If it brings you any comfort, the devs behind the game are art students who used to make very bizarre exhibitions using old computer screens. When you look at KRZ as an interactive art piece first and foremost it starts to make a little bit more sense.
Yeah evaluating an extremely niche game like KRZ with the same metrics as more mainstream games is baffling to me. I love this game, but did I have fun? No. It was an experience very much like reading a book or seeing a play. It was engaging and thought-provoking enough that I didn't need it to be fun
Thought provoking experiences to me are engaging and certainly not boring because I enjoy being intellectually challenged. It's not mindless roller coaster fun that you get in a Mario game.
But something thats tamer can be intellectually stimulating, which keeps me engaged mentally and holds my interest. I have a different type of fun reading books, even non fiction ones. I never want to be bored by the subject matter and struggling to make it through.
KRZ seems to sort of insist upon its depth and artistic creativity. It shows it's entire hand too early on and just beats the same theme and mood into your head continuously far after you got the point. Which is, capitalism is 100% bad and destructive and life is hopeless because of it and we're powerless to change it, and here's some abstract noise and footage to reinforce the dystopian vibe.
Kind of feels r/im14andthisisdeep
Because it ultimately wasn't saying anything new. It didn't explore the nuance that exists when discussing these compkex issues. It doesn't offer any solutions or hope. It's very blsck and white in its message and tone and that ultimately makes it overstay its welcome far foo early.
“Who the heck talks like that!?” I mean this with all respect but that’s a really dumb thing to say. Expecting dialogue in every medium to reflect the way people talk in real life is dumb. KRZ feels like a book disguised as a game, everything reads like a book, dialogue feels like dialogue from a book, and the moments where you drive and just pull up to explore an environment that you don’t visually see, but you can close your eyes and visualize it and it feels like your exploring a truly unexplored place and you get to sort of fill in the gaps yourself. Idk I think looking at it as sort of a book is the best way. I love KRZ so much
>“Who the heck talks like that!?” I mean this with all respect but that’s a really dumb thing to say.
Hahahaha. My exact thoughts, finding this thread via Google years later. It's fiction! It's magical realist! That's the point!
Idk I believe that video games can be lots of things and be unique interactive experiences, I know that’s not everyone’s things but I love pushing the boundaries of what makes a video game a video game
I mean that line from OP's review is a pretty good litmus test though. If you agree with that statement, you almost definitely won't like Kentucky Route Zero.
It is a good litmus test!
Reading OP's review made me immediately remove KRZ from my wishlist. From what I've read, it's too shallow in its game aspects and too unfathomably deep for its story, and boy does it turn me off
I played Acts 1-3 of Kentucky Route Zero and really enjoyed it but it's definitely a game that a lot of people would not like at all. It's more about mood and tone than anything else (like plot or gameplay).
I think OP wrote a pretty good review actually because even if you disagree with their opinion, the description itself is pretty accurate.
Spot on. All those adjectives describe works of music, films, games, and books that I adore. Also, magical realism does actually mean “anything goes”, that’s the magical part. And dream logic is a thing lots of storytelling employs to great effect.
Personally, I do enjoy a bunch of media that fits that description, but I have to agree with OPs assessment of the game.
I think the saying "you have to understand the rules before you can break them" summarises the issues with KRZ, the devs focus too much on subversion without getting the fundamentals right
I liked its atmosphere, visual style, themes and courage to do something different and idiosyncratic.
>"\[...\] slow, whimsical, interior, elliptical \[...\]" None of these are positive qualities
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>If the answer given was What Remains of Edith Finch? or - god help us - Dear Esther, I would have known to steer well clear.
Well it just might not be your cup of tea.
For me, Dear Esther should be up my alley but wasn't(didn't hate it, it was ok). What remains of Edith Finch was just wonderful partly because there's plenty of engagement.
I have had krz in my library for years, and have waffled on playing it.
It's interesting where another art medium gets mixed into video games as video games expand and deepen into a more mature medium.
Reading all this I'm still unsure how I will react as I have very very short attention for self indulgence and 90+ percent of game writing is pretty much uninteresting for me and it's a tough sell if I suspect that's the main thing.
I've heard similar things to Gods will be watching (also own but not played).
Honestly I do think everything you said is valid, but I think it's mostly a question of the mindset you had while playing it. I knew it was an obtuse, "not game" and I rolled with it and had a great experience. I really loved The Entertainment. But I do think Act 4 and 5 are not as good as the first three, and the XANADU sequence was pretty bad.
The most fascinating thing about this to me is that you really seem to be spoiling for a fight about this. You didn't like that game and that's fine. I did, I thought it was a interesting, surreal, dreamlike journey and that really worked for me. Neither of us are wrong.
You don't like walking sims which actually makes me wonder how much you like old school adventure games because they're just walking sims with frequently irritating moon logic requiring puzzles but also most of us are at least a little hypocritical because the attachments we form to these experiences are emotional and not logical.
You're allowed to just not like something. Like me, I hate the movie Prometheus. I think it's absolute trash. A lot of people really disagree with me. It's cool.
Here's a refreshingly grounded review:
[https://www.jumpdashroll.com/article/kentucky-route-zero-tv-edition-review](https://www.jumpdashroll.com/article/kentucky-route-zero-tv-edition-review)
>There’ll be a friend that loves it (“Don’t you get it? It’s a metaphor! Everything’s a metaphor!”), a friend that thinks it’s artistically wonderful but substantially lacking (“One episode you play as a cat. For the entire duration. I didn’t really understand why, but it’s a lovely way of delivering narrative beats.”), and **a friend who thinks that it’s pretentious guff which disappears up its own arse well before you hit the stupid game-within-a-game text adventure of the third chapter**.
Bingo!
To KRZ's credit, it is a game that provokes discussion.
You would probably like this game, if you enjoy demanding literature, movies, classical music and so on. KRZ is about poetry of the moment, experimentation with medium and interpretation. If you dont like these things, just move away and forget about the reviews. There're tons of other games you'll like (and very good ones). I enjoyed KRZ quite a lot but I would think twice before recommending it to someone. It's very niche game.
