo and Konami series, but its execution is quite solid.

Mindful of players’ limited time, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU offers a compact experience that doesn’t waste any time. For starters, Zau is quite capable from the start of the adventure, addressing one of the biggest issues of the metroidvania genre: its slow, often unfun, beginning. Right from the bat, Zau can perform a double jump and a dashing maneuver that gives him great mobility, making the first few hours of the adventure quite enjoyable, also thanks to responsive controls and an easy-to-understand control scheme that feels natural from the get-go. Level design is solid throughout the adventure, with a good mix of simple and more complex platforming challenges and puzzles that require players to properly utilize all of Zau’s abilities, both those he knows from the beginning of the adventure and those he will get to learn as he explores Kenzera. However, lacking any meaningful optional content, with the exception of the Echoes that provide some additional snippets of character development, the world design is way more linear than in other metroidvania games, as the usual backtracking with new abilities to reach new places is very limited. While this may be an issue for some, I, for one, have welcomed this more compact approach, especially after having gone from open-world to open-world game this year.

Zau’s combat abilities are also extensive right from the beginning of the adventure. Armed with the Mask of the Moon and the Mask of the Sun, the young shaman can employ long-range and melee-focused fighting styles that can be switched on the fly to adapt to any situation. While there are times when one fighting style is better suited than the other, such as when dealing with enemies protected by color-coded Spiritual Shields, the two fighting styles provide an excellent level of versatility that grants players tons of freedom in combat. By upgrading skills via Ulogi, soul energy acquired from defeating enemies, and breaking open Ulogi Crystals, it is possible to unlock additional attacks that make both Masks even more versatile, such as a powerful ranged attack for the Mask of the Sun. Further improvements are provided by the Shaman Trinkets, special accessories granting powerful boons that empower playstyles, and the rewards obtained by completing the Challenge Gauntlets, challenging platforming challenges that will put Zau’s traversal skills to the test. This versatile combat system is further augmented by the solid enemy design for both mobs and bosses, the latter huge, powerful and with multiple phases with different patterns. Some enemy configurations are particularly challenging, requiring Zau to switch between his two fighting styles, something that better highlights the underlying “dance” theme that is prevalent throughout the adventure.

As mentioned above, the visuals are one of the reasons Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a compelling experience, mostly thanks to certain design choices. While the stylized character models aren’t particularly complex, they still do their job well. The environments, on the other hand, are much better done, as the unique color choices manage to make what are essentially regular biomes, for the most part, extremely pleasing to the eye. It really couldn’t have been another way, as the game is also launching on Nintendo Switch, whose hardware cannot handle cutting-edge visuals properly.

The stylized yet pleasing visuals, in conjunction with its wealth of graphics options, should allow Tales of Kenzera: ZAU to run well on various PC hardware. Featuring a Dynamic Resolution option alongside other visual options such as resolution scale, detail level, anti-aliasing quality, post-processing quality, and support for all upscalers, such as NVIDIA DLSS 2.5, AMD FSR 2.2, and Intel XeSS 1.2, users should be able to tweak the experience with ease. My system, powered by an i7-13700F CPU, RTX 4080 GPU, and 32 GB RAM, had no trouble running at steady 120 FPS at 4K resolution with NVIDIA DLAA. Uncapping the framerate proved how my system could run the game at even higher FPS, as a benchmark session set in the Drowning Swamps biome returned an average of 185 FPS, 105 1% low. Some traversal stuttering prevents the experience from being completely smooth, but it’s thankfully minor, so it does not impact gameplay significantly.

Compounding the pleasing visuals of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is the excellent soundtrack. The game’s original score is heavily influenced by the rich musical traditions of Africa, featuring a variety of traditional African musical instruments, orchestrations, and vocal performances from the Voquality choir. Much like the setting steeped in Bantu tradition, this type of music is rarely heard, if at all, in video games, making it a welcome breath of fresh air.

Despite not attempting to push the metroidvania genre forward significantly, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is still a compelling experience thanks to its heartfelt and relatable narrative, solid gameplay, and extreme respect for the player’s time. Around 10 hours of gameplay may not be enough for some to justify the game’s launch price, but if a tight, meaningful adventure with great production values is what you are looking for, then you should definitely experience Zau’s adventure and witness his growth into a better man.

PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU proves that innovation isn’t always necessary to craft a compelling experience. With its heartfelt story, compelling protagonist, and solid metroidvania gameplay featuring excellent pacing, Zau’s journey is one that resonates, especially for those grappling with similar grief to the young shaman.