somewhere between 2 and 4,5
This review contains spoilers
I love magical realism as a genre. I started by reading Isabel Allende's "House of the Spirits" in high school and was just hooked. I appreciate variants of the genre as well, such as the afrosurrealism of Donald Glover's "Atlanta", and I think KR0's Appalachian inspiration is another great expansion of magical realism. I was lucky enough to experience the Act 1 multi-media installation in person and dialed the riverboat cruise phone number from my own phone. My experience with this game was phenomenal.
That said, I have a few things that hold this game back from being a 5: most of which are contained in the final act. Having your ending be particularly ethereal is not uncommon for the genre, but in a game so grounded in the conversations between others - just eavesdropping on others felt shallow without a real connection to the character you control. I also struggled to interpret the meanings of that final chapter - a flaw of my understanding not necessarily the text, but surprisingly after the four previous chapters clicked into place with me.
I would recommend this game to almost anyone interested in art, storytelling, and world-building - my perceived flaws and all.
That said, I have a few things that hold this game back from being a 5: most of which are contained in the final act. Having your ending be particularly ethereal is not uncommon for the genre, but in a game so grounded in the conversations between others - just eavesdropping on others felt shallow without a real connection to the character you control. I also struggled to interpret the meanings of that final chapter - a flaw of my understanding not necessarily the text, but surprisingly after the four previous chapters clicked into place with me.
I would recommend this game to almost anyone interested in art, storytelling, and world-building - my perceived flaws and all.
Very cryptic game, which feels more like an interactive David Lynch movie. I have to say that I couldn't quite connect with the game that well. The game is extremely text-heavy, which I appreciate when the text is meaningful. In this case, however, I often had the feeling that the texts were rather isolated and had no connection to the main characters or the story. The whole game reminds me more of poetry, it doesn't follow a clear narrative structure, but is more concerned with evoking feelings, especially through audiovisual stimuli, beautiful scenes, melancholic music. I liked what the game had to say thematically, especially in relation to guilt and shame, alcoholism and the resulting alienation and loss of control. It also touched on themes such as social inequality, which I liked. Overall, I'm rather ambivalent, but I don't regret playing the game. The religious lyrics in the songs got on my nerves a bit :D
If by some pure luck you manage to complete this boring garbage hop on to goodreads.com and log it because you didn't finish a "game" you finished a book.
eu não sou inteligente o suficiente pra falar desse jogo, entao basicamente acho bacana a maneira dele contar a historia dele e das maluquices que ele faz com o formato dele
Demasiado tedioso, demasiado lioso, y un intento fútil por ser profundo y enigmático. No sería el momento, pero no es un juego para mi.
Really wanted to like this one, but it’s just too tedious for me
Debt is a liminal space in an American wasteland owned by multibillion companies. Its inhabitants spill out their life stories at every opportunity. However, the prose is too rudimentary to carry the concept to greatness.
Sights & Sounds
- Interesting polygon-heavy environments interspersed with stark, often vector-looking maps and effects
- Other than that, there's not much in the way in the way of visual effects. It's a story-focused adventure game. You know what you're getting yourself into
- The sound design is really nicely done, from the pleasant environmental background noise in the peaceful bits to unsettling scraping metal and walls of static. The game challenges your patience with the unpleasant sounds at times
- There's a lot of excellent original music. Although you're not required to, it's worth waiting around to hear the full tracks if you enjoy folk or bluegrass
Story & Vibes
- I don't want to spoil the story, but I don't think anyone would understand what I was saying even if I tried. In broad strokes, you start off as an old man trying to make a furniture delivery. You quickly become waylaid in attempting to find your destination and begin accumulating friends
- This game requires a lot of patience. The story unfolds slowly and is heavily self-referential. Keep track of what the characters look like. It's worth it in the end
- Before you read further, understand that the rest of this section will bore you to tears if you don't read much. I studied some of this stuff half my life ago as a college student. Proceed if you like books
- The game makes heavy use of the literary technique of "magical realism". Although the most popular practitioner of the style is probably Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera; One Hundred Years of Solitude), the game's setting--Kentucky, obviously--more aptly evokes the stylings of the American South rather than South America. There are echoes of Modernists like William Faulkner in the somber, brooding scenes, but the playful, bright tones are more reminiscent of contemporary authors like Fred Chappell (I Am One of You Forever)
- Beyond the magical realism, there's a lot to dig into here for fans of Modern and Post-Modern literature. There's obvious references to the poetry of Robert Frost, and the monolithic, nonsensical bureaucracy is suspiciously Kafka-esque, but readers of Post-Modern drama will pick up on influences from grounded-in-reality playwrights like Eugene O'Niell and Arthur Miller as well as absurdists like Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard
