#tales of kenzera: ZAU

[nobigneil]

Neil supporting and breaking Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

[courtana]

TALES OF KENZERA: ZAU (2024) | dev. Surgent Studios

Adventure into the beautiful and treacherous lands of Kenzera as Zau, a young shaman who bargains with the God of death to bring his Baba back from darkness.

[gardenergulfie]

CRITICAL ROLE IS HELPING SUPPORT A VIDEO GAME???

[2700lagostas]

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU - Reveal Trailer

[diversegaminglists]

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is out now.

Inspired by Bantu mythology and folklore.

[videogamepoc]

From Abubakar Salim (@abzysalim) on Instagram

I shared this on Twitter/X as the discourse was much louder there than it is anywhere else, but I felt it was important to share it here also. Since the release of Tales of Kenzera: Zau, we’ve been subjected to a lot of targeted harassment, mainly the racist kind. We’ve kept our head down from it and turned the other cheek, but there’s a point where something needs to be said. So this is what I said.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is available on Playstation, Xbox, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.

[wakethedevils]

i love an award show that treats the people it’s supposed to be honoring with thinly veiled contempt while it trundles along to the next ego-stroking bit/advertisement

jet set radio and tales of kenzera: zau looked cool, though

[thatjayjustice]

early afternoon stream for me = late night stream for you (perhaps??) I'm so excited to finally play Tales of Kenzera: ZAU! Thank you to EA for the opportunity. We're gonna dive right in right now http://www.twitch.tv/ThatJayJustice

[phthalology]

dwagon

[blueeyedrat]

Steam Next Fest, winter 2024. Just when you're starting to get into a groove with a project, something new comes up to distract you. So it goes.

This one was all over the map — some games I really liked, a few that were kind of a letdown, and a few that were just sort of there. I think this is the first time a batch of demos has removed more items from my Steam wishlist than it's added. More detailed (though perhaps less organized) thoughts under the cut.

Okay so Balatro doesn't really count, I've been playing the demo for this game for months at this point, but I want to mention it anyway. It's a deckbuilder in the purest sense: you're given a plain deck of cards and tasked with scoring points via poker hands, accumulating a variety of buffs and modifiers to literally rig the deck in your favor. It is perhaps the most make number go up game I have played in a good while, and it's addicting as heck. I know some folks who will be playing the full version nonstop when it comes out later this month, and I might be one of 'em.

As far as city/settlement builders go, I don't think Synergy is jumping to the front of the queue when it has to compete with the likes of Laysara or The Wandering Village, but it does have some neat ideas. I do enjoy when I get to treat this sort of builder like a puzzle of sorts, fitting all of the pieces together, and the ways this demo asked me to do so on both small and large scale were just interesting enough to pique my curiosity. Might be worth a look in the future.

Now, a quick rundown of the demos that didn't land quite as well: Planetiles and Kamaeru had charming aesthetics, but the UI in both games felt a bit clunky and the gameplay left me wanting a bit more substance. Train Valley World moved away from the gameplay I enjoyed in the previous two entries in the series, in favor of something I'm not particularly interested in. There were a few other games I found while putting together my list this time around, but either bounced off of (Electrogical, Bounties of Babylon) or didn't get enough to pass judgement (Omnibullet, Overmorrow), so I may need to revisit them later.

Somewhere in the middle, I'd say, was Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom, a Monument Valley-esque puzzle game. It was… alright. I liked it, I just liked most of the other stuff I tried more. I need to sit down and play Monument Valley at some point.

There are two games on this list I'm torn on. Flock is a cute exploration game that reminds me of Sky: Children of the Light and charmed me in very similar ways. Customizing a character, flying around, and observing the game's colorful ecosystem was a lot of fun. Botany Manor is a puzzle game somewhere between The Witness and Return of the Obra Dinn, where you gather clues in your environment and use them to piece together answers to a central puzzle — in this case, figuring out how to make various plants grow. Some neat ideas to be had here.

I really liked both of these demos! But both of them ran into the same problem: I get motion-sick kind of easily, and there's a small subset of video games that make me dizzy if I play them for too long (and sometimes "too long" is, like, five minutes). To its credit, Botany Manor acknowledges this and has options to make it more accessible… but if there's a specific configuration of camera settings that doesn't give me a literal headache, I didn't find it. It's really frustrating that some of the games I enjoyed the most in this list are ones I'm not sure I can physically handle in the long term. I'll keep an eye on them, but… we'll see.

Moving on. Duck Detective is another "fill in the blanks" mystery in the vein of Case of the Golden Idol or the aforementioned Obra Dinn. It's a much more humorous and lighthearted take on the idea, and while the demo was pretty short, it gave a decent enough look at the gameplay and style that I'm interested in what lies beyond.

#BLUD immediately stands out for its hyper-cartoony art style, which it definitely leans into (it's got episode title cards, for crying out loud). It backs up that style with some charming writing and a decent Zelda-ish mix of exploration and dungeon crawling. I'm not sure the combat entirely clicked with me, especially early on before your character gets a proper weapon, but I still liked the demo well enough overall.

Crypt Custodian also took some time to grow on me, but when I did get into a groove I wound up having a pretty good time with it. It's a top-down 'vania — my closest comparison would be Hyper Light Drifter, with character progression and looser movement closer to something like Ori or Hollow Knight. It was a bit of a gauntlet at first, and didn't always give you a lot of direction (apparently that's an upgrade you need to unlock), but once I got a few more options for movement and combat it felt like I could handle most of what it was throwing at me. Seems fun.

For a more direct comparison to Ori, we close out with Tales of Kenzera. This was one of the other highlights of the bunch for me. The movement and combat felt good and offered a lot of options up front, and kept adding more throughout the demo — similar to Ori, it's not the tightest and prioritizes spectacle over precision, but the level and encounter design never asks for too much. The art, animation, and voice work are all excellent, and the story (drawing inspiration from Bantu folklore) shows a lot of promise. I'm interested to see where this one goes, for sure.

[dravenxivuk]

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A post shared by Electronic Arts (EA) (@ea)

I'm wheezing.

EA: Hey Neil, please tell people about this game you played for us Neil: I have a tiny microphone! Look at it! It's so tiny!

Never change Neil, never change.

[chromaglitchgaming]

I’ve been looking forward to the release of Tales of Kenzera: Zau, so I had to grab it immediately. Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a Metroidvania game developed by Surgent Studios, that takes you through a story about grief and love.


In the game, you wield the powers of the sun and the moon and must defeat restless spirits that roam throughout the world. The world of Tales of Kenzera: Zau is stunning, taking inspiration from Bantu tales. The world is bright and full of so much color, and the music draws you into the story.


As much as I have enjoyed the gameplay mechanics and exploring the world, it's definitely a game best enjoyed after bedtime. Like most Metroidvania games, it's a challenge trying to play when holding a little one with an irregular nap schedule.


Tales of Kenzera: Zau is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S


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[grimlocksword]

EA gets SMACKED by Sweet Baby Inc! New game Tales of Kenzera: ZAU fails ...

[strunmah-mah]

bought Tales of Kenzera: Zau today. Y'all, this game is pretty, I love it so much! It's so colorful and Zau has all these graceful little animations as he's dancing around the screen