Recent Playing: Kentucky Route Zero
Oct. 23rd, 2023 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rocky41_7This is one of those games that I didn't hate, but I didn't love either and will probably not play again, and as such that makes it hard to review for. The Steam page description of the game is:
KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO is a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway running through the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks who travel it.
It's mainly a text-based game with very simplistic graphics. Truthfully, it's a game that probably would have done better as all text-based. There's no voice acting to speak of outside a few isolated moments, and the graphics are so simple they add very little, and the controls of the game are sticky and at times frustrating enough to discourage exploration. A streamlined text-focused version might have worked better.
The game excels in capturing the eerie vibes of a dying company town and part of what keeps that alive is how few genuine answers it gives you. It comes at the various threads of the game from a variety of angles which makes the story interesting as the player to piece together when you start seeing the connections. However, it might have benefited from a smidgen more clarity on what is going on with the characters involved.
Throughout the game you seamlessly switch through characters, and dialogue options often allow you to select who is responding as well as what they say, although your decisions don't change anything about the outcomes of the game. It's nevertheless an interesting way of letting you direct the flow of dialogue.
Act V is its weakest point, a meandering "walk here and listen to a conversation" episode which involves running in a circle as a poorly-controlled cat to gather the final news of what the characters are up to. It was frankly a disappointing finish to what was an alright game, and it was frustrating to have to keep circling around and around looking for what conversation I'd missed to progress.
Ultimately I'd give this one a 3/5 stars. The atmosphere worked really well, especially in the beginning, but even for me the story lags at times and the conversation, while very realistic, sags into being dull and pedantic without advancing the story or saying anything about the characters. I'm not not recommending it, but I'd advise to buy it on sale.
KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO is a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway running through the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks who travel it.
It's mainly a text-based game with very simplistic graphics. Truthfully, it's a game that probably would have done better as all text-based. There's no voice acting to speak of outside a few isolated moments, and the graphics are so simple they add very little, and the controls of the game are sticky and at times frustrating enough to discourage exploration. A streamlined text-focused version might have worked better.
The game excels in capturing the eerie vibes of a dying company town and part of what keeps that alive is how few genuine answers it gives you. It comes at the various threads of the game from a variety of angles which makes the story interesting as the player to piece together when you start seeing the connections. However, it might have benefited from a smidgen more clarity on what is going on with the characters involved.
Throughout the game you seamlessly switch through characters, and dialogue options often allow you to select who is responding as well as what they say, although your decisions don't change anything about the outcomes of the game. It's nevertheless an interesting way of letting you direct the flow of dialogue.
Act V is its weakest point, a meandering "walk here and listen to a conversation" episode which involves running in a circle as a poorly-controlled cat to gather the final news of what the characters are up to. It was frankly a disappointing finish to what was an alright game, and it was frustrating to have to keep circling around and around looking for what conversation I'd missed to progress.
Ultimately I'd give this one a 3/5 stars. The atmosphere worked really well, especially in the beginning, but even for me the story lags at times and the conversation, while very realistic, sags into being dull and pedantic without advancing the story or saying anything about the characters. I'm not not recommending it, but I'd advise to buy it on sale.