Playability & Replayability
- It's an absurdist, story-based adventure game. There's not much by way of gameplay. You walk and click
- Fortunately, there's a chapter select. I'd like to come back for the achievements I missed. I'm not sure I want to do the whole thing again, though
Overall Impressions & Performance
- It's a very hard game to recommend. It's for a very specific audience. If you've spent a lot of time reading or studied literature at some point in your life (academically or on your own), you'll probably at least have an appreciation for what this game is trying to do
- It won't tax your system at all. I played the entirety of it on the Steam Deck, and it ran very smoothly. No bugs or crashes
Final Verdict
- 8/10. Assigning a score for this is hard. If you have an appreciation for post-modernism and literary references, add 2 points. If you don't like those things, subtract 5. I really liked the game, but I can see how it would be polarizing even among adventure game fans
- Interesting polygon-heavy environments interspersed with stark, often vector-looking maps and effects
- Other than that, there's not much in the way in the way of visual effects. It's a story-focused adventure game. You know what you're getting yourself into
- The sound design is really nicely done, from the pleasant environmental background noise in the peaceful bits to unsettling scraping metal and walls of static. The game challenges your patience with the unpleasant sounds at times
- There's a lot of excellent original music. Although you're not required to, it's worth waiting around to hear the full tracks if you enjoy folk or bluegrass
Story & Vibes
- I don't want to spoil the story, but I don't think anyone would understand what I was saying even if I tried. In broad strokes, you start off as an old man trying to make a furniture delivery. You quickly become waylaid in attempting to find your destination and begin accumulating friends
- This game requires a lot of patience. The story unfolds slowly and is heavily self-referential. Keep track of what the characters look like. It's worth it in the end
- Before you read further, understand that the rest of this section will bore you to tears if you don't read much. I studied some of this stuff half my life ago as a college student. Proceed if you like books
- The game makes heavy use of the literary technique of "magical realism". Although the most popular practitioner of the style is probably Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera; One Hundred Years of Solitude), the game's setting--Kentucky, obviously--more aptly evokes the stylings of the American South rather than South America. There are echoes of Modernists like William Faulkner in the somber, brooding scenes, but the playful, bright tones are more reminiscent of contemporary authors like Fred Chappell (I Am One of You Forever)
- Beyond the magical realism, there's a lot to dig into here for fans of Modern and Post-Modern literature. There's obvious references to the poetry of Robert Frost, and the monolithic, nonsensical bureaucracy is suspiciously Kafka-esque, but readers of Post-Modern drama will pick up on influences from grounded-in-reality playwrights like Eugene O'Niell and Arthur Miller as well as absurdists like Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard
Playability & Replayability
- It's an absurdist, story-based adventure game. There's not much by way of gameplay. You walk and click
- Fortunately, there's a chapter select. I'd like to come back for the achievements I missed. I'm not sure I want to do the whole thing again, though
Overall Impressions & Performance
- It's a very hard game to recommend. It's for a very specific audience. If you've spent a lot of time reading or studied literature at some point in your life (academically or on your own), you'll probably at least have an appreciation for what this game is trying to do
- It won't tax your system at all. I played the entirety of it on the Steam Deck, and it ran very smoothly. No bugs or crashes
Final Verdict
- 8/10. Assigning a score for this is hard. If you have an appreciation for post-modernism and literary references, add 2 points. If you don't like those things, subtract 5. I really liked the game, but I can see how it would be polarizing even among adventure game fans
Kentucky Route Zero was a game that I had first heard about right around the time I made my Backloggd account, and while I never really knew how long it would take for me to actually get around to playing it, I never could have expected me playing it all the way through using the iOS port, of all things. Despite how often I played them as a kid, I've generally dropped mobile games altogether (aside from the occasional redownload of something like Jetpack Joyride for a week-long nostalgia trip) and I've especially avoided the mobile ports of games I'm actually interested in playing due to how shoddy many of them end up being, but since the iOS version of Kentucky Route Zero was free if you signed in with your Netflix account and cost a whopping $24.99 on other platforms, I decided to give it a go on my phone and spent the next few months playing through it. Putting my lack of experience with the point-&-click adventure genre aside, I can't really say I've played anything like Kentucky Route Zero before, and while not all of its decisions worked for me, I still found it to be a beautiful work of art whose moods and themes stayed in my brain whenever I wasn't playing.
