Beautiful Graphics, Shallow Gameplay – Kenshō Review

This game has gorgeous graphics and a wonderful soundtrack. The story seems to be about reawakening nature in a far flung future and is very abstract, at least insofar as I’ve experienced it. The game play itself is a sliding puzzle where a block is added each time you make a move. When you swipe in a direction, any block that can move that way will advance exactly one space. Any matches in a line of three or more will disappear and the new block from the preview area will be added. The goal of this loop is to match the colored block with a yellow key part in it with two other blocks of the same base color. Once you’ve unlocked a key part, the next block to enter the board will include the next key part. This block is not placed according to the usual rule that a new block enters the board in the direction you swipe ex. swiping to the right causes the new block to enter from the left. You can, and will need to match non-key blocks in order to make space, but these matches are otherwise inconsequential. As the game progresses it introduces indestructible blocks, immovable and indestructible blocks, gates that allow matching of key blocks only on certain sides, and indestructible blocks that only move horizontally or vertically, and a bunch of other blocks that usually prove to be a mild impedance to brute forcing the levels. If the board is filled with blocks it will dissipate and you’ll be presented with a fresh board. You keep all key pieces that you’ve earned up to that point. So there’s no penalty for failing, other than lost time. Once you’ve unlocked all keys, you’re presented with a trivial puzzle where you move the individual key blocks onto their matching colored pegs, and you move to the next area after a brief interlude with a floating cube character. Since the boards and next objects are filled at random, there’s no real incentive to consider your next move, because if you fail, you’ll have a completely new board and the next block color is random with no rhyme or reason, except, I suspect to slow down the brute force method. Once you’ve advanced far enough, a hummingbird appears and spouts metaphysical nonsense at you after you complete each level. I’m not sure if it’s the point of the game, but I really started to identify with the cuboid robot. It would laugh or get angry every time that smug little bird showed up, as if to point out the absurdity of being rewarded for randomly swiping at blocks with snippets of high school poetry. Overall I found the game gorgeous, but the core gameplay eventually becomes an exercise in frustration. This game is a great way to show off the beautiful display of your iPhone X, but its core gameplay concept is deeply flawed.
Review by Speedknight on Kenshō.