So I Just Played... Katana Zero
So I just played Katana Zero and I have somethings to say (warning there is going to be a lot of spoilers please go and play Katana Zero first). I have said it once and I will say it again I play a lot of indie games. I feel indie games are the best place to see creativity and stories that would be too strange or experimental for most AAA studios. One of the best places to find these weird and wonderful games is from the absolutely amazing publisher Devolver Digital. Nearly every game they publish is worth a look for many different reasons and it was thanks to them I discovered not only my love for indie titles but a game called Hotline Miami. Hotline Miami is one of my all-time top games and I have beaten it more times than I care to admit plus it introduced me to a style of game I had never seen before and I love the over the top violence, fast gameplay and balls to the wall difficulty these games provide. So when I heard of Katana Zero I was more than hyped to give this blood-soaked adventure a look.
I will admit I had no idea what I was in for when I first picked up Katana Zero but as soon as I booted up the game and saw the title screen I was ready to face whatever the game was about to throw at me the music and art really create this sense of wonder of what could be past the bright neon colours of the title.
The game features a pixel art style and I know so many games do that nowadays especially indie games and I would agree that the standard art is nothing to write home about. That is until the game gets going. This game uses its visuals to great effect. One of the mechanics used is the ability to slow time (we will go into this a bit later.) During this, the visuals get blurred to the characters movements and the screen fades at its edges giving a tunnel vision type of effect. while watching some cutscenes the visuals glitch and hide certain things from you creating the mystery of what really happening, what's being said or who a person really is making you want to play further just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Even down to the small things like during dialogue you have the option to talk over the person you are speaking too, this causes the letters on the textbox to crash down to the floor shattering when they hit it and making a loud thump so you can feel the fact you took charge and hell yelled in the guys face. That's not even mentioning the scenes of crazy detailed art similar to Owlboy.
I'm going to talk about story here so if you don't want to know please skip ahead. I highly suggest you experience this game first hand I promise you won't regret it. This game is so god damn confusing. You start off as a gun or well rather a sword for hire known only as "The Dragon" that knows nothing of his past besides the fact he fought in a war. You are given dossiers by your psychiatrist of all people and are told to kill your target and leave no survivors but first "Its time for your treatment" then bam you are getting a needle stuck in your arm with god knows what in it. You will go out to complete your mission so you can go back home to be alone, go to sleep and do it all again in the morning. After a while, you meet a little girl that lives in the same building as you next door for a matter of fact. She lives with her father who is abusive, in trouble with some bad people and addicted to some hardcore drugs. This little girl is a lot like you she is always alone and desperate for a friend all she has is her toys and she becomes the only nice thing you have. She brings you joy when nothing else does, reminds you of your humanity and what it's like to care and not be alone in the world. She cares so much that she gives you the only two things she has her two dinosaur toys first "Leviathan" then her best friend in the whole world "Behemoth" This doesn't last long. You soon discover everything you thought you knew was a lie, you aren't the dragon, in fact, you meet the real dragon, you are been given a drug called Chronos which you will die without and are part of the NULL project. You are a super-soldier made to bend time to do your will and while on Chronos never truly die. All the while not knowing if the nightmares you are having are real or just a dream and being harassed by two men in masks calling themselves comedy and tragedy who seem to be gods and even save your life by killing an entire police squad so you can carry on your mission to find the truth but for a cost that's yet to be explained. Man this story really dragged me in and kept me wanting more. The little girl was a huge driving force for me I even found myself getting genuinely worried for her whenever something seemed amiss or hell when another character mentioned her. The shift she causes in the story really makes her one of the most interesting plot points in the entire game. Plus she is adorable. I won't go into endings all I will say is I didn't get the true ending so if you want to see it you better make the right choices.
The gameplay in Katana Zero combines everything I love about Hotline Miami with the off the wall madness of My Friend Pedro. Everything takes place in 2D sidescrolling levels that are filled with enemies and it's your job to get from one end to the next killing everyone that stands in your way. All the enemies all die in one quick slash from your sword which you can also use to reflect bullets right back at the person who dares fire a gun at you. The only issue is so do you. Unless you are some sort of gaming god you are going to die many many many times throughout Katana Zero but just to ease the pain the respawns are quick and get you right back into the action. At any time during a stage, you have the ability to slow time down to a crawl helping you time when to reflect a bullet, get behind enemies or just get the upper hand in a fight that could end you in seconds. Plus at the end of each section of a stage, you get a replay of what you did in real-time showing you just how fast you really moved all the while making you feel like a total badass. later on, the game does shake up enemy types quite a bit giving people shields that can only be taken out from the back or giving shotguns that you have to dodge through adding an extra layer of difficulty making each room feel more like a puzzle that needs to be solved. The bosses are also insane. They are all also on Chronos so they use your tactics of trying again and again against you making for some truly difficult fights seeing as every time you kill them they learn how to fight you just a little better.
Katana Zero is an amazing game and I honestly couldn't fault it every single aspect of this game is extremely well designed and it feels almost perfect to play. sure there are some unfair sections but you only ever fall for it once. if you haven't already please go play Katana Zero it deserves way more attention than it gets.