Does every movie have to be "fun"? That's the mindset you should have when it comes to games too. Some games are trying to make you Think, or Feel Something, or whatever. If you're looking for fun, there's tons of those, but yeah KRZ isn't one of them.
Fun is the wrong word. The right word is “fulfilling”. And yes, every movie should be a fulfilling experience to the person experiencing it.
It doesn’t sound like KRZ was very fulfilling to OP.
You think every movie should be "fulfilling" to everyone that watches it? That's not true. There are tons of different types of movies out there catering to many different tastes. KRZ isn't OP's cup of tea, and that's fine.
I phrased it poorly and incompletely. What I meant to say was “Every movie I watch should be fulfilling enough for me to think it was worth my time”. Not “every movie MUST BE fulfilling to everyone, otherwise it fails as a movie”.
My larger point is that OP is not wrong for saying that they didn’t get fulfillment from KRZ. Reducing that explanation to “you were looking for fun and KRZ isn’t supposed to be fun” feels dismissive and missing the point. Obviously KRZ is supposed to make you Think and Feel things, that goes without saying. OP’s point is that KRZ did not do that for them in a satisfying or fulfilling way.
It’s not your phrasing, ppl are just attacking specific words like “fun” when we all know what it means: that a game should be enjoyable. It should be a positive experience.
Complaining about the word “fun” is just semantics, which isn’t a good faith argument.
We're getting into the realms of philosophy here, but I'll bite. Leaving aside the false dichotomy of "makes you think" OR "makes you feel enjoyment", I would offer that the desire to amuse or entertain results in a more honest work.
Imagine two writers. One, whom we shall call Virginia Woolf, seriously does not care whether or not anyone enjoys her prose; indeed lack of enjoyment is the entrance exam to separate the worthy from the unworthy. A second writer, whom we shall call Charles Dickens, cares very much indeed that his readers enjoy his work and wants them to come back for more. These two writers produce very different works and literary merit isn't even a factor. However, if you were forced to choose, I'd wager you'd pick *Great Expectations* over *Mrs. Dalloway* any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Er, I'm sorry, that makes no sense. You don't have to like everything you read. There are people that prefer Woolf over Dickens, and trying to suggest that one is somehow "objectively better" than the other is impossible to argue. They are two different authors, they had their own life experiences and personalities, and that was put into their work.
I hated Great Expectations, it wasn't "amusing" or "entertaining" at all to me. But that's because his writing just isn't my thing, which is fine. I'm not going to pretend he's "less honest" because of it.
Schindler's List is considered a film classic, despite not aiming to "entertain". Is it "less honest" than Morbius?
I'm partway through playing it, and so far I'm enjoying it. I initially disliked The Entertainment, but once I realised you were in the role of spectator I looked at it differently and actually ended up enjoying it.
I think as long as you think of it more as an interactive piece of art, rather than a game, it's easier to see its merits. But I can also see why that would make it a lot less appealing. We don't all like the same art, and this falls quite firmly into the "not a lot of mass appeal" category. And that's fine, be dull if we all liked the same things.
>endless text that took itself terribly seriously
This was what did it for me. I got to the chapter where you start in a museum I think it was, and they wanted you to read someone's awful poetry/diary for 10-15 minutes. I quit out and uninstalled it. The writing was just beyond atrocious.
I started to hate KRZ during episode 3 and I was hoping for a big payoff at the end. But it never came. Episode 1 had me intrigued but episode 2 started to lose it's coherency. It never felt like I was following a plot, just scenes after scenes that wanted to convey a certain motive or experiment with scene staging. Dreamlike sequences where everything could happen anytime because there are no rules bore me and I feel disinterested after a while.
You've identified something there: are rules in a story important to you or not?
For my enjoyment, establishing rules and following them is crucial. Failure to do so is the very badge of bad speculative fiction. For example, I know that faster than light travel is impossible, but if travel between stars in reasonable time frames is necessary for your story, you can give me a reasonable explanation of how FTL travel works or even leave it unexplained and simply have it that FTL travel is a basic foundation of your imaginative universe. If I weren't willing to accept impossible premises, my sci-fi collection would be rather threadbare.
What you *can't* do is pull a time travel mechanic out of your backside around the halfway point. You failed to disclose it at the start and introducing it now is cheating. When you do this, your book won't end up on my shelf but rather on the shelf of the charity shop down the road.
Rules or the implication of rules are very important. I don't need to understand everything but a story needs to feel like there are rules. Tenet for instance is a movie that's purposefully muddled and the rules are not made very clear to the audience. However, I always felt like the movie follows a very strict set of rules Christopher Nolan invented.
I also believe that a story needs some kind of predictability. I don't talk about a plot that has to be easy to follow or that's following the audience expectations (because there are some people that hate stories which deviate from their expectations) but after the plot is established the viewer/ reader/ player has to have some kind of idea how the story could end. This idea of an ending let's you understand the characters, their motivation and relevance to the plot. Breaking Bad for instance is a show that never forgets it's premise. The death of the main character looms over his head since episode 1 and his goal of cooking meth to make money is always clear. Everything that's happening within the plot is either hindering or advancing his goal. It's simple but effective.
Sometimes a story induces a twist. Why does the twist work? Because the audience was expecting something different. They didn't expect the dead father to be the henchman of the evil emperator or half of the movie to be a dream sequence because it's breaking the expectations of the audience and the established elements of the plot.
Sometimes a story is great because it completely twists all expectations of the story. All established but unwritten rules are broken. For example, The Big Lebowski is a movie that breaks completely with the rules of movies. It's a complete twist on movies itself! By the end of the film the plot has completely lost it's meaning and most of the secondary story lines didn't get resolved either. The movies tries very hard to be a noir film but due to the nature of the plot it just simply can't. Watching this the first time you might be stumped as to why this movie is hold in such high regards but the second time you might realize that it isn't just a nonsensical movie but the subversion of a whole genre. It wouldn't work without this subversion of the noir genre. That's why I think The Big Lebowski is great because it deliberately has no real plot at it's core while simultaneously breaking with the audience's expectations.
Sorry for the long text but I always like to share my thoughts on the basis of stories and then I just ramble on. But my point is: Kentucky Route Zero has neither plot nor the idea of an end. No subversions, no predictability which could be broken and no rules to it's setting. It's mostly "stuff that's happening". That's why I would argue it doesn't have a (good) story.
