Kenshi

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] yep that's me you must be wondering how i got into the situation kanshi is a samurai themed post post-apocalyptic indie rpg with town building and miyazaki style storytelling you don't belong in the human world not even the humans do the game supports a variety of play styles you can make a big ass party or play solo with a single character that's what we're gonna be doing in this episode of our show there are a number of ethnic and cultural backgrounds to choose from but will be playing as a skeleton i find their story to be very intriguing the skeletons are sentient robots they are individuals capable of experiencing most common human emotions sadness anger compassion although probably not all of them since the skeletons don't breed nobody knows who made them they're possibly thousands of years old well let's do this welcome to the border zone politically a no man's land between two powerful local nations the ruined town is called the hub possibly a fallout reference skills and attributes work by the elder scrolls rules you do something and you get better at it i don't think our guy knows how to use a toilet that actually makes perfect sense stealing in this game is a percentage based and kind of a safe scummy activity we can sleep in beds we don't need to because we are a robot but we can a group of suspicious individuals approaches the bar the guards are much tougher than the bandits so it's no problem one of the funny and useful things you can do in the early game is to lead banded gangs into towns where you can rely on local guards for help isolating a bandit is a good way of practicing combat skills we take his armor of the body the game has a detailed location based damage system different armors cover some body parts better than others the system is more sophisticated than in a typical rpg and is about on par with dwarf fortress or in-world ish kind of it's not quite as complex we learn of another settlement south of here notice that clacking sound despite being a robot we can still get wounded this is the reason playing as a skeleton is not recommended for newcomers in order to heal ourselves we need special skeleton repair kits there were none for sale in the hub hopefully we'll find some in this place the town is called squin and it's controlled by shack kingdom czech are a race of bony horned humanoids mutants i think they are physically large and have a martial culture desert klingons basically this is the local inn there are many mercenaries and henchmen for hire on the second floor of the police station there are these very useful training dummies now it's technically not illegal to use other people's training instruments but it's usually not done you'll get a number of verbal warnings and then the cops will beat the out of you the place has four or five merchants one of them has a skeleton repair kit in his inventory fixing skeletons raises your robotic skill the arid land north of squin is called occurrence gulf home of the holy nation one of the oldest civilizations in existence a theocratic oppressive state the holy nation maintains strict bans on almost all technology skeletons and those with robotic limbs are killed on sight the paladins chase us all the way to the hub in order to unlock technology we need to build a research bench which can only be placed inside your own property i don't want to build a town though owning real estate doesn't quite fit into the fantasy i have for this character doesn't seem to be a very wandering samurai thing to do [Music] chris hunt the lead developer and founder of lo-fi games spent 12 or so years creating kanshi and for six of those years he worked alone back in the early 2000's there weren't many free video game engines available for developers there was auger and then there was also may allah forgive me for uttering that name torque 3d a career destroying piece of saddam hussein era technology hunt made a decision to go with ogre which was obviously a correct choice 20 years later the game still looks good and runs well a thieves guild is a business they offer access to various rogue-related services but the price of admission is 10 000 cats cats a currency a coin with a square hole named after an ancient dictator supposedly we pay the required sum and get access to shinobi thieves one of the services they offer is plastic surgery it essentially takes you back to the character creation screen everything can be changed including stance and posture you can set it up in such a way that squatting is a default character stance and they say skeletons have no culture the guild also has these training chests you can use to raise your lock picking skill not as useful as it sounds since the skill is easy enough to trade on real chests there are also these training dummies you can practice your assassination skill on being a robotic skeleton we don't need to eat or rest so we just practice on this training dummy for a few days without stopping [Music] not far from squin there is this banded encampment it's concealed but just barely the lights are on i provoke a fight and then lead the bandits to a nearby outpost kanshi has two types of ranged weapons crossbows and character-controlled static turrets most bandits die before they even make it to the gate i provide medical aid to one of them in order to study human anatomy some more welcome to the swamp fertile land high foliage density plenty of strange creatures and armed bandits there are many settlements in the swamp this is one of the smaller villages very aesthetically distinct from everything we've seen so far this place is called shark the only major settlement in the region and as we'll learn very soon it's one of the strangest towns in the entire game a local bar shark is run by gangs there are three or four of them this place is called a dancing skeleton they have a body of one of our people attached to a sign with a top hat and a cane the trader's selection is impressive i'm especially interested in this here robotic arm but it costs an absurd amount of money we have a chat with one of the locals the gangster starts talking gangstery things demanding respect and whatnot and make an attempt to disengage from the conversation but it fails and he attacks us another local didn't like that the gangster clearly was the