Saw a lot of reviews comparing this to Obra Dinn. While I can see where they were coming from, this is definitely much easier and simpler to figure out.

Not a huge knock against it, mind, as I love pure detective games like this. I do wish there had been a "hard mode" though.

Still recommended, but maybe play Obra Dinn afterwards if you haven't already so Golden Idol doesn't feel quite as simple.

Wants to handle Blade Runner / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep style questioning, while also drawing parallels to The Queer Experience. Everyone wants to know what it's like to be you, because you're not normal. Has queer characters in spades. Substitutes jaded Eastern European leftism for youthful, cautious optimism.

Suffers from the limitations of the scope, it can feel like the Big Defining Moments for culture on the station just kind of... don't have anything change. The struggle part quickly fades past a certain point, and it turns into a more regular-feeling VN after that point. Doesn't inter-weave as much as it feels like it should.

This is the fattest 10/10 6/10 game to ever exist. Where all of the mechanics should turn me off from the QTE fest to the extremely shallow button mashy combat. Despite all of that this is like a top 10 video game for me. To the absolute crazy stakes between demigods fighting on mortal soil. To the main protagonist who is the embodiment of "too angry to die" and having some of the sickest sequences in any video game. With the insane techno buddhist aesthetic and crazy animation style that feels it uses a lot of 2d techniques in a 3d animation space which leads to some crazy animations. I absolutely adore this crazyass video game. A story which at it's core is full of heart. I will always be sad we never got a conclusion to the Street fighter crossover episodes due to the fact the game wasn't very highly regarded at the time. I will forever champion this video game and will fight tooth and nail for Asura to get recognized to be put in another capcom title (I know he was a costume in street fighter V but I want Asura as a character in a Vs Title). I recommend you if you have a xbox console this game is fully backwards compatible and if you do not you can allegedly emulate it on RPCS3 with pretty solid optimization up to 4k 60fps. Allegedly though. Please play this video game

Outer Wilds is a game that I've heard calling my name for a long, long time, an experience that rivals some of gaming's giants, some of my personal favorite adventures of all time. I knew I would love Outer Wilds before I ever played it and I wanted every aspect of my playthrough to be absolutely perfect. I made sure to only play the game at night with dim lighting to ensure I was in the ideal setting to become totally absorbed, I waited days and days and DAYS to return to it, simply because I wasn't in the "proper headspace". and I DID it! My playthrough was absolutely brilliant, I explored every region without guides, without frustration, I solved every burning question. It was perfect.

Until... it wasn't.

Some things just weren't adding up, I went over my notes over and over and over again and it became horribly clear that I was missing something. No... no, no, no that can't be right, right? I saw everything, I checked everywhere. I had ensured that the conditions were absolutely perfect. But somewhere along the lines... I slipped up. I began beating my head against a wall, one that I had worked so diligently to avoid. I became discouraged, disappointed, and eventually upset with myself for becoming so emotional. I had ruined my absolutely perfect playthrough of Outer Wilds.

And it took me some time to realize just how astounding that was.

In Outer Wilds, nothing is lasting. Not life, not our universe, even the simple mystery of the game eventually comes to a quiet end. It's a type of morbid pressure that all of us face, the certain but hushed understanding that all of this will be over some day. And it scares the hell out of me. I became emotional when things didn't go exactly the way I had carefully planned them to because I was afraid of that impermanence. And if there's one thing I was not at all ready for with Outer Wilds, it was the gentle reassurance that this was what makes it all worth it. The profound realization that beauty exists not in spite of, but because of how fleeting each moment is. That it's okay to just breathe a little bit. Our lives are brief, they're messy, and they're probably entirely incidental, but that's exactly what lends so much more power and warmth and serenity to everything we do, whether it's studying the bones of those who passed before us, or crash landing when we take our eyes off our target. Whether it's our grandest achievements, or just roasting a marshmallow. This, all of this, it isn't perfect, and it isn't much, but it is amazing, and it is everything.

I often struggle with abstract stories and ideas. A childhood of Montana education systems and Nostalgia Critic videos have sort of poisoned my mind to largely view text as literally as possible. At the same time, I really treasure the unexplained in stories. Its hard as a writer to leave something up to interpretation, but it adds a layer of discussion and analysis to a work that I think so many stories tend to lack.

The idea of Games As Art is a hard topic because it slams right into that question of what exactly makes something art. I'm not looking to point fingers at any group of people online, so I'll just fill in David Cage as my strawman. Your David Cage types think the Games As Art question is all about creating something that everyone loves and adores without thinking too much deeper than that. I generally tend to imagine art needs to serve a purpose. An argument, an idea. But that's not fair either, forcing a requirement that a story shouldn't be beholden to. Maybe I don't know how to define art. Maybe I'm not supposed to.

I don't know how to define Kentucky Route Zero either. Its an ambitious story that somehow feels low-scale despite the full reach of its ideas. So much of the story leaves itself to your own imagination. Building up characters and backstories to your own leisure. You aren't controlling everything per se, but you are shaping things. Interpreting them. Its not a game where choices matter or change things. You can't stop the direction of the story. You can't keep every character safe. But... your choices still matter. It matters in the sense that you made those choices. They matter to you.

Tl:dr

The critically acclaimed game is good and made me cry.