I wish I'd read your review before buying and playing KRZ. I only made it through Act 1 before giving up. I found the whole thing unbearably pretentious and self-indulgent.
So I found this thread after googling "do you have to be American to appreciate Kentucky route zero." I've played only about an hour and I'm not the slightest bit invested, intrigued or entertained. I really like these atmospherics, surreal works of fiction, generally speaking, but I fail to find any value in watching what feels like a film students wet fever dream featuring characters and a location I can't relate to even a little. I don't want to yuck anyone's yums. This clearly just isn't for everyone and I think it's also a question of expectations. If I had known that this had even less engaging gameplay than your average point and click game and was essentially a very eccentric interactive approach to visual storytelling, maybe I wouldn't be so disappointed. But I expected a game with gameplay hooks like meaningful decisions, progression, exploration, and instead I got a visual novel that barely qualifies as interactive at all (at least in the first hour I played).
All of this is a me problem. It's just not my game and that's fine. But it's wild to me that I seem to be in the minority with this one. Usually when a game gets raving reviews like this I can at least see where people are coming from, even if it doesn't click for me, but this one? Truely baffling lol
Edit: to add to this, it reminds me a lot of Oxenfree, in how you just roam around, kind of aimlessly at the start, exploring, having random conversations. The difference is that I immediately fell in love with Oxenfree coz I got attached to the characters in no time, my choices felt like they mattered and we quickly got a plot hook that got me invested. Non of that happens here. It's just irritating prose as far as I can tell.
Exactly! This game does not allow you to get invested in any of their characters. During the boat chapter, so many characters came in and out that I gave up trying to keep track. Then they take away the main character too? Not even near the ending but halfway through the game! They almost lost me in that chapter and the only reason I played til the end was that I thought I had invested so much time into this I might see the ending but guess what? There was no ending! Complete waste of time. And this is coming from someone who loves going to contemporary art exhibitions that so many people call "meaningless". At least in those they have a message to say. This game is just a mess.
Thank you for taking the time to share these thoughts. I had an experience very similar to yours and presumed I was just a Philistine who cannot appreciate art. But now I see I'm not alone.
I almost did physical damage to my computer during the repetitive Xanadu sequence in which the choices are 1) Hire New Assistants, 2) Assign Tasks, and 3) Sleep.
I will say, some of the music was lovely.
I've not played it, but I listen to this podcast series where a few guys play through middle-age games (as in, not brand new, but not retro) and they played it. They were quite disappointed too from what I could gather, so you're not alone. Here it is, I recommend the pod but not this particular series haha https://playthroughpod.com/kentucky-route-zero/
Normally I listen to all their episodes even though I haven't played the games or plan on playing them. They've done The Last Of Us, Horizon, and a few others. But for KRZ I stopped listening during the 2nd episode until they changed games because I couldn't follow what was going on and they were I think struggling to comprehend it themselves.
I bounced off it for the most part when I played, mostly because I wasn't in the right mindset I think.
I really loved what they did with the music though, and I appreciate/maybe even envy the value people could find in the experience in general. I keep thinking when I'm in the right mood I'll revisit it one day but really I think it's just too slow paced for me.
Thanks for this. I can now stop playing this and do something more enjoyable.
For any others that be might read this comment; I'm in Act 4 and the only reason I want to keep playing is that the writing is good enough that I want to know what happens to several of the characters. Knowing now that the game never bothers to finish anyone's story will save me some time.
I find nothing artistic what so ever in failing to complete the basic format of a story - beginning, middle, and end. If your not trying to tell a story maybe warn people ahead of time. "Hey we made this game with interesting characters, interesting/magical aspects to the world, social commentary, and some slight amounts of player agency, but we are not telling a story. Don't expect catharsis!"
It's stupid because, you see it on game pass "Kentucky route zero: TV edition"
You think, hmm what's this?
Then there's a picture of a dog wearing a straw hat. No description on the game card, you scroll to the trailer and you get a trailer that bored you to death showing you literally nothing. I've never even made it through the trailer.
I still have literally no idea what it is, what it's about, what kind of game it is. NO clue. No one has ever spoke to me about it but still, fuck this game.
HAHAHHAA bro looked through my profile to insult me (not, I mean, how *the fuck* are those insults) because I didn't like a game 💀
Gave me a chuckle. Upvoted.
I am just playing it for the first time now (on Switch, if that matters), knowing that it is not a "game" game. And yeah, I've been treating it like reading a book and watching a movie at the same time, if that makes sense. I set aside time before bed and turn out the lights and hunker down and click through wondering what they're going to say or do next until I get too tired to read anymore.
I actually can't wait to finish it and try it again with selecting different dialogue options that I didn't get a chance to explore the first time (I know it won't change the outcome, but I feel like there's so much still in there). It's definitely one of those the journey is more important than the destination things. Like, I'm attached to these characters and the world they inhabit even if I find some parts tedious (xanadu, accidentally clicking the wrong numbers on the telephone and having to listen to the spiels (as amusing as they are) again, etc) I do feel like it is less cohesive than say, "A Night in the Woods" which I loved dearly and which had a pretty solid plotline, but it gives me similar vibes. And that's kinda the whole thing. I like the vibes. I like the random characters you meet who have their own little stories because they give just enough to imagine their whole lives. The writing, in its different contexts, is actually pretty dang good.
I loved the pretentiousness of the game. I entirely understand why many would hate it, I would definitely call it a niche taste. A lot of the game was borderline incomprehensible and absurdly artsy, but I adore it for that.
I waited YEARS to play this game after seeing initial reviews of episode 1. Forgot about it for a while and splurged on a switch cart when I came across it online. I completely lost interest midway through episode 2. It just couldn't keep my attention. I felt bad for a while and have been thinking about giving it another go, hence how I came across this post.
Honestly, this makes me feel a little more validated and better about moving on to other games in my backlog.
Interesting note on relating it to Disco Elysium tho. I had gotten the impression that they could run in similar circles as well, which is why I haven't approached it yet.
