One of the earlier levels, for example, has you using stealth to creep through a crowded club to make your way to your target and a later level had me surprised to be playing out what I thought was going to be a cutscene simply because it was completely different to the rest of the game. Although I probably would have been fine if the whole game was simply: kill enemies in the room, proceed to next, kill enemies in the room, repeat until the level is cleared - it wasn't. Katana ZERO is has a surprising amount of level design and variation. The final fight really grabs on to the rewind-time mechanics and pushes you to use your never-ending lives to conquer a foe one-step at a time and challenges you to use the knowledge each death brings you to slowly learn the puzzle. There are a handful of boss fights in Katana ZERO and all felt unique and carried their own narrative weight. This ability your character has becomes an integral part of the story as well, but it's super interesting just from a video game perspective to see a game actually play with your deaths and use them in the narrative. Every death is followed with a "not like that" as the game rewinds time with a VHS effect to give you another go. But what Katana ZERO does is build this into the narrative - you're dying over and over as if you can see what will happen until you get the perfect route and clear the room. It's fast and thus saves frustration other difficult games tend to build with loading screens. Much like other games in similar genres that having you dying a lot, including Hotline Miami as mentioned, or even Celeste or Super Meat Boy, Katana ZERO will have you very quickly upon death respawn back at the start of the current room. It's also used as part of the story in a very unique way. Katana ZERO's time mechanic is part of the core gameplay as it allows you to hit bullets back at enemies, dodge them and other objects, but also allow yourself a breather if needed. You can use several other techniques to take out foes as well including slamming a door against them as you enter a room, throwing objects at them ranging from bottles to knives, or - and this one is very badass - slowing down time and hitting their own bullet back at them. Your katana itself will kill most enemies in a quick slash, although some enemies will block your swing with their own weapon and require clean-up, while others carry a shield that does need getting around as well. You die very easily, in one shot in fact, which means mastering each screen in the game often feels like a puzzle and pulling off the perfect sweep, taking out enemies fast and efficiently feels rewarding and bad-ass. Playing Katana ZERO reminded me a lot of Hotline Miami's (also published by Devolver Digital) combat design, although Katana is a side-scroller. Quickly Katana ZERO's story gets quite crazy and I'd be lying if I said I understood what the hell everything was about by the time the credits rolled, but then I also don't need to understand it all, and hell - I don't even know if I was supposed to understand it all. Those problems being weird dreams, shadowy figures appearing in the night and general disconnection to the world around you. You're given missions - AKA assignation targets - from your psychiatrist, who also happens to be your drug dealer, dosing you up on a mystery drug before each mission that he explains will help with your sleep problems. Katana ZERO has you take on the role of a katana wielder with little backstory, but this is quickly explained via amnesia. In fact, for the first couple levels of Katana ZERO, I think I spent more time in conversation choices than action, which was fine, but surprising. As the fantastic feeling and rewarding combat grabs you, paired with the wonderful pixel art it's hard to stop playing, but it's the intrigue of the plot and its wackiness that will have you saying "one more level" late into the night.įrom the outset - especially if you've watched the trailer for Katana ZERO - this game may look light on story, which, to me, was surprisingly not true. Katana ZERO is an ultra-violent, samurai slashing neon-soaked mystery that's best played in one sitting, akin to a binge-worthy anime.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |