Kentucky Route Zero: The Complete Season Reviews
As the video game industry experienced tumultuous change in the last decade, Kentucky Route Zero has felt like an anomaly, unconcerned with industry trends. Even as an episodic game, developer Cardboard Computer took years at a time to release acts — something most episodic titles try to avoid. It’s like Kentucky Route Zero was rejecting every rule, doing things its own way. Through that, it became one of the most important experimental games ever, establishing itself as a major player in the discourse of whether games are art. Kentucky Route Zero screams an emphatic and stubborn “yes” to that question.
Kentucky Route Zero is a fascinating story with a thick atmosphere and themes which will leave you thinking longer after playing each act. It's one of the best stories I've ever played or read in a video game, and I implore everyone to play it. Kentucky Route Zero is something special.
Even with a downright cavalcade of triumphs, Kentucky Route Zero's strongest asset is its ability to redefine itself from episode to episode. The deeper your journey goes, the stranger things get, but the more they make sense too. While the game will definitely be a bit too bizarre and densely obtuse for some, this is a game unlike anything you've ever played before.
Kentucky Route Zero is a brilliantly told story that takes chances, and unapologetically is what it is. Sounds suspiciously like art to me. Damn good art.
Kentucky Route Zero is a game for those who are happy to slowly digest the measured nuances of a text heavy, but visually stunning and thought provoking adventure. Narrative weirdness abounds but it is anchored by a cast of charming and gentle characters who you will grow to love.
While it took me a while to get into it, I enjoyed my time with Kentucky Route Zero.
Part point-and-click radio play, part adventure game audiobook, Kentucky route Zero is as much of a journey in sound as it is a meditation on surrealism. I'd nominate it for the Booker Prize in literature before I'd hand it a Keighley statue at the Video Game Awards.
There are few other games like Kentucky Route Zero. The point-and-click/text-based adventure captures the economic anxieties and the loneliness of America in 2020, but it still manages to be hopeful amongst the tragedy. You don't want to miss this.
I'm not in the unenviable position of giving a score to a game with no generic touchstones or precedence. I can't help but laugh at the absurdity at giving a score to something like Kentucky Route Zero. Did it accomplish everything it intended to do? Almost certainly. Was it "good?" Making a qualitative determination for art almost certainly means you missed the point entirely, doesn't it?
For it was – it is – unforgettable.
Those intoxicated by the game's dreamy brew may argue that there are no detours—that, like the Zero, you're either on it or you're not. If you're anything like me and Conway, however, you'll be somewhere in-between.
Kentucky Route Zero is a masterful piece of interactive storytelling. Mysterious, mercurial, and exquisitely beautiful.
Kentucky Route Zero is a game that I'm still thinking about days after reaching its conclusion. Though it's slow (maybe too slow for some) and introspective, it's also an exceptionally engaging interactive experience. If you are into the slow burn kind of story then this is definitely for you, but if you're not then you may bounce off of the Zero.
Kentucky Route Zero is a coffee table book of a game. I don’t feel like you’re really supposed to try and take it all in as a whole. Instead, KRZ, with it’s myriad of references and views, seems like it’s supposed to be taken a piece at a time. Some players are sure to absolutely love that, while others, like me, would prefer something more grounded.
All considered as the sum of its many, equally magnificent parts, Kentucky Route Zero is a game I won't forget for a long, long time.
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It’s the people, the world, the journey itself that all make this game tick.
After seven years, Kentucky Route Zero reaches the end of the road, and the full portrait it paints is melancholy and sorrowful but also absolutely beautiful.
Though it seems to be a traditional adventure game at first, this is an enticing and bizarre tale unlike anything you've played before
An arrestingly surreal triumph that blends point 'n' click and text adventures with a unique style of storytelling and gameplay that was well worth the extremely long wait.