Katana ZERO – Review (PC)

Boasting rapid and frantic action, Katana ZERO is a game that tasks players with mastering a limited set of abilities to slash their way through a dreary yet vibrant underworld setting. This 2D side scrolling action game from Askiisoft and Devolver Digital incorporates a super human time manipulation ability to give players just enough of a chance to carve through swarms of thugs, police and soldiers. Accompanied by deep story elements and a charismatic cast of villains, Katana ZERO is certainly a game that makes an intriguing first impression.

Story

The story deals with some heavy subject matter such as post traumatic stress disorder and drug abuse. It draws many parallels to historic social events such as the Vietnam War and soldiers returning home from battle with serious mental instabilities. In Katana ZERO you play as The Dragon – a war hero from a controversial conflict who’s now a merciless sword for hire under the employ of a mysterious psychiatrist. This psychiatrist is simultaneously helping our protagonist through his haunting guilt driven nightmares, but also assigning him hit jobs and medicating him with a drug called “Chronos.” Assignments play out through a varied assortment of settings. You’ll play your way through a casino, a nightclub, a prison, a dystopian China Town, and even on the back of a motorcycle on a busy freeway.

Katana ZERO offers dialogue options for several of the game’s many cut scenes. The repercussions of some of your dialogue choices can be dire and
this is definitely one of the unexpected highlights of the game. You can choose to hear out an NPC and take your time to weigh out the different response options. You can also choose to interrupt people entirely with a rude and insulting answer. In one instance, a hotel receptionist engages The Dragon in a conversation about his odd outfit. By treating this innocent employee in a nice manner and calmly answering their questions, she will actually vouch for you later in the game. However, being rude and short with this character will instead result in having to unnecessarily battle additional enemies. This is one of the smaller examples of dialogue choices and their results – there are some major interactions with massively varied outcomes later in the game, and some that even incorporate The Dragon’s ability to slow and rewind the passing of time.

Story details are sparse throughout the game as you’re relegated to piecing together cryptic dialogue, assassination dossiers, and television news broadcasts to understand lore. As intriguing as the narrative seems on paper, the execution is muddled and confusing. Time bending mechanics and hallucinations are woven throughout the game, and this bleeds into the story delivery. Couple that with a cluttered cast of characters that aren’t easily defined as friend or foe, and you are presented with a story that isn’t very player friendly. I would have liked to have seen things materialize and provide some measure of clarity a little more quickly.

Gameplay

Katana ZERO is a game all about speed, style, and flair. Players are tasked with using a limited arsenal of a sword, throwable items, and a precognition ability to dodge and dismember enemies. Death comes with a single strike for both enemies and The Dragon, so you’ll need to move and react extremely quickly in order to survive a given area. In addition to slashing enemies to death, you’re able to ricochet bullets back at baddies or toss a wide variety of items for a kill. Item assortment is quite good – everything from bottles, to ceramic statue busts, to smoke bombs and grenades can be found littered throughout levels and quickly hurled for kills. A roll dodge temporarily makes The Dragon immune to attacks and looks really cool (especially in slow motion).

The aforementioned pre-cognition ability allows The Dragon to slow the action to a crawl. This certainly is a unique skill and is more than necessary for some of the harder sections of the game. It’s visually stunning to see all of the action reduced to a snail’s paces as it decelerates everything happening on screen. Bullets lurch towards you and thrown objects spin towards enemies like molasses. But as graphically pleasing as this is, the pre-cognition ability doesn’t seem to fit all that well. Uneven challenge certainly makes it necessary. Given that this is a game all about lightning speed and quick reaction, this mechanic feels awkward and more of an interruption to the pace the game was going for. When actually playing the game, this was an ability I felt I only had to resort to when real-time progression was all but impossible.

Each level contains a hand full of areas that must be cleared in order to proceed. Thankfully, death only resets your assassin back at the beginning of the area in which you died. But given how fast and frantic enemies come at you, death is very frequent. Clearing areas quickly become a slog as the you’ll likely need to repeat them several times to survive (this is especially irritating when one last enemy kills you in a larger area). Even when I did finally complete a tougher area with challenging enemy placement, it felt more like I just closed my eyes and flailed my arms around for success. Completion too often feels like its chalked up to blind luck rather than skillfully and stylishly using The Dragon’s abilities to kill everyone.

Graphics & Sound

Simply put, Askiisoft hit a home run with visuals and audio. The modern pixel art style expertly pops off the screen. Character animation is sleek and fluid despite its 16 bit limitations. Environments are distinguished and exude an exceptional personality depending on where they fit in the game. China Town and The Club levels are particular standouts. I loved how the China Town level skillfully incorporated balconies and clothes lines between run-down buildings to offer different routes of attack. The Club’s use of lasers, dancing patrons, and bumping electronic music in the background made it a memorable part of Katana ZERO.

The game’s use of purple and pink neons really helps to develop a singular visual style. The developers were clearly going for a wrought and ruined slum setting for the game. While that may be simple to accomplish, this could have easily made the setting feel drab and lifeless. But these splashes of color add a burst of life, style and charisma that help define the feel of the game.

Each level starts with The Dragon popping ear buds into his ears and playing a new original song. Hearing what new track would accompany the first play through of a new level was an exhilarating moment. Katana ZERO’s original music perfectly compliments the fast paced and frantic action of the game play – it really helps the player in feeling sleek and voguish as they cut through enemies like a knife through butter. The way the music distorts when your pre-cognition ability kicks is also impressive. And the audible queue of successfully slashing a bullet back at a shooting enemy is one of the most satisfying sounds in recent gaming memory.

Recommendation: Katana ZERO is a game that has a lot going for it. The visual style, music, branching dialogue options, and unique time bending abilities certainly separate it from the crowded pack of 2D side scrolling indie action games. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to save it from repetitive and aggravating game play. This could easily be a “git gud” situation, but the puzzling story and lack of true replay-ability might not be enough to keep you pushing through the grind. I don’t doubt that there will be a lot of people out there who really enjoy this game – I’m just not one of them.

Katana ZERO launches on Steam and Nintendo Switch on April 18, 2019.

Katana ZERO was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion.

Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.