For those that don' t know, KAENA is a game from Namco based on the French CG movie of the same name. I' ve had the game for a few weeks but finally unwrapped it and played it today.

I' ve been playing it non-stop since 1 p.m. and just now paused it after reaching the 6th Stage. It' s a very interesting game filled with lots of ambience - i.e., the environmental settings and sound.

The only bad thing about the game so far to me are the controls.
The controls of this game SUCK! Nothing ruins a game like bad controls and Kaena' s controls are pretty awful, especially because the main reason I detest the Dual Shock 2 controllers (the D-pad) is the game' s main control scheme. While I have always preferred digital controls over analog, Kaena doesn' t provide you with the option to choose, it only supports the D-pad, no analog.

But despite the frustrating control scheme I' m really digging this game so far. You basically navigate around some type of giant tree world. It has to be the biggest tree EVAR because it' s so intricately designed, containing its own little towns/huts/living quarters, whatever you wanna call them.

Kaena herself is equipped with some cool flashy combos (typical Namco) and some decent special attacks that can be triggered with your close range weapons.

The graphics are pretty good but because of the static camera used like in Resident Evil 2, I suspect most of Kaena' s backgrounds may be pre-rendered. There' s also very little interaction allowed with the environments, except for when leaping onto a ledge or jumping down from one.

Another thing I like about this game is the fact that it doesn' t rely very much on puzzles. There are indeed puzzles in the game, especially when fighting some of the bosses, but they' re easy enough to quickly figure out.

The majority of the game is in Japanese, with the exception of some of the game menus. All of the in-game stuff is in Japanese though. I have no idea if the developers included French dialogue in the game but I haven' t encountered any so far.

I can' t wait till I finish this game soon as I' m anxious to review it!!