aggressor and joined the fight on our side within seconds the bar turned into a battlefield with people beating the out of one another within minutes the chaos engulfed the entire town pretty much everyone here has a gang allegiance of some kind we find the shopkeep lying on the floor in his own house with a bunch of limbs broken that robotic arm yeah i'm confiscating that [Music] several hours later the sun had set but the battles never stopped these two are the last combatants it looks like i think one of them owns the bar i love this place [Music] [Music] this is last stand a shack town split into two separate walled areas well it's less of a town and more of a military base the place serves an important function in shack honor culture this is where all the shacks go to die in battle against someone or something called the bug master who lives in the nearby mountain range of watcher's rim it rains red probably not super amazing for your health but thankfully we are a robot and are less affected by bad weather conditions not sure what this area is called what the body of water is called if i wasn't restricting myself to a single character this is where i would build my town it's pastoral shun is a desolate region in the southwestern part of the game world a distinct feature of the landscape are these red rocks a bunch of grotesque looking spider creatures fighting other wild animals the spiders win but get some of their legs broken we take advantage of this to work on our marksmanship an ancient lab still sealed it looks like inside there are these robot guardian spider things i don't think it's possible to sneak past them we retreat what an amazing run animation do you know what this is i've always imagined chad from virgin vs chad meme walks kind of like this i feel psychologically dominated by this creature an expansive jungle region called vain occupies much of the west coast the jungle is the home of the western hive hivers are a playable race in kenshi a society of individually weak but numerous stick-like humanoids united under a collective mind contrary to an archetype in fiction hivers are good engineers and excellent mechanics we find a skeleton bed in one of the villages the store has a huge selection of artificial limbs but uh most of them are on the simple side red rain red river red lake this is vain from here we travel east through the inhospitable stand desert until we reach the shack capital city of admag kanshi storytelling technique is miyazaki inspired and much of the lore is delivered from tiny bits of dialogue and item descriptions the book explains the ancient doctrine of shack warrior philosopher crawl it's all just cringy klingon stuff this place doesn't look like much but it's actually the shack political hq occupied by the hundred guardians their military elite being a martial artist is a viable career choice perhaps even optimal for a robot since non-skeletons take damage to their hands when doing martial arts stuff hand-to-hand combat in kanchi follows gothic rules somewhat meaning as you get more skilled your combat animations change to reflect that since combat is almost always a major part of what you do in an rpg having combat animations change as your character improves makes the story told through play feel more impactful and we are back where we started the border zone the hub turns out you don't have to build your own settlement if you want to own property we purchase one of the ruined buildings in the middle of town we require several crates of building materials the trader in squin sells a bunch of those the engineering skill governs the construction work it takes many hours to do anything after the building is finished we assemble a primitive research bench on the roof science is a time intensive activity the research jobs are queued on this screen we can rebuild this entire town you know by every ruined building construct furniture the houses can then be opened to the public unfortunately this won't increase the town's population the world of kanshi is actually a lot more static than it looks the skeleton bed in the hivers village is not that far from here since we can always use it to get repairs there is no reason not to attack every group of bandits we come across in order to practice combat skills occasionally you will encounter these nomad caravans they sell tamed animals that's not really our thing the sneak animation also changes once you pass a certain skill threshold except this one i don't like it's obviously inspired by naruto which i never got into it looks stupid but i guess it's appropriate for the setting one of the factions terrorizing the borderlands are dust bandits this here tower is their base way too many of them inside we would stand no chance in a brawl but then a lucky development their leader the dust king goes outside for a smoke or something so we sneak up on him disable the guy with a backstab grab the unconscious body and run since he is in charge of the bandits he must be tough right my plan is to use him as a sparring partner we'll just have to wait for the man to regain consciousness [Music] [Music] the dust king isn't super great at martial arts as it turns out but this was when i noticed him having a giant bounty on his head the nearest police station is in squin the shack cops give us the cats we find the dust king upstairs tied to a pole i guess this is the end of his career when playing a robot one of the best ways to train combat skills is by attacking wild animals in the vain jungle see the animals won't enslave you they won't loot your equipment or cats and they won't eat you since you know you're a robot chris hunt credits his sister for writing 99 of the game's dialogue she lists various well-regarded boomer rpgs as inspirations i love the minimalist style you never find yourself clicking through dialogue in kanji just to get it over with not unlike fallout the game uses dialogue barks or floats which is one of my favorite characterization techniques in any rpg we spend a month of in-game time in the jungle hunting monsters and perfecting our skills despite the prehistoric technology powering the whole thing kanshi is aesthetically phenomenal the art direction clothing landscapes the color palette soundscape the problem is that all these things kind of stop existing once you zoom out and set the game