Katana ZERO (PC)

Developer:

Askiisoft

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Release Date:

2019

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Systems:

Win, MacOS, Switch, XBOne

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Katana ZERO, a game I know next to nothing about. It might star Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel for all I know, or maybe it's 100% sugar free. I just saw it there on Game Pass and figured I'd give it a look.

Wikipedia claims that it's a 2D action platformer, which sounds good. Though it also says it's made in GameMaker Studio 2 and that doesn't seem so great... at least that's what I thought before I did the research and learned that Hotline Miami, Undertale and Deltarune were all developed in GameMaker. So I guess I should fix my broken assumptions and raise my expectations.

I definitely didn't expect this neon title screen to feature a gentle melancholy bluesy piano track. The game's described as being neo-noir and right now I can believe it. It might also have a bit of a story to it but I'll try not to spoil too much of it for you as I play through the first hour or so.
 

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Looking good so far; that's a classy loading screen. It also promises that I'll see a helicopter at some point.

The options menu's kind of distinctive as well. I'm sure a ton of games have made their options screen look like an old TV/VCR menu, but I can't think of any off the top of my head so right now this seems very original to me. If you want to list some in the comments and prove that you know more about games than me, go right ahead.

It's so old school you'd almost expect to see an option to change your lives and continues, but it doesn't seem like that kind of game.

I love that font! I feel like I've seen it before somewhere but I've got no idea where. It's called 'Xirod' apparently, but Google image search has failed me.

This message was soon followed by more text:

So... Tell me again about the men in masks...
...
I see... Then let's start from the beginning.

Then the image of a moody rooftop faded in, hammered by rain and guarded by a man with a suit and a rifle. He's got a bit of a John Wick thing going on, but I doubt he's going to be the protagonist. I mean, he doesn't even have a sword.

Alright, here's the guy I'm playing as. It's hard to tell what just happened here from this screenshot, so I'll explain: time slowed to a crawl and the game told me to press X. So I did and the samurai deflected that guard's own bullet right back at him!

The samurai automatically leaped down to the street below, then the game was ready to hand control over to me. So I found a way to get back up onto the roof to look for treasure and picked up a prism key. No idea what that's for. I am pretty sure that this is a 2D platformer though.

There was no one else in the street so I continued heading right until I entered a door.

Hey, this is different. I mean sure it's a dialogue system where you pick one of three choices, you've probably seen that before. Even the timer's nothing new. What's unique about it is that you have to wait for the other guy's dialogue to appear on screen and for the 'respond' bar to fill up past the red zone before you're given your own set of dialogue options. If you interrupt before then you only get an impatient impulsive response, like hanging up in this case. The guy on the phone doesn't like it when you hang up.

What he would like is for me to break into this factory and use my precognition to rescue a scientist. Oh plus I have to kill everyone else, no survivors. He was really insistent on that last part; I could hear the words being stamped onto the screen.

Two other things I've noticed: my dude's sprite is lit up by the lights he's walking under and his phone looks like it's from 1995. Or whenever people moved on from pagers.

LEVEL 1 - FACTORY HIDEOUT

The level starts with the sound of a cassette rewinding (for all the people who know what that sounds like), as the hero gets his Walkman ready and puts his headphones on before the action starts. It even tells me what he's listening to in a little box. Bill Kiley, I recognise that name from somewhere... oh, he did the soundtrack to A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV (the 2D scrolling brawler). Here, you can listen along with this YouTube link.

Wait, "PRESS ATTACK TO BEGIN PLANNING"? Is this more of a tactical game where I have to figure out all my moves in advance and then press play to see how it works out?
 

Nope, I'm getting straight to the action. It's hard to make out what's happening here, but I just took out the first guard from the stairs below in one hit. Doesn't seem like this the kind of game where I ever have to worry about my sword arc. If there's an enemy in range, it's pretty certain that your attack's going to land. Though with one-hit kills I'm going to have to make damn sure none of their attacks land on me.

What's with that background by the way? I know it's meant to be a factory but it looks like the factory from a NES platformer.

Alright there's two other guys on this stage, one unarmed, one standing by a door with a gun. I'm going to go in and say hi.