Throughout its five acts and interludes, Kentucky Route Zero ends up feeling more like an interactive novel than a traditional video game, and since that exact phrase has been used by many to describe my top two favorite games ever made, this choice ended up working wonders for me. There's this quiet, yet poignant sense of melancholy and loss that can be found in every one of the creative choices here, as the minimalistic artstyle and user interface, naturalistic and often echoey soundscapes, and the few uses of actual music gave all of the environments a ghostly sense of decay. Along with the characters in Kentucky Route Zero all have some layer of tragedy to them, the conversations that they have throughout the game primarily consist of opaque recollections of people, places, and objects that have either disappeared long ago due to company buyouts and bureaucratic hurdles or never even existed to begin with, and having so many of these personal stories mesh together made the game's themes of memories, nostalgia, and the death of Americana at the hands of unchecked capitalism both prevalent within the context of the game's world and relevant outside of it. The strength of the writing in Kentucky Route Zero was just as prevalent in the story's actual structure and beats as it was in the sorrowful dialogue, with the game blending elements of literature, film, and even theatre into its paranormal and often abstract brand of magical realism to create an experience that is as ambitious as it is ever-changing.
Maybe it's because my attention span has been ruined by the more high-octane games I've been playing recently, but despite how fascinating and enthralling I found the ideas of Kentucky Route Zero to be throughout my playthrough, I couldn't actually play it for more than, say, 20 or 30 minutes at a time. In small chunks, this game is great, but longer play sessions of Kentucky Route Zero often left me feeling restless, and since some of the scenes felt outright sluggish in their pace rather than deliberate like the rest of the game, I found myself cutting my sessions short just to allow myself to appreciate the game more when I came back later on. The intervals were also a bit of a mixed bag for me, because while some of them were very effective, others were either too short to have any real impact or went on for too long without saying anything new, and I do wish that they were a bit more consistent overall. Kentucky Route Zero also features a final act that essentially boils down to running around in a circle and hoping that an interactable person or object would actually spawn in, and since they only appeared about 50% of the time for me, I had to quit out and restart this section multiple times just to get it to work properly. Kentucky Route Zero is not a perfect game in my eyes, but it's still brilliant and evocative in everything that it does well, and I'm really interested in seeing what Cardboard Computer has up their sleeve in the future.
Throughout its five acts and interludes, Kentucky Route Zero ends up feeling more like an interactive novel than a traditional video game, and since that exact phrase has been used by many to describe my top two favorite games ever made, this choice ended up working wonders for me. There's this quiet, yet poignant sense of melancholy and loss that can be found in every one of the creative choices here, as the minimalistic artstyle and user interface, naturalistic and often echoey soundscapes, and the few uses of actual music gave all of the environments a ghostly sense of decay. Along with the characters in Kentucky Route Zero all have some layer of tragedy to them, the conversations that they have throughout the game primarily consist of opaque recollections of people, places, and objects that have either disappeared long ago due to company buyouts and bureaucratic hurdles or never even existed to begin with, and having so many of these personal stories mesh together made the game's themes of memories, nostalgia, and the death of Americana at the hands of unchecked capitalism both prevalent within the context of the game's world and relevant outside of it. The strength of the writing in Kentucky Route Zero was just as prevalent in the story's actual structure and beats as it was in the sorrowful dialogue, with the game blending elements of literature, film, and even theatre into its paranormal and often abstract brand of magical realism to create an experience that is as ambitious as it is ever-changing.
