This is one of those games I've had recommended to me for years and very carefully avoided - it's not that I don't appreciate the purity of vision or can't get lost in a gritty sandbox, but I suspected there's a reason a lot of people seem to play it for a few hours, tell everyone how great it is, and then never touch it again. These sorts of games excel in one thing, which is nothing to sniff at - the creation of player-guided stories like the ones you told here. But the lack of framework also means those stories are generally as nasty, brutish, and short as the lives of their characters. At least they're still entertaining. I was howling at your frustrations over zoning ordinances in a post-apocalyptic shantytown. What do you MEAN the HOA didn't approve my deck? The HOA is three slaves shackled to a rock!
I'm happy to say its own community (the ones who play it regularly) will openly admit it's not for everyone and often oversold too. I don't know why such basic features were cut away, there's hating hand-holding and then there's having an RPG with no quests in it.
I was so done with it by that point hahaha. My internal dualogue was "Fine, I'll engage with your boring crafting and bse-building." But I couldn't even do that!
This was fascinating to read, much as watching catastrophic warehouse accidents unfold on YouTube is fascinating. I can now very confidently say this sounds like the opposite of the kind of game I would enjoy! This whole game sounds kinda unhinged in the way that only a very personal passion project can be. The fact that it's such a mess and still somehow clicking with people reminds me that truly, aiming to make something that's gratuitously self-gratifying before anything else actually is as viable an option as the internet makes it out to be. The fact that you have to work so hard to super impose a story over the events of the game in your head is absolutely bonkers. I'm glad you had fun? I think you had fun? It sounds like you might have. At the very least, I appreciate the effort that went into playing a truly NICHE indie game and then writing up your thoughts about it.
I'm still trying to work out if I had fun myself haha. I don't feel all that fulfilled by Kenshi but at the same time it's the only game I've played in the past few months where I put in more than 3 hours of continuous play in one session, so that must count for something.
I'm glad you enjoyed the review! I've kind of been restlessly swapping between games lately in the run up to the Switch 2, I realised I hadn't touched Kenshi in years and thought "I could write about that, nobody is plainly reviewing the game or pointing out its flaws." And here we are.
I think it scratches a similar itch to Mount and Blade, except combat in M&B is super fun and the faction mechanics aren't so half-baked.
Great job here. Kenshi is a sentimental favorite of mine, but I agree with just about every word of this review. Its biggest flaw is that the "intended" experience of painstakingly growing a character and desperately struggling for every iota of progress just isn't much fun. That's the problem with designing a game to be deliberately cruel and unfair to the player. Kenshi can be terrific fun once you can easily break it over your knee, but that's precisely why it's not a great recommend and why most folks are probably better off experiencing it as a YouTube series.
Loving these long-form reviews. Keep up the good work!
Glad you liked it! Kenshi is definitely an enthusiast's product in my eyes, I absolutely see the appeal and enjoy existing in that world but it's not for me.
Got something big planned for these long-form reviews, stay tuned!
Thanks for the review. I've had this on my wishlist for a while, but couldn't decide if it's for me.
Excellent review for convincing me that this is not for me at all! I have been wanting to play Project Zomboid for ages tho.
Zomboid is fantastic, especially in multiplayer
Oh, good to know. It looks brutal, but fun!
I watched my friend make a horde of robots and kill everyone in the world during COVID. Was a top tier gaming experience
one day, I'll try and play the game on its own terms and get into the whole warring factions stuff, if I can get past the grind
Download sometraining gear in Steam Workshop and make 5 buff bros to go assault travellers with - worked for me!
This is one of those games I've had recommended to me for years and very carefully avoided - it's not that I don't appreciate the purity of vision or can't get lost in a gritty sandbox, but I suspected there's a reason a lot of people seem to play it for a few hours, tell everyone how great it is, and then never touch it again. These sorts of games excel in one thing, which is nothing to sniff at - the creation of player-guided stories like the ones you told here. But the lack of framework also means those stories are generally as nasty, brutish, and short as the lives of their characters. At least they're still entertaining. I was howling at your frustrations over zoning ordinances in a post-apocalyptic shantytown. What do you MEAN the HOA didn't approve my deck? The HOA is three slaves shackled to a rock!
I'm happy to say its own community (the ones who play it regularly) will openly admit it's not for everyone and often oversold too. I don't know why such basic features were cut away, there's hating hand-holding and then there's having an RPG with no quests in it.
I was so done with it by that point hahaha. My internal dualogue was "Fine, I'll engage with your boring crafting and bse-building." But I couldn't even do that!
This was fascinating to read, much as watching catastrophic warehouse accidents unfold on YouTube is fascinating. I can now very confidently say this sounds like the opposite of the kind of game I would enjoy! This whole game sounds kinda unhinged in the way that only a very personal passion project can be. The fact that it's such a mess and still somehow clicking with people reminds me that truly, aiming to make something that's gratuitously self-gratifying before anything else actually is as viable an option as the internet makes it out to be. The fact that you have to work so hard to super impose a story over the events of the game in your head is absolutely bonkers. I'm glad you had fun? I think you had fun? It sounds like you might have. At the very least, I appreciate the effort that went into playing a truly NICHE indie game and then writing up your thoughts about it.
I'm still trying to work out if I had fun myself haha. I don't feel all that fulfilled by Kenshi but at the same time it's the only game I've played in the past few months where I put in more than 3 hours of continuous play in one session, so that must count for something.
I'm glad you enjoyed the review! I've kind of been restlessly swapping between games lately in the run up to the Switch 2, I realised I hadn't touched Kenshi in years and thought "I could write about that, nobody is plainly reviewing the game or pointing out its flaws." And here we are.
I think it scratches a similar itch to Mount and Blade, except combat in M&B is super fun and the faction mechanics aren't so half-baked.
Great job here. Kenshi is a sentimental favorite of mine, but I agree with just about every word of this review. Its biggest flaw is that the "intended" experience of painstakingly growing a character and desperately struggling for every iota of progress just isn't much fun. That's the problem with designing a game to be deliberately cruel and unfair to the player. Kenshi can be terrific fun once you can easily break it over your knee, but that's precisely why it's not a great recommend and why most folks are probably better off experiencing it as a YouTube series.
Loving these long-form reviews. Keep up the good work!
Glad you liked it! Kenshi is definitely an enthusiast's product in my eyes, I absolutely see the appeal and enjoy existing in that world but it's not for me.
Got something big planned for these long-form reviews, stay tuned!