speed to anything above normal which is what you'll probably end up doing since it is the optimal way of playing kanchi zoomed in you can't see distant threats and playing the game on normal speed is just annoying because everything takes way too god damn long so in order to play kanshi efficiently you need to make it ugly remember this place the human supremacist town we've been chased away from by a pitchfork mob the pile of bodies behind us is them i'm curious what's inside the walls the statue of a religious figure of some sort every faction specializes in a certain weapon type and most factions have a distinct style of clothing and armor there is a vegas style uniform system as well that's not gonna help us though in the holy nation robots are killed on site no matter the colors they're wearing the local cops have pretentious titles like paladin and inquisitor their heavy weapons swing slowly but deal massive damage hacking of limbs left and right this is the religious book of the holy nation every citizen has to have one by law the sun is up time for us to leave i heard a rumor that there is an entire town of our people hidden somewhere in the inhospitable deadlands region inhospitable for humans that is it's actually perfect for robots who need to hide from the holy nation's speciesists what the hell is that thing these inactive metallic spider constructs are found all over the deadlands pretty sure it's just scenery the huge ancient factory hosts a skeleton merchant shop you don't belong in the human world not even the humans do the local bar a mechanical spider used as a pet they don't sell normal food but there is plenty of alcohol black desert city has no human inhabitants but it's not just skeletons either the households are equipped with skeleton beds the store has a rich selection of mechanical limbs we buy all the best stuff two titanfall legs to improve our ability to sneak two advanced mechanical arms to make us a more dexterous swordsman that's basically all our money gone turns out you can't just attach new limbs in kenshi not even if you're a robot you need to lose your original ones first in the wiki i read about something called a pillar machine that can be used to strategically sever limbs well let's go find the machine i guess [Music] the black desert name checks out the red trees are very pretty kanshi likes to punctuate the wasteland aesthetic with the color red the slavers exchange a few barks with each other deciding if they should attack us or not bad idea do you think this is white sand or snow the place is called hang an important merchant town belonging to the united cities faction sometimes also referred to as the empire the united cities is a multi-ethnic multi-species society of slavers anti-slaverist ideologies are considered to be extremists katanas seem to be their weapon of choice the region with blue sand and strange trees is called gut there are no towns here and there is certainly no shortage of aggressive fauna [Music] i am fed up with politics i'm not going back says the strange man he does have a bounty on his head but after winning the duel i choose to leave him alone we don't know his story this thing reminds me of the soviet radar installations in stalker that brainwash you with radio waves the giant beasts are called leviathans these are some of the toughest creatures in kanshi it bites off half of my body and then walks away [Music] this town hidden in the mountains belongs to the anti-slaver faction some of the buildings have hydroponics farms it's what you have to do in this inhospitable and remote region anti-slavers are a mirror image of the united empire also multi-ethnic the ashland's region is a graveyard of ancient machines the place is officially unsurvivable if the tech hunter exploration manual is to be believed the headless robots are the skeleton legion very little is known about them a remnant of one of the previous empires perhaps there are many ancient facilities to be explored deep within the ashlands most of the ruined domes are empty except for this one that contains dozens of robotic troopers of unknown allegiance have you tried looking after humans they're monsters i was not the monster says catlon the exile one of the most powerful characters in the game mad catalan was one of the founders and possibly the leader of the second empire the civilization that immediately preceded the current one we are not even remotely strong enough to fight catalan one-on-one but we don't have to i disable him with a backstab we grab the body and run as far away from the ashlands as possible that looks like an oversized version of the ship from firefly after confiscating his sword we spar with catlon to perfect our martial art he is not that great but better than any other opponent we tried the absurdity of the whole situation suddenly dawned on me what are we doing why did we kidnap this ancient robot he is not an antagonist or a villain or a he i give the oversized blade back to catalon and wander off in search of adventure the southern hive unlike their relatives from the west these guys are not very fond of robots did you know that kanchi means swordsmen in japanese this city belongs to the tech hunters adventurers scouring the old ruins in search of lost technologies and artifacts the place has seen better days the carnivorous dinosaur looking creatures are called big things we fought these before truth is we kind of outgrew them but this particular specimen is like it's like a big thing equivalent of us one day it just barges into town kills and eats all the cops then it kills and eats all the town's folk and adventurers the only reason it doesn't eat us is because we are a robot and then it just walks away via the front gate never to be seen again we have to go back to the tech hunter town and lie in a skeleton bed for a bit these guys are well it's more obvious if we zoom in this is the real reason ashlands are designated unsurvivable skin bandits are insane skeletons who kidnap humans steal their skin and wear it as clothing since we too are a skeleton they are not hostile and it's even possible to join their faction the peeler machine this is how they get the skin of the body and this is exactly the device we were searching for i tactically used the machine to de-attach our stock limbs and then replace them with the advanced