Maybe it's because my attention span has been ruined by the more high-octane games I've been playing recently, but despite how fascinating and enthralling I found the ideas of Kentucky Route Zero to be throughout my playthrough, I couldn't actually play it for more than, say, 20 or 30 minutes at a time. In small chunks, this game is great, but longer play sessions of Kentucky Route Zero often left me feeling restless, and since some of the scenes felt outright sluggish in their pace rather than deliberate like the rest of the game, I found myself cutting my sessions short just to allow myself to appreciate the game more when I came back later on. The intervals were also a bit of a mixed bag for me, because while some of them were very effective, others were either too short to have any real impact or went on for too long without saying anything new, and I do wish that they were a bit more consistent overall. Kentucky Route Zero also features a final act that essentially boils down to running around in a circle and hoping that an interactable person or object would actually spawn in, and since they only appeared about 50% of the time for me, I had to quit out and restart this section multiple times just to get it to work properly. Kentucky Route Zero is not a perfect game in my eyes, but it's still brilliant and evocative in everything that it does well, and I'm really interested in seeing what Cardboard Computer has up their sleeve in the future.
A story like a thin, 15 hour-long rain puddle that, when stepped into, sucks you deep into a dark, flooded underground cave, submerged for 122 hours, re-emerging, itching to dive in again.
A story like Atlas, holding you up with the world, knees buckling.
A story like a family, found, picked together from lint and scrap and old furniture, a story of broken people feeling a little more whole with each other.
A story of many arms, holding pieces of a whole, each visibly broken.
A story as a book, as a game, as an exhibition, as a play, as a hotline, as a painful auction, as a phone call with a loved one about to pass on.
A story that respects and knows art, architecture, theatre, computers, games and this broken scrapyard of a world as deeply as it respects you.
My favourite story ever created.
---
10 years down the road, ten years after I gave the first act a preliminary playthrough, unsure if I'd like it due to its (then perceived) mixed Steam reviews - in 2023, I can't overstate the significance that Kentucky Route Zero has had in my life. When I begin to describe it with my voice, I get choked up- This story has, in near every facet, shaped the person I am; my aspirations, my goals, my loves, my dreams.
Part of me wants to say "I can't believe it's over now", but that's not true, nothing could be further from true than that. Kentucky Route Zero was a preamble to our current days; to the injustice of a global system built on the glowing bones of workers, soldiers, debtors, the other.
Kentucky Route Zero knows: We will be buried in time. All of this is vain. Businesses fail. Unpaid houses are abandoned. Jobs are left vacant by necessity or death. Monuments wash away in the cyclical tides of time.
People remember people, but that circle of support and awareness doesn't turn forever. Community is strong, mutual aid is strong, but it's all temporary. The systems, the money, the specific sense of gnawing on everything wins out against aspirations, goals, loves, dreams. This story needed no villain - a human price put on a quickening of entropy was villain enough; a price on food, on health, on community, on work, on addiction, on loneliness.
From within that anthropic erosion, Kentucky Route Zero asks us to hold onto each other, and pick up the ones that society has dropped. The world isn't evil; people aren't evil. The systems people build to elevate themselves over other people, themselves just as mortal, just as filled with blood and guts as them - those systems are an evil construct, and must be rejected, operated around, dismantled.
Kentucky Route Zero is a tragedy, but its catharsis isn't voiceless and meaningless; it's the strength needed to carry on and understand what to do.
Developing video games independently has been a hard road. Maybe someday, my landlord will change the locks.
Until then, with the voices of this story, I will sing.
A story like Atlas, holding you up with the world, knees buckling.
A story like a family, found, picked together from lint and scrap and old furniture, a story of broken people feeling a little more whole with each other.
A story of many arms, holding pieces of a whole, each visibly broken.
A story as a book, as a game, as an exhibition, as a play, as a hotline, as a painful auction, as a phone call with a loved one about to pass on.
A story that respects and knows art, architecture, theatre, computers, games and this broken scrapyard of a world as deeply as it respects you.
My favourite story ever created.
---
10 years down the road, ten years after I gave the first act a preliminary playthrough, unsure if I'd like it due to its (then perceived) mixed Steam reviews - in 2023, I can't overstate the significance that Kentucky Route Zero has had in my life. When I begin to describe it with my voice, I get choked up- This story has, in near every facet, shaped the person I am; my aspirations, my goals, my loves, my dreams.
