I think it's safe to say that Kentucky Route Zero has left me overwhelmed with thought. It's a game that has a lot on it's mind but takes it's time to let it all out. Like a lonely campfire story that takes all night to tell. It's a game that truly feels like it has a soul to it. A beating heart that invites you to listen at it beats to a rhythm you feel like you've known all your life. I recommend knowing as little as possible before playing, the journey is best experienced with fresh eyes, unknowing of any destinations along the way.

I feel like there's so much left for me to say and yet I struggle for the right words. A game that has left me truly speechless, and one that I will think about perhaps for the rest of my life.

Spiritfarer made me ask a difficult question of myself, for me personally, just how important is gameplay for a video game. I know that sounds like a stupid question but stick with me for a little bit. Spiritfarer at it's core is a survival/crafting game about gathering resources to craft upgrades and progress through the game, and I found it's repetitive loop of gathering/crafting to be very irritating and bothersome quite a lot of the time. There are hours I spent with this game where I became very frustrated and bored that would normally just end with me uninstalling the game and never returning.

...and yet I can't deny that I found myself still falling in love with this game.

Because the game really is more than it's gameplay a lot of the time. The art and animation is always a pure delight to look at, the soundtrack is beautifully moving, and the writing is some of the most poignant and moving I've ever seen in any piece of media. There are many moments that I'm probably going to carry with me for years to come.

But was all of this worth it? I loved the game for it's art but simply tolerated it for it's gameplay. My gut reaction is to recommend Spiritfarer but I'm confident that there will be a lot of people for whom the gameplay will be simply too tedious for them.

I'm usually a sucker for personal indie games that use metaphor to tell a narrative about personal acceptance and overcoming emotional turmoil but Sayonara Wild Hears takes things up a notch by having the metaphors be giant three headed wolf robots that you have to defeat with the lasers strapped to your motorcycle while listening to one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time. The game may only take around an hour to complete but god if it isn't one of the most visually gorgeous and musically excellent hours I've spent with a video game, and I can already tell this is something I'm gonna keep coming back to over and over again. Once I adjusted to the gameplay rhythms of this I couldn't get enough.

WILD HEARTS NEVER DIE
WILD HEARTS NEVER DIE