My samurai killed the first guy by slamming the door into him, Hotline Miami style! Though in this I can't pick up his gun. Next I rolled past the other guy and slashed him from behind. Uh, you'll have to take my word for it. Finally I stopped to pet the cat, who seems suspiciously un-freaked out by all the blood spraying everywhere.

With all the enemies dead I was allowed to leave the stage... except not really. Turns out that the hero has a power like Nicolas Cage's character in the movie Next, or Midnighter from the comics, and is able to run through scenarios in his head first. Once he finds a way to pull it off without getting killed he carries it out himself for real and I get to watch a VHS recording of him replaying my moves. That's one way to explain infinite lives!

Today I'm learning not to cross the dotted line I guess.

I can dash through these lasers but I screwed up the timing on my first try and had to restart the stage. You're very quick to die in this but very quick to restart as well. It does the Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy thing where you're back in the action so fast you're replaying the level before your brain has a chance to form an opinion about whether you're frustrated or not.

It's level one and the game's already got me wall-jump dashing through a laser and then using slow motion to roll through a spinning fan blade. And it was pretty easy to be honest; the game's got good controls.

Okay, onto the next stage.

22 SECONDS LATER

Alright, enemies all dead, lasers disarmed, and scientist rescued! I even waited long enough to hear all his dialogue instead of just snapping at him. He wasn't too disappointed to learn that I'm the rescuing guy instead of the pizza guy and I got him to his feet.

Then his head exploded.

It was due to this jerk with a remote trigger! Plus now he's called in reinforcements for me to fight.

Multiple dudes with guns are heading this way in a hurry and I don't think my slow motion's slow enough to let me deflect three bullets in a row.
 

Idiots. He warned them to mind the lasers! Though maybe he should've mentioned something to them about how the switch to activate them is up here right next to where I am.

The funny thing is, this is all still the planning phase! The samurai is predicting all of this, dialogue and everything. And then he decides it's an acceptable outcome and rolls with it. His employers are apparently displeased however. At least that's what the on-screen text says.

He goes back home after the mission and it's not exactly what I expected. Samurai stuff yes I could've guessed, but samurai posters no, and empty pizza boxes definitely not. It looks more like the Hotline Miami guy's place, except side view instead of top down. I'm also getting a bit of a Dreamweb vibe, perhaps just because of the grimy pixels.

The sad music from the title screen is back, mixed with a bit of heavy techno from next door. Whoever I'm playing as, the guy has no issues breaking into a factory and slaying everyone there but he won't tell his neighbours to turn the volume down.

Speaking of that, I turned his classic CRT television on and they're talking about the massacre on the news, amongst other stories like the drinking water being temporarily polluted and a serial killer called "The Dragon" going around serial killing people.

The samurai can't sleep without his herbal tea, so I drank a cup and sent him over to the couch to lie down.

And now I'm in a dream I guess.

I was playing as a young version of the samurai, throwing a ball to a silhouette of a girl by pressing X, when this shadow came in, grew massive, and lurched at him. Nice pixels though.
 

Now the samurai's visiting his therapist! He must be a good one as his office is bigger than most people's houses.

It was up to me to walk from the door to the chair, but they've taken away my slashing button so all I could do was sit down.

I decided to come clean about the nightmares and the two of them started to discuss them, with the therapist deciding that the creepy shadow must really be a friendly scientist! I don't know if the cutscene would've changed if I hadn't mentioned the dreams, but the game definitely gives the impression that it would.

After the session the samurai gets given another injection of medicine... and a dossier telling him who he's supposed to kill tonight. I've never been to therapy, but this isn't normal right?

It's fun to have a 'use lighter' option, reminds me of playing Little Inferno.

LEVEL 2 - MURDOWER HOTEL

Before I can started on the slashing I have to get past reception. Hopefully without insulting the receptionist, though most options seem to be leaning that way. Some games with multiple choice dialogue feel like you're being giving lines from three entirely different people and you have to keep picking the one that fits your character. This on the other hand feels like I'm getting an insight into what's going on in the samurai's head, and how he has to stop for a moment and think if he wants to find something nice to say.

