Katana ZERO

Katana ZERO is an overrated game. With that out of the way, it is still a an okayish game. Spoilers ahead. The game centers around what it basically would be like, if people "in the real world" had the ability to replay as you do in a game, i.e. you die and you do it again. This is the corner stone of the game and it influences the gameplay and the style. You quickly get annoyed by the replay after finishing each level, but luckily you can skip it (although the option to disable it in the menu does not work). In Katana ZERO you will replay each level many times and the same when fighting the bosses. The way to beat the game is to memorize the enemies moves. This can get a bit tiresome, which the developer must have acknowledged because it is very easy to restart a level with a single key press. This way of playing, remembering what to do and what the enemy do and then retry until you succeed is in line with the story of the game. The story in Katana ZERO is what I would have called emo-like 10 years ago, but today I think it falls under a catch all, something like "dystopia". There are no clear winners, it is a sad story and frankly it is a very confusing story. The game is not interesting enough to replay, so replay is for game mechanics, but that also gets tiresome because of the gameplay style. So 3 stars for the game and 1 star extra because it looks like a one man job, and another star because it is on GOG without DRM. I will probably play it again, but having just finished the game and dying ~30-50 times in the last boss fight, it is not something I think will happen in the near future.

Pros + Intriguing, brutal world (this is not for kids) + Beautiful graphics + Story you will want to see through + Interesting characters + Funky music Cons - High difficulty right from the start - Many situations come down to smashing buttons hoping for the best - You die all the time and are forced to replay the entire room ---------- If you like Souls-like games and feel like dying your way through a game is a valid form of gameplay, pick this up. To me, there's too much button smashing hoping to hit them 12 nanoseconds before they hit me so you don't insta die and have to play the entire room once again. That doesn't make you feel like an invincible ninja, but a wuss. From watching Dark Souls, I'd say there's a lot less RNG and button smashing in those games and a lot more tactics and skill. With the quality the graphics and world-building and characters and settings and characters and story telling have, this game could have been a masterpiece. With this gameplay though, only masochist gamers with endless patience will see the end screen. A pity.

Not really a "bad" game but not as good as the one it's blatantly ripping off. Bonus points for authentic Russian profanity though.

not bad i had fun, whats more is i like how it pulls info from never before seen stuff that went on during daikatana... not to mention devolver digital, the guys who published this game separated from daikatana's development to form Gathering of Developers... how ironic

I really liked this game especially early on. Getting a target, going through the level and ending with a successful assassination. Joy to play. I started losing interest about 3/4 of the way through though. The story starts going off the wall in a bad way. The method by which our protagonist using his time winding powers is overly convoluted. A whole slew of characters I don't care about get introduced too much, too fast and the ending "choice" is just dumb and led to an unsatisfying conclusion to an adventure I will not be returning to. It was so bad that I can't justify giving this anything more than 3 stars, even though it was going great up until the twist? It craps itself. Hotline Miami did this all better and while Katana Zero has it's own unique vision, it just couldn't help but devolve into a worse version of it's inspiration. It didn't need a drug induced mind bending plot. It would have been better without the nonsense.