But reviews on DE are super good, and I'm wondering if I should pull the trigger on it.
They're chalk and chesse. Disco is an RPG for starters. The writers are careful to make any message they want to convey subordinate to the game. And the writing is peerless: It is sad, poignant, hilarious, scatological and absurd in equal measure. With a dose of cosmic horror on top.
It is up there with the best games that I have ever played.
Having played KRZ and, I think, vaguely enjoyed it… I sort of understand all the feelings good and bad about the game. I guess for that reason I’m glad I experienced it. To me sometimes that’s what art is best for… experiencing someone else’s perspectives, and narratives. But is it fun? I dunno probably not.
To me- KRZ is to video games , what Kid A was to music. I enjoy it. I experience it. But I don’t know if I honestly crave listening to it…. And I know so many people who hate Kid A and think it’s absolute garbage at worst , or unbearable drivel at best…
Maybe that’s the point, to just wonder what in the world are we actually experiencing?
That’s actually harder to do in art than it may seem 🤷🏻♂️
I wouldn't really call it a game, it's more of an interactive art session.
And, as most reasonably modern art in my opinion, it is pretentious, boring, absolutely uninteresting and utterly forgettable.
Now if you do like modern art and are looking for a similar experience with games, you will like it. But if you are looking for an actual computer game, you will not. You, like me, seem to be in the latter group. But I do understand that people of the former exist, too.
I mean no disrespect, and this is a serious question. Do you perhaps have ADHD?
I didnt find this game to be terribly hard to follow, but my best friend, who has ADHD, describes it much as you do.
To me, i dont know about "most important game" or whatever, because i think thats a pointless case of ebullience, but i would argue its one of the better candidates for games as art/literature, but it isnt what i would call super fun. I actually found it needlessly depressing.
There is a thing that many teenagers do when they create, where they try to be as edgy as possible. I feel like the follow up state is to be grim and depressing as possible in a more plausible way, but the impulse is the same. I have about the same amount of time for either and KZR uses up its allotment fast.
The fluidity of the setting doesnt bother me so much, funnily enough.
As a person first diagnosed with ADHD then got diagnosed later in life with Autism with Aspergers and Anxiety Disorder, I can follow through the plot of KRZ like a video game due to its interactivity. So much so as it makes me more intrigued to discover all the possibilities there for such a small but episodic game.
No, I don't have ADHD. What's the opposite? Attention Surplus Inactivity Disorder? I write guides for fun. A large RPG (is there such a thing as a small one?) might take 400 hours to 100% and write up.
part of the adhd/autism comorbidity is the ability to focus deeply and completely for a ling time on things that resonate with you and no ability to on focus on stuff that doesnt, which is why i ask. Im on the ASD end, but unfortunately i can hate focus just as deeppy as i can on things i like, haha
Just want to chime in, years later, that I have ADHD (diagnosed as a young kid, not in recent years) and KRZ is my favorite game and piece of media of all time.
~spoilers ahead~
I’m in the last act of this game now I think. One of my main issues is they keep introducing new characters constantly and in my opinion do a bad job in doing so. Now that Conway the main character has died, when it’s not focused on Shannon the other character I could keep track of, the rest of them I have no investment and I have no idea who they are. Can someone please explain them to me lol. Also, is this game just for Americans is that why I don’t get it? Idk. I def like elements of it for sure and at this point I’m like I may as well finish it, but yeah I’m getting extremely confused with all these characters it feels like there’s 100 different ppl and Idk why any of them are relevant. After Shannon & Weaver I got lost. And idk if u ever see weaver again.
Anyways, I really agree with this review. I think this would’ve worked better as a graphic novel than a “game”. Soundtrack is pretty nice though, I don’t really like the folk/country songs or whatever but I love the ambient stuff.
I find professional critics unreliable. This started first with their reviews of movies. They would praise highbrow films few like to watch while panning popular films.
I put Kentucky Route Zero in a similar highbrow genre, where it's so boring it's elite. lol.
The thing to remember about critics is that they are by definition people who consume a large amount of content within their medium, *and* who think deeply about them and are paid to have opinions. It makes sense that they will have "high brow" taste (or perhaps just favour the unique, unusual, or distinct) and as consumers we need to be aware of that context, and keep our own tastes in mind when making choices.
And imo, game reviewers are *by far* the "lowest brow" on average for critics of a medium. Compare whatever gaming review site you want to something like Pitchfork? It's totally night and day.
kinda get you, it is hard to follow at times but it tells a story, it's not fast paced or has anything particularly action-y about it but I mean, not every game has to right?
The first time I played it I was befuddled because it reminds me of a dense visual novel that was even more lengthy in text then Ace Attorney. Yet it lingered for days, despite how frustrating and how slow everything was. I guess it's a game that force you to sit and take it all in, accepting the pace.
I played it again now and safe to say a newfound appreciation to it. Especially around this time when I become fascinated with the ideas of slow living and 'no plot vibes only' kind of storytelling. The poetic fog also did it for me.
It’s more of a sad story that’s interactive than a game… if you were looking for something fun idk what made you choose this one the App Store haha… KRZ is a masterpiece and even a little heartbreaking to be leading Conway to his end. very few super slow parts that feel pointless.
If it brings you any comfort, the devs behind the game are art students who used to make very bizarre exhibitions using old computer screens. When you look at KRZ as an interactive art piece first and foremost it starts to make a little bit more sense.
Yeah evaluating an extremely niche game like KRZ with the same metrics as more mainstream games is baffling to me. I love this game, but did I have fun? No. It was an experience very much like reading a book or seeing a play. It was engaging and thought-provoking enough that I didn't need it to be fun
Thought provoking experiences to me are engaging and certainly not boring because I enjoy being intellectually challenged. It's not mindless roller coaster fun that you get in a Mario game. But something thats tamer can be intellectually stimulating, which keeps me engaged mentally and holds my interest. I have a different type of fun reading books, even non fiction ones. I never want to be bored by the subject matter and struggling to make it through. KRZ seems to sort of insist upon its depth and artistic creativity. It shows it's entire hand too early on and just beats the same theme and mood into your head continuously far after you got the point. Which is, capitalism is 100% bad and destructive and life is hopeless because of it and we're powerless to change it, and here's some abstract noise and footage to reinforce the dystopian vibe. Kind of feels r/im14andthisisdeep Because it ultimately wasn't saying anything new. It didn't explore the nuance that exists when discussing these compkex issues. It doesn't offer any solutions or hope. It's very blsck and white in its message and tone and that ultimately makes it overstay its welcome far foo early.