robotic arms and legs we purchased with our goals achieved i'm wondering what to do next kanshi doesn't have a main quest or side quests the game is a mechanical sandbox your actions are the story no narrative but luda narrative this is also the reason why the game is designed to be hard number one rule of storytelling character wants something character faces obstacles and challenges preventing him from attaining it the job of the storyteller is to torment and obstruct the character more torment equals more story solution maximum torment see that's cool and smart the problem is once you get past the initial challenge kanshi isn't actually that hard this is a common issue rpgs tend to become less engaging once these initial challenges are overcome to tell you the truth i am almost glad kenshi has this problem because now i have an excuse to briefly talk about another game i've been occupied with lately a series of player made adventures for neverwinter nights 1 called sword flight the modules are brilliantly balanced and that initial hard phase lasts for dozens of hours i don't think sword flight ever stops being challenging the designer achieved this by putting additional emphasis on the use of consumables you know all that crap you collect in rpgs and then never use always saving that wand of fireballs for later so that by the time you reach sarivoc you have like five of them not in sword flight you'll be burning through consumables like it's going out of style scrolls wands potions whatever this thing is my character is a mid-level rogue red dragon disciple with sorcerer levels exploring the trade city of calimport not exactly a power gaming build but also not the weakest 20-something hours in the adventure still feels challenging to play but that's just an anecdote i'm not sure if the same technique can be applied to kanshi there are important consumables in that game but they're not exactly rare and it's possible to steal them in massive amounts anyway in order to prevent the end game from feeling stagnant we are supposed to create our own objectives so let's do that from now on our goal is to take on the toughest individuals and monsters in the world of kanshi mad catalan was our first didn't kill him didn't need to this leviathan creature will be our second fighting it with a katana takes a very long time it incapacitates us over and over again but since we are a robot we just reboot patch ourselves up and get back into the fight eventually the creature falls this is the prize a leviathan pearl i don't think it's even used for anything just a rare and expensive trophy can you feel bad need to do a vegan can she play through next our third challenge is so-called emperor tengu from so-called united empire we arrive at the city of hang which i mistakenly consider to be the capital of the empire and the likely place where tengu hangs out so like a huge metallic i stand here in the throne room waiting for him to show up hang is the home of the imperial oligarchy this guy an important trader's guild big shot lectures us about ethics in slave holding alright fine the emperor is obviously not here but i'll settle for you should have probably given him a sword to defend himself but it's too late now whatever the anti-slaver anti-comp action made us a wanted criminal the real capital of the empire is a place called heft not hang but come on even visually they look almost identical and this place also has a throne room the emperor is sleeping upstairs in his pajamas we grab him and make our way out of the city into the open desert i want no interruptions he is certainly a better fighter than the trade federation guy but not by much my farm's gone my family is gone and i need food and you are gonna give it to me roamer um dudes i'm a robot i don't eat i don't carry food on me we cross the great desert heading west closer to where we started our swordsman career a military checkpoint separates the united empire from the domain of the holy nation this is the capital city of blister hill home to the current highlord phoenix and his bodyguard unit called the protectors of the flame the location is well fortified with both an external and an internal wall and that's our fifth challenge holy lord phoenix the 62nd supposedly one of the harshest in the line of the phoenix's we grab him and get out of the city after putting enough distance between us and his paladin bodyguard we wait for the high lord to regain consciousness i give him one of my katanas so we can have a duel with similar weapons and right away i get lucky and break the highlord's arm they're going to be needing the 63rd phoenix pretty soon it looks like well despite having only one functioning arm he convincingly defeats us and runs back to his paladins after rebooting my systems i go back to blister hill not sure what caused it maybe our actions may be random chance but the place is a war zone with groups of bandits and paladins duking it out taking advantage of the chaos i make my way inside the city walls and hide in geometry waiting for the sun to settle we grab the phoenix again his wounds are all bandaged i carry the high lord all the way back to the hub the ruined settlement where we started the game we do it again he actually defeats me several times before i finally managed to get the upper hand that doesn't feel like victory you know i don't feel like i won in the end the highlord phoenix kind of defeated me i mean he probably doesn't think so so yeah this was kenshi a post-post-apocalyptic role-playing game this would have been a very different experience if we embraced the party management and settlement building aspects of kenshi but looking at the concept art i developed this fantasy of a wandering samurai loner and this is just how i wanted to experience the game as it turns out it's a perfectly legitimate and enjoyable way of playing kanji i don't think i mentioned this but this playthrough was almost completely blind it was my first time fun game but i'm getting a little homesick see you nerds in seoul's time in a few weeks [Music] you

Channel: Warlockracy

Views: 453,719

Keywords: video games, gaming, game design, warlockracy, review, narrative review, kenshi review, low fi games, kenshi, post-post-apocalypse

Id: aeHDFGHTB1Y

Length: 30min 12sec (1812 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021