Kentucky Route Zero: The Complete Season Reviews
There is no wrong decision in Kentucky Route Zero. Either you get off the highway, for which you get an unconventional storytelling without a traditional form of interaction, or you're going to sming around it and reach for something that's not challenging. Simple.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
A decade after the debut of its first act, Kentucky Route Zero TV Edition still offers a compelling, verbose experience in its original magical realist universe.
I tried so hard to love this game, but in the end, I only really liked it at best.
Above all, Kentucky Route Zero is an argument that games can be more. That argument isn’t nearly so revolutionary now as it was in 2011 when development began, or 2013 when the first act released. We’ve (thankfully) made some decent progress in the years since. People bought Kentucky Route Zero, and those people did go start their proverbial bands.
Kentucky Route Zero is lost in the illusive premise of the American Dream but found in the elusive dream logic of its weird, wild, and wonderful prose. Through it all are characters who conceal pain and loss with whimsical musings of hope and escape and locations engulfed in a meditative haze where brutal reality is indistinguishable from isolated reverie. At the end lies a paradox that suggests a circuitous path was the shortest course to an inevitable destination, and the assurance that Kentucky Route Zero's seven-year voyage knew its direction all along.
A transcendent magic realist adventure, Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition is a singular experience that rewards perseverance and commitment to its vision.
Kentucky Route Zero is a maddeningly obscure visual novel, both beautifully dull and mundanely fascinating. It will no doubt split opinion, but if you enjoy an abundance of metaphor and some quirky introspection, it will definitely tick your boxes.
When I stumbled across that grave not 20 minutes into the first act, there were only three surnames listed as “the unfortunate.” Márquez, of course, but two others: “Padilla” and “Nowakowski.” Two names which pierced me on a supernatural, haunting level: one being someone I lost prematurely long ago and the other being close to the name of her dear friend, gone just last year. No one else will experience this or the log scene quite the same way I have. But somewhere in these painterly strokes and grand ambitions hangs tragedy and beauty in equal measure, an experience both wholly unique and painfully universal.
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition from developer Cardboard Computer is still a work of art after all these years. The game is thick in story, choices, and interesting characters that you never want to ignore.
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition is the full and complete Kentucky Route Zero experience. A magical realist point-and-click adventure that takes you on a beguiling journey to a place that exists both below and beyond. It's a trip to be savoured, ruminated on; no need to rush.
At the end of a tumultuous decade, it’s only natural to reflect on the years gone by. And here comes a great game to cap the previous decade—and signal the start of something new. If I hadn’t already spent the last several years being told that Kentucky Route Zero was a special game, I’d have known it immediately.
Kentucky Route Zero is about America in a way few games aspire to be and fewer still succeed at.
Cardboard's work is an incredibly rich, complex, personal experience, but for which it is very easy to feel empathy, since it manages to tell from the popular and human perspective bigger events of each of us. A piece of video game history.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Developped during nearly a decade, the last episode of Kentucky Route Zero has finally arrived, and with it the complete edition of the game. It can almost be considered as an interactive fiction, but with a real attention given to the player and the meaning of its actions throughout the game. As a subjective experience, it also questions the connections between video games and other forms of art.
Review in French | Read full review
Although its moment to moment gameplay might not always hit the mark , the captivating story and colorful cast of characters make Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition a journey worth taking.
A work of art that I can’t recommend enough.
Kentucky Route Zero is a one of a kind storytelling experience, but I'm not entirely sure what story it is trying to tell.
Kentucky Route Zero tells a story unlike anything else you'll find in gaming. It uses a point and click adventure format that's pretty basic, but hits high notes with its dialogue, themes, and music.
Kentucky Route Zero isn’t a game for everyone, and as a piece of art it is bizarre and gives no clear answers. However, it doesn't have to, and instead allows its characters the room to breathe and push forward its themes in a way that very few games have been able to manage. Kentucky Route Zero has a finale well worth the wait, and a complete package that stands as one of the most interesting video games ever created.