The Land of Harmony on the Planet of Malkut has been plagued by a great evil force. It’s up to Kjan and Elendel, two apprentices to stop the evil force and restore peace to the land.
Kien is a side scrolling beat -em-up game with RPG elements. The game has you playing as one of two characters, each with their own play-style. The playable characters are Kjan who uses physical weapons like swords and Elendel who uses magic based attacks. Once you select a character, you make your way from left to right fighting enemies, gathering experience points, all in an effort to make it to the end of the stage.
As you progress through each level, you will come across various weapons and power-ups that are unique to each character. Kjan can use weapons like swords, sabres, and clubs to dispatch enemies that oppose him. Elendel can use elemental magic spells to take down foes that cross her path.
Progressing through each level and taking out enough enemies will gain you experience points. These are used to level up your character automatically which boosts character stats. In addition to the stat boosts, it allows your character to use better armor and weapons that are found in chests around each level. Besides these weapons, there are also sources and gates that can be used by either character.
There are two sources in the game, one is the source of Vital Energy and the other is of Magic Energy. Both of these sources are used to replenish your characters HP. The Vital Energy source is used by Kjan while the Magic Energy source is used by Elendel. Like the sources of energy, there are two types of gates that you will come across in each stage.
The two types of gates are the Astral Gate and the Dimensional Gate. Astral Gates are used to go between levels in a somewhat sequential order, while the Dimensional Gate can be used to go between levels in a random nature and can even lead to other dimensions.
Kien isn’t a graphically impressive game by today’s standards as it’s a game that was originally designed for and made for the Game Boy Advance. With that being said, the game is rather impressive for a Game Boy Advance title. What I mean by that is, the game was supposed to be released back in 2001 but couldn’t find a publisher that would publish it and by the time a publisher was found, there wasn’t any interest due to the Nintendo DS having just been announced and subsequently released. That little bit of history on the game is important.
You see, the original developer of the game at the time is the same one that gave us this game so many years later. With the amount of time that’s gone by, there is a much better understanding of what the Game Boy Advance is capable of. This results in a better game in every aspect as opposed to releasing it back when it was supposed to be released.
Graphically the enemy and character sprites are large and look great, even on the small handheld screen. Scrolling of the stage and everything in it is smooth and isn’t even the slightest bit jittery. Slowdown and flickering that one would think a game like this would be plagued with, just simply isn’t present. Animations are great looking, as are the environmental effects.
As for the sound in Kien, it sounds really good for a handheld experience. The music fits the game nicely and sounds almost like it is out of place for how good it sounds coming from the handheld speaker. Sound effects in the game though present, aren’t much to comment on other than they are what you would expect in this kind of game.
Kien is in the unique position of being a game that just simply shouldn’t exist. But yet it does exist and even more uprising was developed by the very team that originally developed the game back when it wasn’t able to find a publisher. But thanks to the developer for being persistent and for Incube8 Games publishing this game, we can finally play it as it was intended.
Kien is a great beat-em-up game that deserves a place in everyone’s Game Boy Advance collection. It’s not only a great game, but a piece of gaming history that was almost lost to time. I would definitely recommend picking up this game.
A review copy was provided for this review. You can purchase Kien here.
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.