I told her I was wearing a bathrobe and that I had a sword because showers are dangerous, and she accepted that. Then I walked over to stage 1, called an elevator, and got killed by the surprise enemies inside. It's okay, it was just his imagination!
 

Turns out that my samurai is the Dragon (maybe?) and these two are chatting about whether he could take Strong Terry in a fight. I dunno, I hope so!

I'm tempted to stand here and listen to them talk some more but there's a lamp with an arrow above it sitting here and it's practically begging me to pick it up and do something with it. Presumably throw it.
 

Oh crap, that was awesome. I wasn't expecting the speech bubble to pop and all the letters to fall out! In fact I'm not sure I've ever seen that before in a game.

If this game's trying to make me love it, it's going about it in the right way. Alright I'd better jump up there and slash that other guy.

I had a bit of trouble here, but I managed to sort the two of them out in the end. Instant restarts and infinite lives are helpful.

Then I went a little bit further in the stage, got my ass kicked and had to do this room all over again. Several times. I'm pretty good at it now!

Well I've reached my target, but he seems weirdly chilled out about the whole thing. He is surprised to see me in particular though. I guess there must be another assassin around. The plot thickens.

I decided to hold off on killing him to hear what he had to say, but he decided to leap from the roof and slam into a car parked underneath, so my dialogue choices ended there. I suppose I'm going back to the apartment now.

Oh, first I have to get back out of the hotel. There's a cop here and he thinks that the guy with the samurai sword covered in blood might have some connection to the gunfire heard inside the building.

I told him that it was bath products and the receptionist actually backed me up! She remembered that I said I was going to take a shower earlier. So your choices actually do matter, at least in the short term. Maybe the long term as well, but I'd probably need to replay it to find that out.

I'm back home again, but I met a kid outside who's asking a bunch of questions. I know the answer to this one though!

I mentioned the game reminded me of Hotline Miami earlier, and it's only gotten more true. Katana ZERO has its own style for sure, but it has a similar route of missions and trips back home, with plenty of cutscenes pushing the story forward. And the pace of combat, with instant deaths and rapid restarts, is very Hotline as well. But I love Hotline so I'm cool with that.

LEVEL 3 - CLUB NEON

The samurai doesn't need to wear his headphones on this level; the club comes with its own music.

Level 3 introduces something new: view cones and stealth. The enemies are walking back and forth on their patrol routes, searching the dance floor, and I need to get through unseen. I'm not generally a fan of surprise stealth levels, but the twist here is that when the samurai gets close to other people he starts dancing to blend in with them, and that's amazing. I love his dance! That's proper social stealth.

The sneaking came to an end though when I met a guy guarding a door. There was nothing else to do but slice him and move on.

Oh, that was Strong Terry? Damn, I feel kind of bad now, after killing someone so respected. And doing it so easily.

The complication on this level is the security cameras, which trigger the nearby door to slam shut if they spot me. Fortunately I can just hide and they open again, so it's not a big deal. Plus I've got a complication of my own...

Sometimes I get an opportunity to fill a room with smoke, making everyone in there blind and blocking the cameras. It's probably also good against the turrets I've started coming across.

Hey, turns out that fighting multiple people with guns really is a pain in the ass! Especially if they've got a shotgun; don't think I'll be deflecting a cloud of shot.

I always get the first two enemies, then the last guy shoots me no matter what I try. I'm just failing over and over and over again. Even worse, it rewinds the whole stage, so I have to do it all over again from the start. Fortunately each stage is just a tiny bit of the larger level, and I've got infinite retries on my side. They have to stop me every single time, but I only have to kill them all once.

SOON

It's always nice when I get to use their lasers to my advantage. Really helped me clear out the last few guards. Getting past that gun up there on the top left is going to be tricky though. I'm going to have to jump up as close to the door as possible and then immediately dash and hope I'm close enough to get behind it.

Actually no I'm not, because I spent too long listening to the henchman chat and now I'm nearly out of precognition time. I'm usually stressed out by timers, but this one hasn't really bothered me to be honest. Partly because I've never ran out of time before now, partly because it's only for the stage you're in, so you only have to replay a few seconds if you screw it up.
 

