When RPS awarded Kentucky Route Zero the title of Game Of The Year in 2013, only two episodes out of an eventual five had been released. If this sounds like a bland statement of fact, just think about it for a second. I can't recall any other time an episodic adventure game has received GOTY-level praise before it was even concluded, let alone only 40% done.
Episodes three through five arrived sporadically: in spring 2014, summer 2016, and — after what must have been an agonising hiatus — the start of 2020. Having bypassed this wait to play the game for the first time only recently, I feel wistfully as though I'll never share quite the same fond feelings for it as contemporary fans (like our own reviews ranger Rachel, who recently named KRZ one of her all-time favourite indie games). But I'm also quite relieved that I didn't have to exercise that kind of patience. I mean, I'm very good at neglecting to carry on with games for years at a time despite thoroughly enjoying what I've played so far. But I like doing it on my terms, you know?
I initially attempted to do something a bit clever with this retrospective. I wanted to play the first two episodes that earned KRZ our GOTY nod in 2013, and write up on them as a discrete entity as far as possible. Only then did I plan to carry on the game and add some follow-up impressions, perhaps assessing whether I thought RPS would still award the big chocolate medal to the full game as it finally came to be in 2020. But, after sitting with my feelings about Episodes 1-2 for a couple of weeks, any intelligent observations I might have made were drowned out by an increasingly loud, insistent voice in the back of my head howling: "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS." Actually, that might be a good impression to just let stand on its own merits.
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