Tales of Kenzera: Zauis a Metroidvania-style adventure game that lets players wield the powers of the Sun and Moon Mask and their dance. Inspired by Bantu Tales, players gradually unlock more abilities for the protagonist and young shaman Zau, who is on a quest to bring his father back to life. In a recentTales of Kenzera: Zaupreview event attended by Game Rant, theplatformer’s combat is also something that Surgent Studio Founder and actor Abubakar Salim described as “like a dance.”
Specifically, each Mask lets players wield cosmic powers, with the Mask of the Sun enabling players to perform powerful attacks like fiery spears. In contrast, the Mask of the Moon excels in crowd control and long-range attacks, with many combat situations designed to overwhelm Zau. And that’s not all. As seen inTales of Kenzera: Zau’s demo, the Mask of the Moon gives players time control abilities, including the ability to temporarily freeze water and enemies, making it useful for combat and traversal. In addition to the preview, Game Rant recently spoke with Surgent Studios' lead designer Zi Peters and art lead/character artist Ackeem Durrant about Zau’s time-themed abilities and skill tree upgrades. Peters also spoke of Kenzera: Zau’s trinket system and how it compares to skills.
How Time Factors into Abilities in Tales of Kenzera: Zau
As is typical of the Metroidvania genre,Tales of Kenzera: Zau’s core abilities are designed to open up more of its map through Ability Gates, something which was exemplified in the game’s demo released on Steam earlier this year. For instance, players gradually gather more abilities from ability shrines, such as Bamba’s Stone, letting them temporarily freeze rivers and waterfalls in place to wall jump across. When asked whether there are any othertime control mechanicsin the game, Peters explained that not all abilities are time-related, but did talk about a similar ability called Pulse:
“It changes the status of these platforms and barriers. They either have a fully formed version or a broken version, and depending on the situation, you would want it to be one or the other. You can break it down by essentially kind of rewinding and fast-forwarding the state of an object.”
Tales Of Kenzera: Zau’s Trinket System
In contrast toTales of Kenzera: Zau’sskill treethat lets players upgrade the Masks of the Sun and Moon, Peter also revealed more about the game’s trinket system. This lets players equip a select number of trinkets to give them certain buffs, as Peters explained :
“We also have the trinket system, which is more kind of a statistical sort of buff system where you’re limited to a certain amount of trinkets that you’re able to equip on Zau. As you discover more trinkets around the world, the player can then start to characterize their own build of Zau, right? Maybe I want my aerial attacks to be more effective because I do a lot of aerial stuff, so I use a trinket that makes my aerial attacks deal more damage.”
Overall,Tales of Kenzera: Zau’s mix of different Masks and Trinkets looks set to give it a potentially dynamic yet approachable combat system with room for personalizing different builds for Zau. This is something that could well appeal to both newcomers and veterans of theMetroidvania genrealike.