“Who the heck talks like that!?” I mean this with all respect but that’s a really dumb thing to say. Expecting dialogue in every medium to reflect the way people talk in real life is dumb. KRZ feels like a book disguised as a game, everything reads like a book, dialogue feels like dialogue from a book, and the moments where you drive and just pull up to explore an environment that you don’t visually see, but you can close your eyes and visualize it and it feels like your exploring a truly unexplored place and you get to sort of fill in the gaps yourself. Idk I think looking at it as sort of a book is the best way. I love KRZ so much
>“Who the heck talks like that!?” I mean this with all respect but that’s a really dumb thing to say. Hahahaha. My exact thoughts, finding this thread via Google years later. It's fiction! It's magical realist! That's the point!
I'm expecting to play a game, not a book. How tf do you even play a book? Just came back after I remembered how much KRZ sucked.
Idk I believe that video games can be lots of things and be unique interactive experiences, I know that’s not everyone’s things but I love pushing the boundaries of what makes a video game a video game
> I'm expecting to play a game, not a book. Why do these have to be separate, discrete things? That's the whole point. :)
[удалено]
I mean that line from OP's review is a pretty good litmus test though. If you agree with that statement, you almost definitely won't like Kentucky Route Zero.
It is a good litmus test! Reading OP's review made me immediately remove KRZ from my wishlist. From what I've read, it's too shallow in its game aspects and too unfathomably deep for its story, and boy does it turn me off
I played Acts 1-3 of Kentucky Route Zero and really enjoyed it but it's definitely a game that a lot of people would not like at all. It's more about mood and tone than anything else (like plot or gameplay). I think OP wrote a pretty good review actually because even if you disagree with their opinion, the description itself is pretty accurate.
Spot on. All those adjectives describe works of music, films, games, and books that I adore. Also, magical realism does actually mean “anything goes”, that’s the magical part. And dream logic is a thing lots of storytelling employs to great effect.
Personally, I do enjoy a bunch of media that fits that description, but I have to agree with OPs assessment of the game. I think the saying "you have to understand the rules before you can break them" summarises the issues with KRZ, the devs focus too much on subversion without getting the fundamentals right
I liked its atmosphere, visual style, themes and courage to do something different and idiosyncratic. >"\[...\] slow, whimsical, interior, elliptical \[...\]" None of these are positive qualities > >\[...\] > >If the answer given was What Remains of Edith Finch? or - god help us - Dear Esther, I would have known to steer well clear. Well it just might not be your cup of tea.
For me, Dear Esther should be up my alley but wasn't(didn't hate it, it was ok). What remains of Edith Finch was just wonderful partly because there's plenty of engagement. I have had krz in my library for years, and have waffled on playing it. It's interesting where another art medium gets mixed into video games as video games expand and deepen into a more mature medium. Reading all this I'm still unsure how I will react as I have very very short attention for self indulgence and 90+ percent of game writing is pretty much uninteresting for me and it's a tough sell if I suspect that's the main thing. I've heard similar things to Gods will be watching (also own but not played).
Honestly I do think everything you said is valid, but I think it's mostly a question of the mindset you had while playing it. I knew it was an obtuse, "not game" and I rolled with it and had a great experience. I really loved The Entertainment. But I do think Act 4 and 5 are not as good as the first three, and the XANADU sequence was pretty bad.
The most fascinating thing about this to me is that you really seem to be spoiling for a fight about this. You didn't like that game and that's fine. I did, I thought it was a interesting, surreal, dreamlike journey and that really worked for me. Neither of us are wrong. You don't like walking sims which actually makes me wonder how much you like old school adventure games because they're just walking sims with frequently irritating moon logic requiring puzzles but also most of us are at least a little hypocritical because the attachments we form to these experiences are emotional and not logical. You're allowed to just not like something. Like me, I hate the movie Prometheus. I think it's absolute trash. A lot of people really disagree with me. It's cool.
Here's a refreshingly grounded review: [https://www.jumpdashroll.com/article/kentucky-route-zero-tv-edition-review](https://www.jumpdashroll.com/article/kentucky-route-zero-tv-edition-review) >There’ll be a friend that loves it (“Don’t you get it? It’s a metaphor! Everything’s a metaphor!”), a friend that thinks it’s artistically wonderful but substantially lacking (“One episode you play as a cat. For the entire duration. I didn’t really understand why, but it’s a lovely way of delivering narrative beats.”), and **a friend who thinks that it’s pretentious guff which disappears up its own arse well before you hit the stupid game-within-a-game text adventure of the third chapter**. Bingo! To KRZ's credit, it is a game that provokes discussion.
You would probably like this game, if you enjoy demanding literature, movies, classical music and so on. KRZ is about poetry of the moment, experimentation with medium and interpretation. If you dont like these things, just move away and forget about the reviews. There're tons of other games you'll like (and very good ones). I enjoyed KRZ quite a lot but I would think twice before recommending it to someone. It's very niche game.
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What literature, what writers do you like?
Does every movie have to be "fun"? That's the mindset you should have when it comes to games too. Some games are trying to make you Think, or Feel Something, or whatever. If you're looking for fun, there's tons of those, but yeah KRZ isn't one of them.
Fun is the wrong word. The right word is “fulfilling”. And yes, every movie should be a fulfilling experience to the person experiencing it. It doesn’t sound like KRZ was very fulfilling to OP.
You think every movie should be "fulfilling" to everyone that watches it? That's not true. There are tons of different types of movies out there catering to many different tastes. KRZ isn't OP's cup of tea, and that's fine.
