90
To speak of entrancing elements, head writer Jake Elliott has taken nearly ten years to spin the intoxicating yarn present in this game. He is frequently fussy in his prose (and obtuse in proximity to reality) throughout Kentucky Route Zero but nonetheless deserves a massive amount of praise. He runs with each environmental detail and every stray thought presented by the main characters, giving them ample space to breathe and worm their way into your thoughts. The excellent dialogue and theming are well-supported by Tamas Kemenczy’s polygonal vector art visuals, which suffuse each scene with a haunting beauty fit for this weary, broken world. The characters are blank-faced, but they require no expressions to communicate their state of being with clarity and appropriate gravitas.
83
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.
91
Kentucky Route Zero takes place in your head just as often as on the screen. Not only the story is vague; everything is vague. Developer Cardboard Computer apparently knows exactly how graphics, sound and storytelling can support your imagination. Goosebumps. David Lynch would be proud of it.
7
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
3
Personally I don't get why this so critically acclaimed. It's not really a game at all. It's a visual novel with some point and click aspects. The plot isn't that great, doesn't go anywhere or have much of a coherent story. Your dialog choices don't really matter as far as I could tell and there's only one ending. Yes you could spend about an hour thinking about the meaning of it afterwards, but that's not really what gaming is about. The devs behind the game are art students, who were clearly more interested in making something that should be an arthouse film than a game. It's not unplayable or the worst thing out there but I just don't get the critics who believe this is the best thing ever.
2
Had this one wishlisted for a while and was excited to pick it up on sale, but I found it very underwhelming. The story didn’t have any real purpose or depth. It’s weird just for the sake of being weird and nothing else. Maybe I’m missing the point but this one’s definitely not for me.
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition
Released On:
Jan 28, 2020
Metascore
Generally Favorable
87
User score
Mixed or Average
6.9
My Score
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
95% Positive
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
5% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Feb 10, 2020
100
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition is an overall landmark effort in the realm of video games. It explores various facets of the medium’s abilities with storytelling and evocatively shifts its gameplay and gorgeous visuals to keep things interesting. Paying dividends if you decide to input your own personality, it’s a work of art that I can’t recommend enough.
Jan 30, 2020
95
Kentucky Route Zero is a fascinating story with a thick atmosphere and themes which will leave you thinking long 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.
User score
Mixed or Average
56% Positive
66 Ratings
66 Ratings
21% Mixed
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
23% Negative
27 Ratings
27 Ratings
Nov 25, 2021
10
Some of the most poetic writing I’ve read in anything, let alone a video game. But it could only exist as a game, never a book or a movie. It lives in its medium perfectly, with unique perspective changes that may or may not align with the written words, and choices that make the player feel like a creator, while leaving one curious what they missed in choosing one answer over another. The music is inspired. The visuals are **** message speaks perfectly to the broken world we live in, the one not repaired since the 2008 recession that inspired this game. When someone asks if video games can be art, this is the game I will point to in response.
Jan 12, 2021
10
More interactive novel than game, and that's a good thing. The depth of imagination on display is astonishing. A perfect experience.
Jan 20, 2021
90
To speak of entrancing elements, head writer Jake Elliott has taken nearly ten years to spin the intoxicating yarn present in this game. He is frequently fussy in his prose (and obtuse in proximity to reality) throughout Kentucky Route Zero but nonetheless deserves a massive amount of praise. He runs with each environmental detail and every stray thought presented by the main characters, giving them ample space to breathe and worm their way into your thoughts. The excellent dialogue and theming are well-supported by Tamas Kemenczy’s polygonal vector art visuals, which suffuse each scene with a haunting beauty fit for this weary, broken world. The characters are blank-faced, but they require no expressions to communicate their state of being with clarity and appropriate gravitas.
Jan 31, 2020
90
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.
Jan 27, 2020
85
By the end, the characters and story beats are too numerous and diffuse to coalesce into a fully satisfying finale. I won’t spoil it here, but even my relative disappointment at the conclusion reinforces something I love about the rest of the experience: Kentucky Route Zero is about appreciating the journey, not reaching the destination.
Feb 5, 2020
80
Developed over 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.
Jan 27, 2020
70
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...I don’t like Kentucky Route Zero, but I’m glad it exists.
Jan 7, 2021
10
This is a tough game to recommend because I know its appeal is niche but personally I loved it. One of my favorite games of 2020 :). If you're a fan of the magical realism genre then this is definitely worth considering. Be warned though that this is a basically a visual novel. You can walk through areas, interact with objects and make dialogue choices and there's some very simple vehicle sections but you're playing it for the story and the artstyle. The appeal for me comes from the strong character writing. I love how i'm able to shape a character's backstory as well as their choices and how that influences the story. It feels very much like i'm part of a living novel. The way different characters see their reality is conveyed in some interesting ways as well. It's a very unique game with some great music, a wonderful art style and a world which captivated me. Not for everyone but it might make a very big impression if you're the right audience.
Jun 30, 2022
6
I found it incredibly difficult to rate this game. I played it because I had previously played Mutazione and several reviewers of that game claimed that Kentucky Route Zero was a clear influence. I loved Mutazione so much that I paid the rather hefty price tag for Kentucky Route Zero but was ultimately disappointed to discover there's no real siilarity between the two games at all, beyond the fact that they are both essentially point & click adventures … which would be like saying that Monkey Island and Grim Fandango are similar games. They're really not. It gets even more difficult to review because, after a little while, I did start to get drawn into the game. I wanted to know more about the characters and what was happening. I was immersed, even if only for a short while. But sadly as the game went on it got more and more confusing, more and more abstract, until eventually I had literally no idea what was going on and it ultimately turned into a grind to simply reach the end. It was, however, very pretty in its own distinctive way. And the dialogue was compelling. It was just the story was so meta that my Switch nearly folded itself in half. A few other reviewers have compared Kentucky Route Zero to David Lynch's work, and I'm inclined to agree: I think that's a good comparison. If you enjoyed the likes of Rabbits, or the fever-dream inspired parts of Twin Peaks, then this game will be right up your alley. For everyone else, sadly, I'm not convinced there's very much to get excited about.
Apr 3, 2020
4
Doesn’t even classify as a game. Clicker on a rail. It started out well written and promising but each subsequent chapter made it obvious there was never a vision for the project from the get to.
Mar 5, 2020
4
**** boring! People should rethink about the word masterpiece...this is just a bla bla bla with no gameplay. Is not a video game, it's a time waster game
SummaryKentucky Route Zero is a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky. An antique furniture delivery man trying to make his small shop's last delivery gets lost along the way and meets a haunted TV repairwoman, a young boy and his giant eagle brother, a pair of robot musicians, and dozens of other c... Read More
Rated Tfor Teen
Platforms:
- Nintendo Switch
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
- Xbox Series X
- PlayStation 5
Initial Release Date:Jan 28, 2020
Developer:
- Cardboard Computer
Publisher:
