Just like the other acts, this one is fantastic. Wonderful visuals with strong themes. A stirring plot. The addition of the new characters again goes well, providing a branching, player-driven song. And the ending of the act is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in videogames, all set up from its despondent prologue. The weaving together of multiple timelines, with those new characters being the late band that everyone in the first scene is waiting on, and with the final scene really taking place midway in the story, is elegantly done.

When you left me
My heart was broke in two
But I patched it up
And promised I would wait for you

It's too late
To love you, now
It's too late
I've made my vow

An episode with some meat on its bones! Things get weird and of course melancholy, but that's KR0 for ya. This episode goes on CONSIDERABLY longer than the first two episodes, and I think it is very strong because of that. It continues the adventures of our wayward delivery driver, cements more of his Fellowship and gives us some interesting backstory and the possible emergence of a THEME to this here game... the crushing debt of memory and regret.

Fresh off Episode 2, our new pal Ezra and Shannon have delivered Conway to a doctor, and we are treated to a memory of him with his old boss at the antique shop. What was previously hinted as a "last delivery" is now confirmed to be the places last item, and the owner is in rapidly declining health. The death of her son is now also vaguely implied to be technically Conway's fault... he awakens with a new 'skeletal' leg, almost like a wireframe of gold. No one else seems to think this is weird but it tips us off to figures we will see later. There's a new "interlude" before the chapters that I played through as well which mentioned selling debt to a local distillery... it was treated as a horrible thing, and in this episode we do learn why.

We are joined by two new companions, the primary of which is Junebug. They appear to be robots, and come upon our adventuring party after their truck breaks down along the road. The plot is becoming very circuitous at this point - we're getting item x to take to person y so that they can fix z and that will bring us back to point C where we'll meet back up with person b and yadda yadda yadda, I'm kinda losing the plot a bit. Does the plot matter at all? I'm not sure, and I don't think the game is too certain on it either...

But story isn't exactly what KR0 is about. It's about feeling, its about evoking a sense of longing and wonder about the world. It is set in our world but very little tracks and makes sense - in the Interlude chapter it seems to be set in the past, at least a couple of decades. It does however mention Junebug and her performing at that bar - is it the same woman? The same place? How did time advance, or was that interlude just a retelling of events and not canon? Or is Junebug truly a machine, on loop here despite thinking that she is free?

There's a lot of meandering about in this episode, but I do enjoy each particular part. The Junebug 'concert' sequence is an interesting take on the "One Song an Episode" style but I am not sure it matches the sequences from the first two Acts. The Distillery section is oddly paced, at first we do not see it happen but then it is called back to later. It meanders itself for a while but then we see our main guy saddled with another debt... Is this meant to be understood as Conway still sees himself as an alcoholic? Or has he kicked the habit, but now still feels responsible for his mistakes and must work to fix them? How does the subplot with the Xanadu program and the two folks in the cave actually factor into things? How does any of this fit together?

Is it MEANT to fit together..?

Maybe this game isn't for me hahaha...

Let’s get this out of the way: it’s too long. It’s a bit indulgent. And the turn midway towards meta-noodling about adventure game history feels like a misstep.

Self-consciousness, reflexivity, that earnest aboutness, it’s all real. It’s also a refuge. And unnecessary when characters and spaces are so rich and evocative on their own.

I’m from Kentucky, and this isn’t my Kentucky. But it’s a Kentucky. And the mythmaking here, the desire for revision, line by line, feels right. The past is not even. Our regrets weigh so heavy. Life is hard, life is mystery, and it’s always too late.