Kena: Bridge of Spirits is often compared to a Pixar movie, and its emotional story is worth experiencing with family and friends. That being said, if you need a bit more punishment in this action adventure title, then there are a variety of difficulty options to make that happen. You can choose from four different difficulty settings – Story Mode, Spirit Guide, Expert Spirit Guide and Master Spirit Guide. Only the first three are available when first starting the game and it’s possible to change the difficulty in the middle of a game from the Settings menu, though you’ll have to restart from your last autosave to apply the changes.
As the name indicates, Story Mode is the easiest difficulty. Usually, Courage – which is necessary for utilizing the Rot’s abilities – will recharge when dealing damage but in this mode, it will also recharge passively. Enemies are also fairly easy to handle and don’t deal much damage. Spirit Guide is the default difficulty – enemies hurt more along with attacking more often, and Courage will only recharge upon dealing damage.
Expert Spirit Guide is the de facto “hard” mode and sees enemies dealing even more damage. Once again, Courage can only recharge when dealing damage to foes. Clearing the game on any difficulty will unlock Master Spirit Guide mode. Enemies are the most difficult here and if Kena takes any damage, then Courage is lost, making it tougher to use Rot abilities (or even instruct them to nab any nearby flowers and heal you – more on that below). Unlike the other modes, you can not lower the difficulty when selecting Master Spirit Guide.
How to Increase Max HP
Obviously, as the game becomes more challenging, you’ll need to increase your overall health pool to stand a better chance of surviving. This isn’t done by collecting any specific items though – instead, Kena will have to find Meditation Spots. Sitting in these will increase her health permanently. Meditation Spots are denoted by circles with a blue aura and can usually be found near any major boss fights or in secret areas.
Healing in Kena: Bridge of Spirits is also a bit different from other games. While you’ll automatically regenerate health when out of combat by standing still, you’ll need to rely on healing flowers in battle to heal. To use them, fill the Courage meter and then instruct the Rot to fetch the flowers. Oftentimes this can only be done once or twice per fight (depending on the number of flowers present) so it’s advised to not heal unless absolutely necessary.
For more details on Kena: Bridge of Spirits, check out our review here. It’s currently available for PS4, PS5 and PC.