Part of me wants to say "I can't believe it's over now", but that's not true, nothing could be further from true than that. Kentucky Route Zero was a preamble to our current days; to the injustice of a global system built on the glowing bones of workers, soldiers, debtors, the other.
Kentucky Route Zero knows: We will be buried in time. All of this is vain. Businesses fail. Unpaid houses are abandoned. Jobs are left vacant by necessity or death. Monuments wash away in the cyclical tides of time.
People remember people, but that circle of support and awareness doesn't turn forever. Community is strong, mutual aid is strong, but it's all temporary. The systems, the money, the specific sense of gnawing on everything wins out against aspirations, goals, loves, dreams. This story needed no villain - a human price put on a quickening of entropy was villain enough; a price on food, on health, on community, on work, on addiction, on loneliness.
From within that anthropic erosion, Kentucky Route Zero asks us to hold onto each other, and pick up the ones that society has dropped. The world isn't evil; people aren't evil. The systems people build to elevate themselves over other people, themselves just as mortal, just as filled with blood and guts as them - those systems are an evil construct, and must be rejected, operated around, dismantled.
Kentucky Route Zero is a tragedy, but its catharsis isn't voiceless and meaningless; it's the strength needed to carry on and understand what to do.
Developing video games independently has been a hard road. Maybe someday, my landlord will change the locks.
Until then, with the voices of this story, I will sing.
Me when this world is not my home, I'm just passing through! Beautiful game. beautiful music. beautiful story. I love games fovused on reading, with very little gameplay, and this definitely fits that and tells a beautiful tale. 👍😊 I'm thinking of giving it another half star but as a perfectionist that is hard for me!
Unique atmosphere, a ton of talent in writing, sound design, visuals. Would absolutely love to read it as a book or a graphic novel, watch it as an indie film or an animation... Honestly, anything but a game.
As a game, it's an experience so excruciatingly boring and unengaging that I would literally rather do my stupid shitty job rather than play it. From what I saw in the first two Acts, your entire agency as a player is reduced to selecting artsy absurdist lines of dialogue from a couple of equally bewildering options, and it makes absolutely zero difference what you choose, because other characters or the environment react to these statements in equally absurdist poetic ways. It's like a crushingly slow beat poetry mad libs: the game.
When you're not doing that, you're either walking very slowly through a minimalistic environment or reading walls of cryptic text. That is, as far as I can tell, the entire game element of this critically acclaimed video game.
I have a high tolerance for boring art, I watch art house films, I've read and enjoyed difficult books, so I'm not asking for everything to be slop with robots, murder or swords. But the point of the games as a medium is interaction. If you want to make it artsy - more power to you, there are plenty of examples where that works perfectly. But if I'm playing a game, I want to have meaningful interaction with your cryptic pretentious world, I don't want to be a glorified page-turning mechanism.
If I wanted to read a book, I would read a book. In fact, this is exactly what I'm going to do after frustratingly closing this "game" for good.
As a game, it's an experience so excruciatingly boring and unengaging that I would literally rather do my stupid shitty job rather than play it. From what I saw in the first two Acts, your entire agency as a player is reduced to selecting artsy absurdist lines of dialogue from a couple of equally bewildering options, and it makes absolutely zero difference what you choose, because other characters or the environment react to these statements in equally absurdist poetic ways. It's like a crushingly slow beat poetry mad libs: the game.
When you're not doing that, you're either walking very slowly through a minimalistic environment or reading walls of cryptic text. That is, as far as I can tell, the entire game element of this critically acclaimed video game.
I have a high tolerance for boring art, I watch art house films, I've read and enjoyed difficult books, so I'm not asking for everything to be slop with robots, murder or swords. But the point of the games as a medium is interaction. If you want to make it artsy - more power to you, there are plenty of examples where that works perfectly. But if I'm playing a game, I want to have meaningful interaction with your cryptic pretentious world, I don't want to be a glorified page-turning mechanism.
If I wanted to read a book, I would read a book. In fact, this is exactly what I'm going to do after frustratingly closing this "game" for good.