A FEW LEVELS LATER

Oh man, under no circumstances am I letting my young neighbour view whatever's on this mysterious VHS tape someone's left for me. Actually I shouldn't make assumptions like that; it might be a Betamax tape. Either way it's probably a recording of one of my killing sprees... or something darker.

Though to be honest I'm still not 100% sure this girl even exists. She looks a lot like the silhouette the samurai was playing ball with in his dream. Then again he's got precognitive powers so he may be dreaming of people he hasn't met yet. Who even knows what's really going on here.

The guy already owns a some tapes of his past adventures, which is handy because I can use them as a level select. It even lets you skip the cutscenes and jump straight into the action if you want, though there's no score or time to beat, so it seems like most of the replay value comes from making different dialogue choices.

LEVEL 5 - STUDIO 51

I can't believe the game has a mine cart level! That's amazing. It's got me jumping over lasers and sometimes I need to get out of the cart, run around, hit a switch, and then get back in before it hits a wall or escapes without me. Adds a bit of variety to the level.

Also I just deflected this guy's bullet without using my slow time power! It's possible to do it consistently if you get used to the timing and it makes you feel like a ninja master whenever you pull it off. Wait, am I praising a parry system in a video game? I hate parrying, I suck at it, what's even happening to me? I think it's because it's optional; I like doing things the awkward way sometimes just to see if I can, but if the game makes me do it then I get frustrated.

In fact I haven't been using slow motion a lot so far, or even my dash roll. I usually reserve them for when I've got my ass kicked 15 times in the same spot and I'm more amenable to try using a little more brains and less brute force.

Man, I should stop writing about this now before I end up spoiling something important. But I just want to keep playing! And I want to talk about all the weird things that have been happening!

Oh I should mention that I can drag the view around a bit to see what's in the next room, so I'm not just going in blind. You might be intended to replay levels a lot but it does play fair. Well, except for that elevator in the hotel with the dudes in it. I still haven't forgiven it for that.


CONCLUSION

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It'd be fair to say that Katana ZERO is a bit like a side view Hotline Miami, except without weapons you can pick up or people wearing chicken masks. Or points to earn.

It does have the instant kills, the instant restarts, the levels split into short stages, blood getting sprayed everywhere and incredibly lethal doors. It's one of those games where you can beat your head against an impossible problem over and over, only to suddenly figure it out and make progress again, as it never gives you a moment to think 'screw this, I give up'. You don't (generally) have to sit through a cutscene again or hike for 15 minutes to return to the challenge either, which helps. It's the kind of game that'll drop a surprise stealth level on you and say "Don't leave anyone alive."

Like Hotline Miami, it's gritty drama with tiny pixel people that has you playing as a killer in the seedy underbelly of a grimy retro city working for mysterious people for mysterious reasons who returns home between missions to relax with a few mysterious cutscenes. I'm maybe halfway through the levels now and I'm still not sure what's going on. I'm not even sure all the dialogue choices I've been given matter, though I do like the conversation system. If you're impatient and impulsive enough to hammer the button you'll make snappy thoughtless replies. Meanwhile a bit of calm and patience gets you more options (but not that much patience, as it doesn't waste your time).

Though Hotline Miami plays a lot better than it looks, while this actually looks pretty nice. It's even better in motion as it's full of flashy effects and they've created unique pixel animations for cutscenes. You might find that the flicking and glitchiness is a bit annoying, but that's fine as you can just disable it. It's dressed up like a 90s platformer but it's got modern quality of life features... like the ability to quit and come back to it on the stage you left off.

Plus you've got bullet time, you can dash through machine gun fire, and you can deflect shots back to their source, which are all things I look for in a game. And it's only maybe five hours long, so it won't monopolise too much of your precious time. Unless you want to go back and replay levels, see what can change. Hey, Hotline Miami is five hours long as well so that's something else they have in common!

You know what this isn't like? Gunpoint. Well, okay maybe there's a slight resemblance, as you're in buildings doing things. It's nothing like Daikatana though, which is good as Daikatana is crap and this is great. If you want to cut people up with a sword in a dystopian near future and these two 'katana' games are your two choices, this is the one to go for.

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Thanks for reading my words about Katana ZERO. If you'd like to share your own opinions or take a guess at what the next game will be, go ahead. I won't try to stop you.