Kentucky Route Zero

Kentucky Route Zero (KRZ) is a text adventure at its core. You play as an antiques salesman making a delivery to a customer. The only way to reach the customer is through the mysterious Route Zero and the game starts with you asking a man how to get to this Route Zero. The crux of the game play involves you driving along the Kentucky high way stopping at places of interests. Places not germane to the main story line are played out as a traditional text adventure with text choices for movement, actions, and dialogue. Stops that are important to the main story are played out in beautiful cell shaded scenes and animation with scene transitions that will leave your jaw on the floor. The game the audio uses in these scenes and on the high way map are spot on. The sounds at the gas station reminded me of the days of my family’s annual road trip the southwest. The way the developer managed to capture the feel of the open road in sound is magical.

It would be an understatement to say that KRZ is immersive. I literally cannot find the words to describe how this game feels. This game made me feel the spectrum of emotions from happiness to dread but no matter what happened, the illusion was never broken.  I played the entire Act 1 on a plane and within 5 minutes, I was no longer in an airplane; I was at Equus Gas talking to the old man about poetry and I stayed in Kentucky until Act 1 was over and I was kicked to my desktop. The striking visuals and authentic audio created an atmosphere and game experience that has a taste you can’t find anywhere else.

Now I could go on and on about the cool things that occur in this game but I feel like that this happens too much in game reviews and discussion as ways to entice people into playing the game. While these “teases” do make games more appealing, I feel they do more harm than good. KRZ is amazing because of what you discover and notice that could easily be passed up by other people. It’s like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout in that way; it is a personal experience. While the audio and visuals are impressive, the Fallout moments of this game are what finally sold me on the game.

Perhaps the most important part of KRZ for me is how it made me think about story telling. In my teenage years I was fascinated with JRPGs. JRPGs are popular for one reason: story.  JRPGs traditionally have piss poor combat. I loved the idea of playng JRPGs more than I liked playing them. The combat always felt like it got in the way. Maybe this is why I have such a fond memory for Final Fantasy X, a game I never played but ingested through story summaries and video. I got everything I wanted without the annoying middle man.

KRZ is essentially my Final Fantasy X experience in a unified medium that still allowed me to actually interact with the story. While I like books and movies, they are a passive way to tell a story. You simply sit there and the creator tells you everything. Video games provide a way to have active stories where you are participating which gives you more investment in characters and the story as a whole.

This game is not for everyone but the $7 price is not asking too much and I believe that it is well worth that $7.

Where to buy: http://kentuckyroutezero.com/