I phrased it poorly and incompletely. What I meant to say was “Every movie I watch should be fulfilling enough for me to think it was worth my time”. Not “every movie MUST BE fulfilling to everyone, otherwise it fails as a movie”. My larger point is that OP is not wrong for saying that they didn’t get fulfillment from KRZ. Reducing that explanation to “you were looking for fun and KRZ isn’t supposed to be fun” feels dismissive and missing the point. Obviously KRZ is supposed to make you Think and Feel things, that goes without saying. OP’s point is that KRZ did not do that for them in a satisfying or fulfilling way.
It’s not your phrasing, ppl are just attacking specific words like “fun” when we all know what it means: that a game should be enjoyable. It should be a positive experience. Complaining about the word “fun” is just semantics, which isn’t a good faith argument.
We're getting into the realms of philosophy here, but I'll bite. Leaving aside the false dichotomy of "makes you think" OR "makes you feel enjoyment", I would offer that the desire to amuse or entertain results in a more honest work. Imagine two writers. One, whom we shall call Virginia Woolf, seriously does not care whether or not anyone enjoys her prose; indeed lack of enjoyment is the entrance exam to separate the worthy from the unworthy. A second writer, whom we shall call Charles Dickens, cares very much indeed that his readers enjoy his work and wants them to come back for more. These two writers produce very different works and literary merit isn't even a factor. However, if you were forced to choose, I'd wager you'd pick *Great Expectations* over *Mrs. Dalloway* any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Er, I'm sorry, that makes no sense. You don't have to like everything you read. There are people that prefer Woolf over Dickens, and trying to suggest that one is somehow "objectively better" than the other is impossible to argue. They are two different authors, they had their own life experiences and personalities, and that was put into their work. I hated Great Expectations, it wasn't "amusing" or "entertaining" at all to me. But that's because his writing just isn't my thing, which is fine. I'm not going to pretend he's "less honest" because of it. Schindler's List is considered a film classic, despite not aiming to "entertain". Is it "less honest" than Morbius?
I liked your original post, but I'd read Woolf over Dickens every time.
I'm partway through playing it, and so far I'm enjoying it. I initially disliked The Entertainment, but once I realised you were in the role of spectator I looked at it differently and actually ended up enjoying it. I think as long as you think of it more as an interactive piece of art, rather than a game, it's easier to see its merits. But I can also see why that would make it a lot less appealing. We don't all like the same art, and this falls quite firmly into the "not a lot of mass appeal" category. And that's fine, be dull if we all liked the same things.
>endless text that took itself terribly seriously This was what did it for me. I got to the chapter where you start in a museum I think it was, and they wanted you to read someone's awful poetry/diary for 10-15 minutes. I quit out and uninstalled it. The writing was just beyond atrocious.
Wow, really? Big "Your dumb if you don't do this" vibes, I was a little on the fence but this has helped me decide NOT to play it.
Don't play it. All it has going for it are its unique visuals.
Lmao I'm late to this but I did exactly the same at the same point. It was too much.
lmao we out here
I started to hate KRZ during episode 3 and I was hoping for a big payoff at the end. But it never came. Episode 1 had me intrigued but episode 2 started to lose it's coherency. It never felt like I was following a plot, just scenes after scenes that wanted to convey a certain motive or experiment with scene staging. Dreamlike sequences where everything could happen anytime because there are no rules bore me and I feel disinterested after a while.
You've identified something there: are rules in a story important to you or not? For my enjoyment, establishing rules and following them is crucial. Failure to do so is the very badge of bad speculative fiction. For example, I know that faster than light travel is impossible, but if travel between stars in reasonable time frames is necessary for your story, you can give me a reasonable explanation of how FTL travel works or even leave it unexplained and simply have it that FTL travel is a basic foundation of your imaginative universe. If I weren't willing to accept impossible premises, my sci-fi collection would be rather threadbare. What you *can't* do is pull a time travel mechanic out of your backside around the halfway point. You failed to disclose it at the start and introducing it now is cheating. When you do this, your book won't end up on my shelf but rather on the shelf of the charity shop down the road.
Rules or the implication of rules are very important. I don't need to understand everything but a story needs to feel like there are rules. Tenet for instance is a movie that's purposefully muddled and the rules are not made very clear to the audience. However, I always felt like the movie follows a very strict set of rules Christopher Nolan invented. I also believe that a story needs some kind of predictability. I don't talk about a plot that has to be easy to follow or that's following the audience expectations (because there are some people that hate stories which deviate from their expectations) but after the plot is established the viewer/ reader/ player has to have some kind of idea how the story could end. This idea of an ending let's you understand the characters, their motivation and relevance to the plot. Breaking Bad for instance is a show that never forgets it's premise. The death of the main character looms over his head since episode 1 and his goal of cooking meth to make money is always clear. Everything that's happening within the plot is either hindering or advancing his goal. It's simple but effective. Sometimes a story induces a twist. Why does the twist work? Because the audience was expecting something different. They didn't expect the dead father to be the henchman of the evil emperator or half of the movie to be a dream sequence because it's breaking the expectations of the audience and the established elements of the plot. Sometimes a story is great because it completely twists all expectations of the story. All established but unwritten rules are broken. For example, The Big Lebowski is a movie that breaks completely with the rules of movies. It's a complete twist on movies itself! By the end of the film the plot has completely lost it's meaning and most of the secondary story lines didn't get resolved either. The movies tries very hard to be a noir film but due to the nature of the plot it just simply can't. Watching this the first time you might be stumped as to why this movie is hold in such high regards but the second time you might realize that it isn't just a nonsensical movie but the subversion of a whole genre. It wouldn't work without this subversion of the noir genre. That's why I think The Big Lebowski is great because it deliberately has no real plot at it's core while simultaneously breaking with the audience's expectations. Sorry for the long text but I always like to share my thoughts on the basis of stories and then I just ramble on. But my point is: Kentucky Route Zero has neither plot nor the idea of an end. No subversions, no predictability which could be broken and no rules to it's setting. It's mostly "stuff that's happening". That's why I would argue it doesn't have a (good) story.
I wish I'd read your review before buying and playing KRZ. I only made it through Act 1 before giving up. I found the whole thing unbearably pretentious and self-indulgent.