In my view, Kentucky Route Zero is a mystery game. It isn't one of those mystery games where you collect all the info and solve the mystery, though. The mystery is the point, and while the stories of the people you encounter get told, they leave plenty off the table and free to interpret. What is there is written in a nonchalant tone that somehow still feels deliberate. It is a joy to read through the text, but the game does not stop there. The visuals are striking, and the way that the game presents itself changes frequently, often innovating on the very ways that you interact with it.
Simply the best game experience I've ever had. More of a narrative short film than a proper game, as actual gameplay is minimal, but it never felt like anything short of a masterpiece. It's the Coens doing David Lynch all set in the haunted deep dark woods of Kentucky. Unbelievable writing. Unbelievable music. Special. So special.
Despite it's cryptic, magical, nonsensical elements, this game feels so incredibly down to earth, so human.
It's a game that reminds you that every person has their own lives, their own struggles, their own pasts. The southern gothic imagery paired with the pleasant ambient soundtrack makes this game go down like smooth whiskey. The reader is asked for patience, as some part of the game did bore me and the story often lost me in it's surrealism, but looking back on all of it I find myself with the feeling that this is a game that I will cherish for a really long time.
Not just one of the best games I've ever played but one of the best stories I've ever experienced.
It's a game that reminds you that every person has their own lives, their own struggles, their own pasts. The southern gothic imagery paired with the pleasant ambient soundtrack makes this game go down like smooth whiskey. The reader is asked for patience, as some part of the game did bore me and the story often lost me in it's surrealism, but looking back on all of it I find myself with the feeling that this is a game that I will cherish for a really long time.
Not just one of the best games I've ever played but one of the best stories I've ever experienced.
There were a few moments that really worked for me but I can't say it was most of the game.
I have to say, the vibe of this game is undeniable. It's dark, hazy, almost
sexy. Sadly, this strength ultimately becomes jarring, because of the way it incessantly screams GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL at you. The vibe is now spoiled, and in complete want of its previous mystique, Kentucky Route Zero smudges over the haze with the garish makeup of a clown.
sexy. Sadly, this strength ultimately becomes jarring, because of the way it incessantly screams GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL at you. The vibe is now spoiled, and in complete want of its previous mystique, Kentucky Route Zero smudges over the haze with the garish makeup of a clown.
How much does a footstep weigh? Could you pay a debt in miles wandered, loves lost, and feelings felt? Fiscal deficit peels off of people until all that remains are workable bones. The hungry, self-subsuming organ of the state argues that for the consolidation of an archaic greater good, we must build a highway directly through your house. Just fifty dollars and we'll be out of your hair. Just an arm and you'll be debt free. Though of course, you know that the road will be haunted - by the house, by its neighbours, by you. The debt state does not mind, however, having consolidated away any need to remember a ghost long ago, and those of us who remain are left to build cities in graveyards.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore
lindo e muito entediante
really strong first few acts for this game but i definitely grew significantly less interested as it went along. i was invested enough to beat it though, atmosphere and music was consistently very captivating
Game really had me for the first half but lost me towards the second half. The narrative starts pretty cerebral but it is a specific narrative, but towards the end the narrative loses all definition and it turns into just vibes.
I also really liked the characters they introduce in the first three acts and wished they would just stop introducing new characters and just focus on the ones they had. I cared not at all for the characters introduced in act 4 or 5.
I also really liked the characters they introduce in the first three acts and wished they would just stop introducing new characters and just focus on the ones they had. I cared not at all for the characters introduced in act 4 or 5.
i played the first three acts back in 2014 and finally went back to finish the whole thing. don't let the low rating fool you, this one is an all-timer. despite being a homework-style reading experience that contains precisely zero of anything i find fun in a game, has no real player agency or truly actionable choices (we can argue whether or not that's intentional until the cows come home, it's not a compelling enough idea to sustain a 10 hour game), and is just a bit too up its own ass, it nevertheless features some of the most haunting images, impactful sequences, and unforgettable moments i have ever experienced in a game. the high point for me is act 3. the whiskey distillery, xanadu, and that fuuuuucking song.
Creí que jamás iba a encontrar una experiencia tan significativa como Disco Elysium, y acá estoy, llorando mares por una historia caótica, cuya coherencia radica fundamentalmente en la que uno esté dispuesto a otorgarle. Su propósito ultimo es una narración indefinida, un relato que cada jugador moldea para encontrar respuestas a lo que transita.
