KAKU: Ancient Seal is PS2 (Complimentary)
When I was a kid - maybe, say, 12 years old - my family found itself in the possession of a chipped PS2 alongside about 50 burnt disc video games. While I'd credit the dozen or so N64 games that preceded this to be "My Path Into Video Games", getting to play a smattering of different games of varying genre (and quality!) really was a revelation to little Chris.
While the story of playing GTA 3 at 13 that glitched out in the main street next to the second island's home base is for another time, other fond memories of this illicit console draw forth times playing Monsters, Inc., a middling experience that nevertheless got it's hooks in me for a time. Janky ass 3D platforming and overabundant thingamajig collection ain't gonna stop this kid from running around in a world I was fond of.
A lot about KAKU: Ancient Seal screams this era of PS2 games, but brought into late 2010s design sensibilities. That same basic platforming and collecting drives your will to move through this space, but with a lot more in the way of RPG-lite systems layered on top, not unlike a God of War (2018) or Rise of the Tomb Raider. A decently in depth combat system complete with skill and upgrade trees. An open world split into bespoke regions with points of interest, quests to lead you through them, macguffins to collect. You know the drill.
There's definitely parts that don't work all that well. The story seems pretty clearly an afterthought, with the translation only worsening the experience further. The music is rough, and the fake speech the characters make is outright grating. The opening tutorial hour is... serviceable, but runs the risk of having players bounce too quickly. Which would be a shame, because where the dev team did focus it's resources - creating a vibrant world that's fun to explore, is done pretty well for a first-game team.
When you do make it through the initial setup and get given the choice of where to go next, it's almost a bit overwhelming. There's 4 potential areas to jump into, giving you essentially total freedom in how you go about exploring and collecting. Each of these 4 areas are also larger than they initially appear, with multiple large sections to explore in each, housing goodies to find, resources to collect and challenges to figure your way into and out of. The star of the game is clearly the world itself, with a distinct vibrancy to all areas of the game, brought to life with some great animation work.
Combat can be pretty fun, with the caveat that you need to both forgive a bit of jank as well as push yourself to think of and use everything in your arsenal. That's not to say you can't get there with basic attacks and dodges, but it becomes tedious quickly that way - especially with some very spongy bosses - yet remembering "oh yeah, I have these cool godlike powers I can activate" provides some good satisfying thwacking.
KAKU: Ancient Seal feels like the exact game you want to digging into if you are simply craving more of something like KENA: Bridge of Spirits. It's not going to hit the same fluidness of animation or grandeur that game hits, but it's a more than simply "a good one of those", I think.
Is it going to knock your socks off? Probably not, but it's also a game that sits in an under-served niche in games right now. If that's your bag, KAKU is more than ready to give you a few dozen hours of fun.
PS5 Code for KAKU: Ancient Seal was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this piece.