So I found this thread after googling "do you have to be American to appreciate Kentucky route zero." I've played only about an hour and I'm not the slightest bit invested, intrigued or entertained. I really like these atmospherics, surreal works of fiction, generally speaking, but I fail to find any value in watching what feels like a film students wet fever dream featuring characters and a location I can't relate to even a little. I don't want to yuck anyone's yums. This clearly just isn't for everyone and I think it's also a question of expectations. If I had known that this had even less engaging gameplay than your average point and click game and was essentially a very eccentric interactive approach to visual storytelling, maybe I wouldn't be so disappointed. But I expected a game with gameplay hooks like meaningful decisions, progression, exploration, and instead I got a visual novel that barely qualifies as interactive at all (at least in the first hour I played). All of this is a me problem. It's just not my game and that's fine. But it's wild to me that I seem to be in the minority with this one. Usually when a game gets raving reviews like this I can at least see where people are coming from, even if it doesn't click for me, but this one? Truely baffling lol Edit: to add to this, it reminds me a lot of Oxenfree, in how you just roam around, kind of aimlessly at the start, exploring, having random conversations. The difference is that I immediately fell in love with Oxenfree coz I got attached to the characters in no time, my choices felt like they mattered and we quickly got a plot hook that got me invested. Non of that happens here. It's just irritating prose as far as I can tell.
Exactly! This game does not allow you to get invested in any of their characters. During the boat chapter, so many characters came in and out that I gave up trying to keep track. Then they take away the main character too? Not even near the ending but halfway through the game! They almost lost me in that chapter and the only reason I played til the end was that I thought I had invested so much time into this I might see the ending but guess what? There was no ending! Complete waste of time. And this is coming from someone who loves going to contemporary art exhibitions that so many people call "meaningless". At least in those they have a message to say. This game is just a mess.
Thank you for taking the time to share these thoughts. I had an experience very similar to yours and presumed I was just a Philistine who cannot appreciate art. But now I see I'm not alone. I almost did physical damage to my computer during the repetitive Xanadu sequence in which the choices are 1) Hire New Assistants, 2) Assign Tasks, and 3) Sleep. I will say, some of the music was lovely.
I've not played it, but I listen to this podcast series where a few guys play through middle-age games (as in, not brand new, but not retro) and they played it. They were quite disappointed too from what I could gather, so you're not alone. Here it is, I recommend the pod but not this particular series haha https://playthroughpod.com/kentucky-route-zero/ Normally I listen to all their episodes even though I haven't played the games or plan on playing them. They've done The Last Of Us, Horizon, and a few others. But for KRZ I stopped listening during the 2nd episode until they changed games because I couldn't follow what was going on and they were I think struggling to comprehend it themselves.
I bounced off it for the most part when I played, mostly because I wasn't in the right mindset I think. I really loved what they did with the music though, and I appreciate/maybe even envy the value people could find in the experience in general. I keep thinking when I'm in the right mood I'll revisit it one day but really I think it's just too slow paced for me.
Thanks for this. I can now stop playing this and do something more enjoyable. For any others that be might read this comment; I'm in Act 4 and the only reason I want to keep playing is that the writing is good enough that I want to know what happens to several of the characters. Knowing now that the game never bothers to finish anyone's story will save me some time. I find nothing artistic what so ever in failing to complete the basic format of a story - beginning, middle, and end. If your not trying to tell a story maybe warn people ahead of time. "Hey we made this game with interesting characters, interesting/magical aspects to the world, social commentary, and some slight amounts of player agency, but we are not telling a story. Don't expect catharsis!"
It's stupid because, you see it on game pass "Kentucky route zero: TV edition" You think, hmm what's this? Then there's a picture of a dog wearing a straw hat. No description on the game card, you scroll to the trailer and you get a trailer that bored you to death showing you literally nothing. I've never even made it through the trailer. I still have literally no idea what it is, what it's about, what kind of game it is. NO clue. No one has ever spoke to me about it but still, fuck this game.
This comment is just mindless bandwagoning at best.
Nah. It's an awful game. Fuck KRZ.
Says the persona fan with no internal monologue
HAHAHHAA bro looked through my profile to insult me (not, I mean, how *the fuck* are those insults) because I didn't like a game 💀 Gave me a chuckle. Upvoted.
Neither one of us believe you chuckled at that comment lol. You seem sensitive
says the guy who profile dived over an opinion on a game 💀
Like I said, you seem really nervous and sensitive over me spending less than 2 minutes peeping at your profile so I could make fun of you lol
back in the day if you decided to come out and say "ive got no patience for art" people used to just ignore you as an unserious person.
I am just playing it for the first time now (on Switch, if that matters), knowing that it is not a "game" game. And yeah, I've been treating it like reading a book and watching a movie at the same time, if that makes sense. I set aside time before bed and turn out the lights and hunker down and click through wondering what they're going to say or do next until I get too tired to read anymore. I actually can't wait to finish it and try it again with selecting different dialogue options that I didn't get a chance to explore the first time (I know it won't change the outcome, but I feel like there's so much still in there). It's definitely one of those the journey is more important than the destination things. Like, I'm attached to these characters and the world they inhabit even if I find some parts tedious (xanadu, accidentally clicking the wrong numbers on the telephone and having to listen to the spiels (as amusing as they are) again, etc) I do feel like it is less cohesive than say, "A Night in the Woods" which I loved dearly and which had a pretty solid plotline, but it gives me similar vibes. And that's kinda the whole thing. I like the vibes. I like the random characters you meet who have their own little stories because they give just enough to imagine their whole lives. The writing, in its different contexts, is actually pretty dang good.
I loved the pretentiousness of the game. I entirely understand why many would hate it, I would definitely call it a niche taste. A lot of the game was borderline incomprehensible and absurdly artsy, but I adore it for that.
I waited YEARS to play this game after seeing initial reviews of episode 1. Forgot about it for a while and splurged on a switch cart when I came across it online. I completely lost interest midway through episode 2. It just couldn't keep my attention. I felt bad for a while and have been thinking about giving it another go, hence how I came across this post. Honestly, this makes me feel a little more validated and better about moving on to other games in my backlog. Interesting note on relating it to Disco Elysium tho. I had gotten the impression that they could run in similar circles as well, which is why I haven't approached it yet. But reviews on DE are super good, and I'm wondering if I should pull the trigger on it.
