Katana ZERO

I liked the visuals a lot; pixelated but not lacking detail & vibrance. The OST is really good, I played it a lot on Spotify to a point that I added a lot of songs to a mix playlist. Easily the best part of the game. Narrative is ok, corny but I liked that it didn’t overstay it’s welcome too much. However, some characters felt like they were over the top & kind of made you cringe. It’s heavily reliant on twitch gameplay & the checkpoints restart you at the beginning of an area which is why I’m thankful the levels are split into multiple areas that are bite sized. They shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to finish each area. Being able to pick up items & toss them was a nice touch, it somewhat added a bit of an extra flair & made you feel more badass. Lots of trial & error with frustration but everything was achievable without that overwhelming sense of impossibility. The controls & mechanics are simple & easy to get the hang of. I could stop playing for a month or more & struggled for no longer than 2 mins before I was able to pick it all up again. There are times where it feels like the controls are working against you though, as it can feel a bit sluggish & gets frustrating when you know you reacted in time but the game didn’t. The slow time ability helps but inevitably runs out. I don’t normally review games I haven’t finished unless I intend to stop playing. But I’m giving my review of the game now, while my mindset isn’t stained by frustration that I know will ensue. I can only stomach the game in bursts & I intend to play it that way until I finish it or give up. Otherwise cause of the repetitive gameplay & frustration, I’d probably give it 1 star, but it’s not fair because the game does have its pros that can outweigh the cons, even if it’s by the skin of its teeth. It’s a good game. Not great, fantastic, epic or anything like that. But it’s a good game for the asking price & what’s advertised, that’s generally what I’d consider enough.

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