How is this a souls like?

[Star]

Like seriously? I was not expecting one, because I know people treat anything moderately difficult as such, but still.
1) This is not an RPG. Sure, there's a tiny skill tree, but that's it as far as I'm aware. You just collect hats and cosmetics throughout the game.
2) There are no "bonfires", no flasks, nothing is lost on death.
3) As far as I've seen there's some heavy platforming involved.
Being somewhat challenging during the combat encounters does not make it a sOuLs-LiKe. The only thing Kena has in common with dark souls is a camera lock on function.
It's an action adventure title, and that's actually a good thing.

[plagueseason]

Agreed. I was a little skeptical about buying it because I don't like Soulslikes, but I've found it fairly linear and forgiving. Boss fights with big health bars doesn't automatically make it a Soulslike... they're just boss fights with a little challenge.

[iBlackRoses]

Kena really isn’t a Souls-like in any real sense. Just because a game has tough combat doesn’t mean it automatically falls into that category... it leans way more into platforming and adventure elements.

I think people just call anything remotely difficult a Souls-like these days, but Kena is definitely more of an action-adventure game with some tricky fights. IMO that's a good thing bcs its does its own thing instead of trying to copy something like dark souls

[ModernSamurai]

It has very very light souls-like elements. To the point that you can't even call it souls-like. The stamina bar isn't really a stamina bar either. It only depletes by blocking and spirit dash. Yeah I don't know why "souls-like" is one of the first tags.

But at the same time I can see why some people would think of that genre. Souls games had massive impact on all the modern games. There's no denying that every developer want to barrow some elements and use them into their own games.

But I agree, this isn't a souls-like at all.

[CaptainBrainslide]

There seem to be different schools of thought behind what every subgenre actually means, and so tags elicit a lot of confusion because one group of people mean a different thing by using a word than another group. Roguelike as a term is one that keeps annoying me because the common usage now is often VERY different than when it was coined to describe the text based procedural games like Moria and NetHack that were the original Roguelikes for decades before the term got co opted.

Similarly, with Souls-likes, Kena for the most part has nothing to do with what a lot of people think of them as. The enemies don't even respawn and the mechanics are so different that those of us who started with Demon's Souls just laugh at the notion. But for those that define Souls-likes as having boss encounters that require a specific sort of pattern recognition and split second timing to get past and is brutal to those who don't learn it, Kena is one, at least on Master Spirit Guide difficulty. Doesn't mean we have to agree but I at least realize there are some people who think that's what it means and will reinforce the notion with one another.