If you haven't played it yet, its pretty much a mandatory game. Great controls, incredible visuals and ambience, interesting lore, challenging difficulty and a compelling total experience.
I've played two runs and enjoyed it. First one was much more interesting as I had to experiment on the fly. I also felt the tension picking which ship to do next, or making my way through one. On the second I already knew many strong combinations and breezed through. Hand drawn graphics look very good and fit the game well. Overall, if you think you might like it - I'd recommend giving it a go.
I loved it up to the point about 2/3 in where my character was just to powerful (no psi, just regular upgrades, hard difficulty level), I had sure way of dispatching any enemy and tension just went out of it. I might try playing it with no upgrades in a year or so. Vert good: Station itself as a level and an environment, a lot of freedom, great atmosphere, attention to detail, not much shovel-feeding narrative or sub-plots. You need to pay attention to playing this, but the game will pay back. Slightly flawed: - Combat does the work but it is not quite there, player has to hit at the right time with the right tool and then it is a breeze. But slugging it out with aliens is usually quickly fatal. Sounds OK in writing, is probably way more realistic than most games, but its just not satisfying. - Stealth to combat balance is also off. If you know the tricks and keep loaded up you can blow up anything and stealth is not at all needed. Maybe some enemies that were super hard to kill could remedy this? - There is a bit of shovel-feeding with narrative. I'd like it more if quests were less intrusive, especially as in first part of the game player is figuring many things on his own - just keep more of that. - NPCs were not great, animation-audio were out of sync and if you had these people there you should have more interactions. Overally I still would prefer this to SS2 where player just saw glipses of other survivors, but it could be handled better. Either have even more interactions, dialog trees, option to coordinate with these people, go all the way. Or rewrite it so in these encounters it would no longer make sense. As is, it is somewhat immersion breaking.
Incredibly consistent game. Every element fits with all others and supports the story. It is however short. Also story in Katana ZERO is just the hero coming to terms with his past, while second act is slated "to be continued" in the credits. However it is still very much worth the price.
I actually like this X-Com the most. Even though it does not bring anything revolutionary to the series and has a closer focus (one city instead of whole globe). As for the main tactical / strategy layer it is quite rich and interesting, I'd say a small step forward from previous games. As for the close focus - it allows for a lot of fun twists. You have the city constantly on the screen and as the aliens try to first subvert and later destroy it the drama plays out right in front. UFO chase that goes bad and leads to collateral damage is not a line of text, but your vehicles actually fire in some building, owned by a faction which will weaken the faction and also make it more hostile to X-Com. If you suspect some faction of having contacts with aliens you can just send a team to their buildings and investigate pro actively and if this is done in time you may stop co-opt attempt. You can also write some faction off and just start raiding them for money. All in all, well worth playing at least once.
It's 4 years after the game was launched and it's 4/5 done. That's the reason for very low score. As for the game itself, it's a short adventure (about 1 hour per act) with enchanting atmosphere and some really powerful moments. Totally worth buying ... if you wait from a big discount and don't expect to get the 5th part soon.
