I remember the day I first saw Ni no Kuni for the first time. Anime and video games were merging, and I felt like I was witnessing a genuine moment where things may never be the same again. Looking back now, that did seem slightly overenthusiastic, but having a Studio Ghibli-style anime that you could control, interact with and help to steer the narrative direction was pretty incredible. Since then we’ve had a few attempts to merge the two again to varying success, but most have never managed to hit the highs they have the potential for.
The next to attempt this is Kejora, an Indonesian-born anime puzzle adventure game where you take control of the child Kejora, who, with her friends Jaka and Guntur, accidentally stumbles into mysterious happenings in the local forest, which involve dark magic, time loops, weird monsters and missing villagers, which kickstarts a mission to save their village from an evil curse. An interesting narrative that, with the hand-drawn visuals, should have made for a strong, polished experience, but unfortunately, thanks to some rough edges, unoriginal gameplay elements and a poor translation, it seemed that most of the game’s five-year development had mostly gone to the animation, and everything else had been made a second or even third priority.
It’s clear to see that the time used with the hand-drawn animation has been well spent, though. Every location reeks of detail, from the homes in Kejoras village to the rice fields and forest on its outskirts. It felt lived in, with ornaments dangling from homes and tracks in the muddy paths where carts had been pulled through. The character animation also aids this with expressive reactions from Kerjora and friends that make it hard not to endear towards them, and I always appreciated the detail in Kejora’s run, with wide strides and her skirt swaying from her movements.
The narrative throughout is also entertaining, with a plotline that would fit into any good anime movie. It never felt unwelcome and kept up pace with some fun reveals; one in particular I would have welcomed a longer playtime for just so the game could explore this in more detail. There were other times when the narrative felt rushed, and with a little more time, the writers could have really expanded on their ideas, fleshed out the characters more and also covered the small plot holes that did occur at times.
The main hook to the gameplay is through the unique abilities that Kejora, Jaka and Guntur bring. Now, don’t expect anything supernatural, as I’m talking about throwing stones, giving Kejora a boost to reach higher platforms or using new karate powers to break wooden barriers. These skills become useful in the game’s many puzzles, with Kejora acting as the anchor to the others’ skills. Need Gunter to boost you up? Then you have to use a mini menu to call him, and he’ll teleport right to where Kejora stands. This led to trial and error on most occasions, standing Kejora in the spot I wanted Jaka or Guntur to spawn and hoping for the best, as sometimes the move I needed from them would not occur, and I would need to reposition and try again.
This system also led to Jaka and Guntur feeling quite wooden, as they would just stand on the spot you left them with blank faces until called, and after a tricky manoeuvre or climb for Kejora, they could just appear with no explanation in the same spot, which massively broke the immersion for me. Controlling each character individually in these moments could have made for a much better experience.
Another area Kejora lacked in was its brightness, mostly in being too dark in caves and tunnels. I struggled to see much of anything in these areas, even when I turned the system brightness to the max. This led to making the puzzles I faced extremely tricky, and it was only thanks to some randomly lucky instances that I managed to make progress. I can’t tell you how happy I was to make it to daylight!
But the biggest crime Kejora makes is in its soundtrack and sound design. Some of the hard work with the visuals that make the world feel so alive is undone thanks to the inconsistent sounds in the game. No wind rustling the trees, no birds chirping and loud machinery that is silent. Certain actions characters make, some dramatic, are accompanied by zero sound design, and it all mars the experience. But on the other hand, steel ladders and the small sounds of Kejora’s feet hitting the various surfaces and other instances can be heard. It’s all a bit too much of a mishmash, which brings an unbalanced experience.
The music throughout also aided this with small musical tracks constantly playing and looping. There clearly was not a lot of the budget spared for this, as after a short time, it really started to grate so much that I had to turn down the volume just to save my sanity. There’s nothing abjectly wrong with the music, as it fed into the particular sections and moments just fine, but when you’re trying to solve a puzzle and all you can think of is for the music to end, you know there’s a problem.
