izigame.me

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☑ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

In a vacuum, the visuals are downright ugly. However, understanding the size of the development team gives leeway for forgiveness. Additionally, some of the artistic choices are just so bizarrely unique, that I can't help but appreciate the aesthetic the team is striving for.

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

This is a bizarre mix of RPG, RTS, and base-building genres that isn't seen all too often on the market. While a solo character run is certainly possible to enjoy for a significant amount of playtime, the ability to recruit a total of 32 team members, build a base nearly anywhere on the map, and automate production for your faction is a huge portion of the game that shouldn't be overlooked, either.

---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

The sound effects of combat, labor, and the environment are good: not great, but they definitely work. The music composer, on the other hand, deserves recognition, as the OST is simply a work of wonder. Combining a number of unique instruments to perfectly encapsulate that odd feeling of "Asian culture in a post-apocalyptic setting on a desolate moon" is no easy task, and yet I think it has come together perfectly. Stand out tracks include "Kenshi", it's more downtrodden variant "Breath of the World", and "Fertile".

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

This game depicts fairly graphic content, including profanity, the production and distribution of illicit drugs, the ability to capture or even become a slave, and dismemberment/torture.

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

Do your research, but I've never found the game to be particularly taxing on any of my systems.

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

My Kenshi data folder clocks at about 11GB with mods installed.
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

This game is difficult: there's no denying that. The world around you will not scale to your character's stats, and while this is a blessing in the mid to late game, starting up is brutal. Either prepare to save scum (a lot) for your first play through, or get ready for a world of hurt. There is no hand-holding outside of an in-game glossary for reference. Lost both your legs during a fight in the desert? The tutorial tells you that you should probably get those replaced since they were pretty helpful. Be prepared to crawl through acid rain while avoiding enemies to get the to nearest town in the hopes that you have enough money to buy a couple of brooms to tape to your stumps, assuming you haven't died of starvation in the process.

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☑ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

The grind in this game is real. Maybe not Old School Runescape levels, but considering that this is a singleplayer experience, I would venture to say it's not too dissimilar. Being said, the payoff you feel for getting stronger is the greatest feeling I've ever reaped from a game. To go from a nobody that is unable to 1v1 a goat, to a warrior able to cut away a squad of enemies with ease is incredible to see. Now multiply that process by the number recruits you've picked up, and you're looking at the amount of time it'll take to grind as well as how much satisfaction you'll receive from your hard work. As fair warning, I enjoy a fair bit of experience grinding in my games, so take this information with a grain of salt.

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

This is not a narrative given by some disembodied voice or told in cutscenes. In fact, if you aren't paying attention, you won't pick up any of the game's lore at all. Instead, the richness of this strange world is explained through character dialogue, bits of journal entries, and reading between the lines. Case in point, I remember a community debate surrounding how the revolution of the moons in Kenshi's sky couldn't actually exist based on their movement patterns around the planet. It was then realized that they aren't moons in the sky, but instead planets. Through deduction, the community concluded that Kenshi is the moon, revolving around alien planets. Things like this make exploration in the game incredibly exciting, and need a bit of working grey matter to piece the story together.

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond

This is essentially a sandbox. It's your world to have fun with, and to do as you please. Being said, if you're unable to set goals for yourself in a vast open world, you'll quickly run out of things to do. However, if you're ambitious and creative, the world of Kenshi is simply free real estate waiting to be added to your empire. The game's playtime is ultimately up to you to decide on.

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

Product cost is a subjective matter. I find the game to be worth it's full price, but there's obvious bias in that given that this is one of my favorite games of all time. However, I will take a venture and say that if you're at all interested, and happen to find it on sale, it's definitely worth picking up. Additionally, the developer offers a demo on their website as insurance for your purchase.

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

I've played a majority of the game with mods downloaded, so this is a bit difficult to say for me. What I can say, however, is that even with mods added, the game crashes rarely. Given how often I need to save due to the game's incredible difficulty, added to the games autosave feature, I've yet to find this as a detriment. Other than that, I've yet to experience any game breaking bugs, rather the occasional graphical oddity.

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

If it wasn't obvious, I couldn't recommend this game more. It's creative, silly, gritty, and downright satisfying when a playthrough goes well, and hysterical when it goes poorly. The fact that I rarely interact with any online community but am willing to write this review should be a testament to how this game has impacted me. I've even purchased a shirt from the developer. I hope their path to Kenshi 2 is going smoothly, as I found their IP and game design to be a diamond in the rough of modern games.

While I have no association with his works, I also recommend watching SsethTzeentach's YouTube review, as he goes into key details of the game. While I find it to be quite entertaining, he does also provide great insight to the game's lore and mechanics.

So relax. Enjoy death. And remember that Beep is the greatest. He can become Cyber-Beep: the pinnacle of strength.