Cargado de pesimismo y optimismo, de miserias y alegrías, Kentucky Route Zero reflexiona sobre el sentido de pertenencia, la opresión del capitalismo y los fantasmas del pasado con los que todos deben lidiar. Su jugabilidad es de un atrevimiento equiparable, un formalismo que no hace sino explotar todas las posibilidades a su alcance. Este juego es de una belleza inigualable.
Cargado de pesimismo y optimismo, de miserias y alegrías, Kentucky Route Zero reflexiona sobre el sentido de pertenencia, la opresión del capitalismo y los fantasmas del pasado con los que todos deben lidiar. Su jugabilidad es de un atrevimiento equiparable, un formalismo que no hace sino explotar todas las posibilidades a su alcance. Este juego es de una belleza inigualable.
Un jeu qui réussi tellement de choses qui paraissent invraisemblables et j'ai pas le temps ou le talent de structurer ma pensée autour de ce jeu, je sais déjà que je vais y retourner, qu'il risque de m'obséder, à la même manière de Twin Peaks, dans son irrésoluble étrangeté.
When I think about this game I think about the gorgeous environments, the captivating magical realism of the presented world, extraordinarly well-written characters, one of a kind soundtrack and atmosphere, as well as some of the most original design choices I've ever seen in a narrative video game.
When I play this game I am being tortured by walls of text consisting of small talk or descriptions of the surroundings, I'm met with choices that don't make sense and I constantly have the feeling of almost understanding everything, which always gets destroyed by a singular line of dialogue that contradicts my current interpretation / way of thinking.
I don't fully get this game, but I don't think I have to. While the experience wasn't pleasant all the way through, some of its moments and characters will stay with me for a long time.
When I play this game I am being tortured by walls of text consisting of small talk or descriptions of the surroundings, I'm met with choices that don't make sense and I constantly have the feeling of almost understanding everything, which always gets destroyed by a singular line of dialogue that contradicts my current interpretation / way of thinking.
I don't fully get this game, but I don't think I have to. While the experience wasn't pleasant all the way through, some of its moments and characters will stay with me for a long time.
Played on switch.
I really wanted to like this game. Games that are lean on gameplay and heavy on writing don't scare me, I specifically chose to play this game due to that. I didn't know much else about it though.
When I played through the first Act, I thought to myself: OK, what the fuck? I have 0 idea what is going on. I don't know if I like it, but let's give it more time
When I played through the second Act right after, I thought: OK, what the fuck? I have 0 idea what is going on. I don't really like it, but I'll give it more time. There must be something that I hang on to at some point.
When I played through Act III, I realized that the game was not going to satisfy what I'm looking for. I like the visual style, I think the songs that play are nice (albeit not really leaving any impact on me) and I think the game's style is unique and certainly worth experiencing for yourself to see if it sticks with you in a way it didn't with me.
One major thing that I didn't really gel with was the "magical realism" style that this apparently has. Never heard of the term before, but it's basically a realistic, mundane setting with magical elements in it. It's not sci fi, not fantasy but it's own thing and personally, I dislike magical realism. At first I thought the game would have a grounded setting and would tell a deeply human story. There is certainly the attempt of it here (a successful attempt if you ask many others), but I just couldn't buy this setting. Give me something grounded or buy into the magical more. I, subjectively, dislike the middle road a lot and I doubt I'll interact with media in this literary style again.
The game has a heavy focus on dialogue (I don't mind. I read plenty of books, I enjoy visual novels and Disco Elysium is one of my favorite games of all time for example), but a lot of conversations just felt so odd and unpleasant. For one thing, too often I think characters don't conversate, they just say things unrelated to what their conversation partner is saying. The game was sold to me as very realistic, but I've never done that in my life. Second, a lot of conversations drag on by going on tangents for no apparent reason. Third, a lot of the dialogue and characters were too cryptic. Sure, I get that there is commentary about life, about the highs and lows, about death, about regret and a lot more topics that make life what it is, but the way these topics are addressed left me unimpressed for a lack of a better word than be brought along a mysterious, bittersweet journey like it seems to be the case for many others. Ultimately, I have felt more emotional about these topics while playing dozens of other video games, either by telling a grounded story and or a story in a fantasy setting with human stakes involved rather than what Kentucky Route Zero tries to do.