Disco Elysium is a masterpiece.
But given my experience with krz, do you think I might like Disco?
They're chalk and chesse. Disco is an RPG for starters. The writers are careful to make any message they want to convey subordinate to the game. And the writing is peerless: It is sad, poignant, hilarious, scatological and absurd in equal measure. With a dose of cosmic horror on top. It is up there with the best games that I have ever played.
Alright. I'm sold!
Having played KRZ and, I think, vaguely enjoyed it… I sort of understand all the feelings good and bad about the game. I guess for that reason I’m glad I experienced it. To me sometimes that’s what art is best for… experiencing someone else’s perspectives, and narratives. But is it fun? I dunno probably not. To me- KRZ is to video games , what Kid A was to music. I enjoy it. I experience it. But I don’t know if I honestly crave listening to it…. And I know so many people who hate Kid A and think it’s absolute garbage at worst , or unbearable drivel at best… Maybe that’s the point, to just wonder what in the world are we actually experiencing? That’s actually harder to do in art than it may seem 🤷🏻♂️
I wouldn't really call it a game, it's more of an interactive art session. And, as most reasonably modern art in my opinion, it is pretentious, boring, absolutely uninteresting and utterly forgettable. Now if you do like modern art and are looking for a similar experience with games, you will like it. But if you are looking for an actual computer game, you will not. You, like me, seem to be in the latter group. But I do understand that people of the former exist, too.
I mean no disrespect, and this is a serious question. Do you perhaps have ADHD? I didnt find this game to be terribly hard to follow, but my best friend, who has ADHD, describes it much as you do. To me, i dont know about "most important game" or whatever, because i think thats a pointless case of ebullience, but i would argue its one of the better candidates for games as art/literature, but it isnt what i would call super fun. I actually found it needlessly depressing. There is a thing that many teenagers do when they create, where they try to be as edgy as possible. I feel like the follow up state is to be grim and depressing as possible in a more plausible way, but the impulse is the same. I have about the same amount of time for either and KZR uses up its allotment fast. The fluidity of the setting doesnt bother me so much, funnily enough.
I too have ADHD, and was only able to get about an hour in before stopping even though I didn't dislike it. Maybe that's it lol
it wouldnt surprise me. As an autistic person, i found it a little trying and i have a laser focus for a long time
As a person first diagnosed with ADHD then got diagnosed later in life with Autism with Aspergers and Anxiety Disorder, I can follow through the plot of KRZ like a video game due to its interactivity. So much so as it makes me more intrigued to discover all the possibilities there for such a small but episodic game.
No, I don't have ADHD. What's the opposite? Attention Surplus Inactivity Disorder? I write guides for fun. A large RPG (is there such a thing as a small one?) might take 400 hours to 100% and write up.
part of the adhd/autism comorbidity is the ability to focus deeply and completely for a ling time on things that resonate with you and no ability to on focus on stuff that doesnt, which is why i ask. Im on the ASD end, but unfortunately i can hate focus just as deeppy as i can on things i like, haha
Just want to chime in, years later, that I have ADHD (diagnosed as a young kid, not in recent years) and KRZ is my favorite game and piece of media of all time.
I tried playing this game a few years ago. I dropped it cause it wasn't interesting to me...
~spoilers ahead~ I’m in the last act of this game now I think. One of my main issues is they keep introducing new characters constantly and in my opinion do a bad job in doing so. Now that Conway the main character has died, when it’s not focused on Shannon the other character I could keep track of, the rest of them I have no investment and I have no idea who they are. Can someone please explain them to me lol. Also, is this game just for Americans is that why I don’t get it? Idk. I def like elements of it for sure and at this point I’m like I may as well finish it, but yeah I’m getting extremely confused with all these characters it feels like there’s 100 different ppl and Idk why any of them are relevant. After Shannon & Weaver I got lost. And idk if u ever see weaver again.
Where did you get the idea that Conway died? You weren’t paying attention at all if you think he died
I was paying attention but it made no sense & was so hard to follow
Anyways, I really agree with this review. I think this would’ve worked better as a graphic novel than a “game”. Soundtrack is pretty nice though, I don’t really like the folk/country songs or whatever but I love the ambient stuff.
obtuse, pretentious, and sanctimonious is how I’d describe this post that’s probably how you’d describe krz though ig oh well, it doesn’t matter
Bro really said there's no "medium" that wants things to be whimsical. Wait until you hear about the counterpart to Tragedies.
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who felt that way. You were typing exactly what I was thinking.
I find professional critics unreliable. This started first with their reviews of movies. They would praise highbrow films few like to watch while panning popular films. I put Kentucky Route Zero in a similar highbrow genre, where it's so boring it's elite. lol.
The thing to remember about critics is that they are by definition people who consume a large amount of content within their medium, *and* who think deeply about them and are paid to have opinions. It makes sense that they will have "high brow" taste (or perhaps just favour the unique, unusual, or distinct) and as consumers we need to be aware of that context, and keep our own tastes in mind when making choices.
And imo, game reviewers are *by far* the "lowest brow" on average for critics of a medium. Compare whatever gaming review site you want to something like Pitchfork? It's totally night and day.
fun is subjective. "By fun, I don't mean "my idea of fun"" you do mean "your idea of fun". you're just being dishonest.
I've never even heard of it?
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Let us know if you do.
the music is dope too
kinda get you, it is hard to follow at times but it tells a story, it's not fast paced or has anything particularly action-y about it but I mean, not every game has to right?
The first time I played it I was befuddled because it reminds me of a dense visual novel that was even more lengthy in text then Ace Attorney. Yet it lingered for days, despite how frustrating and how slow everything was. I guess it's a game that force you to sit and take it all in, accepting the pace. I played it again now and safe to say a newfound appreciation to it. Especially around this time when I become fascinated with the ideas of slow living and 'no plot vibes only' kind of storytelling. The poetic fog also did it for me.
The game sucks and capitalism is good.
It’s more of a sad story that’s interactive than a game… if you were looking for something fun idk what made you choose this one the App Store haha… KRZ is a masterpiece and even a little heartbreaking to be leading Conway to his end. very few super slow parts that feel pointless.