Kona (Xbox One)
The year is 1970 and private investigator Carl Faubert is called up to an extremely isolated small town in Quebec. Industrialist William Hamilton believes someone in the area has it out for him, so Carl heads out in the bitter cold to interview the people of Lake Atamipek only to immediately get in a car crash, find the site of a murder, and learn there are few people left alive in the area he can even speak to.
Kona is a game best described as a survival mystery, this first person narrative exploration game focused on traveling to the small buildings in a snow-covered section of Northern Canada to try and unravel the mysterious occurrences Carl has come across. However, while this investigation progresses at the player’s pace, they do have to consider the detective’s well-being, the cold able to kill him if you don’t find opportunities to warm up. On top of having to worry about the bitter cold, the forest nearby is filled with wolves who might identify Carl as an easy meal if you aren’t prepared to fight back. Luckily, the game likes to give you multiple answers to maintaining your survival. For example the wolves are easily spooked, can be handled with weapons that are laying about like woodcutting axes, or can even be fed with meat to be dispatched with a bit of kindness instead, but there is something far more dangerous lurking around this land of white.
Early on Carl will run into a human form entirely wrapped in ice, this strange occurrence the first hint at the game’s supernatural leaning. While you still have the mystery of the murder to look into, the game is definitely more interested in the player uncovering the truth behind the more unusual occurrences involving the unnatural ice and strange visions of the past Carl finds near such evidence. It is a bit unfortunate that the more human side of the story isn’t as central to the tale as it might first appear, partly because the game gives a bit too much information about the incident and its motivations up front for the big reveals in the finale to feel like they’re adding anything substantial to it. The supernatural incidents similarly put a bit too much important info near the start of your investigation, but it does still have more layers to peel back than the murder thanks to its ties to local folklore and trying to uncover the motivation for unleashing such a paranormal force on the area in the first place. A more gradual reveal for the two big mysteries would definitely help to make much of your work finding clues feel worthwhile, but the plot can at least provide moments of intrigue and tension as you start to edge towards more dangerous locations in your quest for the truth.
One reason the narrative might feel like it could use better direction is because the game is rather freeform in how it lets the player investigate the mysteries of Lake Atamipek. While the opening events as Carl drives into the area follow a set path, once you head to the general store and learn a murder has taken place, the game doesn’t push you towards any one location. Instead, you can start using your map to head out and explore the buildings in the area, some businesses, some homes, and almost all of them abandoned thanks to the people who once resided in them getting caught up in the unusual happenings in the area. The freedom to collect clues and make the mental connections at your own pace gives Kona much of its appeal as it feels a lot more like you’re the one in charge of solving this mystery, and even if you struggle to tie together revelations yourself, you have a notebook that stores the relevant clues and a narrator that helpfully talks you through much of the game. Not only does this narrator colorfully describe the objects and areas you discover, but he’ll contextualize issues like taking damage from the cold or utilizing your inventory as if they were Carl’s own thoughts. Being a private investigator they unsurprisingly have a bit of a noir quality to how they’re written, but they aren’t as grim or abstract as some of the more extreme examples of that style and instead just make simple information come across in a more interesting manner while vital data is presented more plainly.
Making your way around the spread out cabins in Kona is definitely a little hampered by the game freezing the action to load the next area for a bit, but once you do get to a location you often have a lot of little interactive objects to tinker with or notes to read. The relevancy of such things can vary and there are quite a few things only relevant if you’re angling for achievements rather than piecing together the narrative, but a sharp eye and curious mind can mean your first visit to a location will often reveal most of what you need to know. The cases where this isn’t true often involve the need to use certain items in certain locations such as bringing the materials needed to complete a snowmobile to the junkyard or making sure you have certain tools like a magnet on a string to fish a metal object out of a hole. One of the most involved moments in the game actually involves needing to learn the recipe for a type of alcohol and properly brew it so you can trade it for some warm winter clothes that allow you to head to new locations, but the only other puzzle of such complexity is a somewhat out of place wire puzzle involving turning valves to alter the charges a gate receives. Most of the time an area’s little puzzles are self-contained or mostly involve scrounging about for some useful tool you need to get something working, but the information found this way and through the supernatural visions still mean exploring isn’t too dull despite the minimal amount of puzzle-solving involved.
Your inventory is a constant consideration in Kona for reasons outside of just having the right tools for the job. Carl can only carry so much at a time so he might need to drop items or store them in his truck, but besides finding yourself in trouble without a weapon this system mostly just means you can’t load up on survival tools. Cold is actually your biggest worry in Kona as arriving at a location often comes with the immediate concern of finding somewhere you can light a fire so you don’t freeze to death, and exploring out in the woods even when it is required can make you feel vulnerable as you hope to find some abandoned campfire or other way to prevent Carl from meeting an icy end. Your regular health isn’t in too much jeopardy otherwise so long as you keep at least one form of self-defense on hand, and the stress meter almost feels like it might as well not exist as it never seems to find its footing much unless you play poorly or you’re at a scripted moment that test’s the P.I.’s resolve. Combating the cold is definitely the most interesting aspect of Kona’s survival angle and the whipping white around you does do a fair bit for establishing an atmosphere of icy isolation, but that sadly won’t make the mystery you’re investigating in this dangerous region more compelling.
THE VERDICT: Kona manages to make weathering the bitter cold an effective survival mechanic that fits its narrative of investigating an unusual set of occurrences in an isolated part of Quebec, but the two major mysteries you’re investigating aren’t constructed well enough to make the story as compelling as it could have been. While the freedom to investigate areas in whatever order you please to piece things together yourself is effective, the fact the game gives so much information away before you’ve even really dug into its two plot threads makes the big reveals less exciting and the gathering of clues feel less important. Kona is still able to hold your interest well enough with its small complications and the more fleshed out details of the mysteries you’re unraveling, but the structure of the story and little annoyances like the load times prevents an immersive setting and uneasy tone from being as good as they could have been.
And so, I give Kona for Xbox One…
An OKAY rating. Perhaps Kona was a little worried that it would throw you into the open-ended exploration with too little to go on to make that approach compelling, but the clearest place for improvement that isn’t some technical limitation is the pacing of the story’s revelations. Rather than a gradual build-up it can feel like you’re piecing together a set of events where you already know the most important moments, and while learning the motivations of the characters involved and learning about their histories makes investigating the houses and businesses still an interesting process, if it had packed more vital details into these locations then Kona could have had a more satisfying payoff to all your work. The absence of involved puzzles isn’t much of a problem, especially with the wire puzzle sticking out in a game that is mostly about searching your environment for tools and info, and the few moments where you do need to repel a wolf or overcome something dangerous do not feel like it is asking for a new skill set from the player due to their straightforward but somewhat flexible nature. Tromping around in the snow and trying not to freeze to death actually adds a fair bit of manageable peril to the game that couples well with the few moments of more involved danger, and besides the loading bringing things to a standstill for a moment, the setting is definitely Kona’s biggest asset. Learning about the people and operations in this small rural community is intriguing even if the details aren’t always relevant, but Kona would need to reevaluate the structure of its two major mysteries if it wanted make better use of that.
Kona has the tools it needs to be an engaging narrative exploration game, and the extra survival elements actually do almost as much as the well written narration to create a compelling game world. Exploring it just needs that extra bit of substance so that it doesn’t feel like the plot and gameplay aren’t quite married to each other. With a rewrite that paces the pertinent info at better intervals no matter how you choose to explore the area, Kona would definitely have the potential to be a better mystery, but it can still be an interesting way to spend a few hours if you think a well established setting can make up for a few of the game’s narrative issues.