Look at the review score for this by critics and on many online sites. They're pretty high. Needless to say, this is just my opinion and it's not shared by the majority. So if you own it, give it a try. For me personally, the game was not fun as game, which was a given, but also was not enjoyable as a novel, which was not.
When I played through the first Act, I thought to myself: OK, what the fuck? I have 0 idea what is going on. I don't know if I like it, but let's give it more time
When I played through the second Act right after, I thought: OK, what the fuck? I have 0 idea what is going on. I don't really like it, but I'll give it more time. There must be something that I hang on to at some point.
When I played through Act III, I realized that the game was not going to satisfy what I'm looking for. I like the visual style, I think the songs that play are nice (albeit not really leaving any impact on me) and I think the game's style is unique and certainly worth experiencing for yourself to see if it sticks with you in a way it didn't with me.
One major thing that I didn't really gel with was the "magical realism" style that this apparently has. Never heard of the term before, but it's basically a realistic, mundane setting with magical elements in it. It's not sci fi, not fantasy but it's own thing and personally, I dislike magical realism. At first I thought the game would have a grounded setting and would tell a deeply human story. There is certainly the attempt of it here (a successful attempt if you ask many others), but I just couldn't buy this setting. Give me something grounded or buy into the magical more. I, subjectively, dislike the middle road a lot and I doubt I'll interact with media in this literary style again.
The game has a heavy focus on dialogue (I don't mind. I read plenty of books, I enjoy visual novels and Disco Elysium is one of my favorite games of all time for example), but a lot of conversations just felt so odd and unpleasant. For one thing, too often I think characters don't conversate, they just say things unrelated to what their conversation partner is saying. The game was sold to me as very realistic, but I've never done that in my life. Second, a lot of conversations drag on by going on tangents for no apparent reason. Third, a lot of the dialogue and characters were too cryptic. Sure, I get that there is commentary about life, about the highs and lows, about death, about regret and a lot more topics that make life what it is, but the way these topics are addressed left me unimpressed for a lack of a better word than be brought along a mysterious, bittersweet journey like it seems to be the case for many others. Ultimately, I have felt more emotional about these topics while playing dozens of other video games, either by telling a grounded story and or a story in a fantasy setting with human stakes involved rather than what Kentucky Route Zero tries to do.
Look at the review score for this by critics and on many online sites. They're pretty high. Needless to say, this is just my opinion and it's not shared by the majority. So if you own it, give it a try. For me personally, the game was not fun as game, which was a given, but also was not enjoyable as a novel, which was not.
I liked the concept and the art style, but the game felt a bit too long.
A beautiful, somber adventure. A great variety of themes, all artfully constructed in a way that is both unique and appealing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but this is certainly not for everyone.
To begin with, it's a LOT of reading. This is essentially a novel with interactive visuals - if you're into this form of presentation, you will no doubt have fun. If you desire action, this might not be for you.
The story is sad, but heartwarming. Very impressive use of symbolism and the topics and themes that occur throughout the story are rarely seen in most stories, and that was refreshing.
At times, however, I felt like the game relied too much on the player to care about the story enough to read literal paragraphs of text without end. Only a few such instances though.
The music was also extremely fitting, and I really enjoyed it. Will certainly remember this game for a long time, not many such well thought-out stories out there among video games.
Needless to say, this is an audiovisual art project - and a damn beautiful one at that. I think this game is a prime example that video games CAN be art.
To begin with, it's a LOT of reading. This is essentially a novel with interactive visuals - if you're into this form of presentation, you will no doubt have fun. If you desire action, this might not be for you.
The story is sad, but heartwarming. Very impressive use of symbolism and the topics and themes that occur throughout the story are rarely seen in most stories, and that was refreshing.
At times, however, I felt like the game relied too much on the player to care about the story enough to read literal paragraphs of text without end. Only a few such instances though.
The music was also extremely fitting, and I really enjoyed it. Will certainly remember this game for a long time, not many such well thought-out stories out there among video games.
Needless to say, this is an audiovisual art project - and a damn beautiful one at that. I think this game is a prime example that video games CAN be art.