Sometimes in life you wish you could press the rewind button and go with a different option. Sometimes even that decision is the wrong one, but when you’re a methodical samurai-type character, everything must be precise, that’s what Katana ZERO has taught us.
Katana ZERO is a side-scrolling action platformer set in a neo-noir setting where everything, including yourself, can die in a single hit. The difference here is that you can manipulate time in order to flourish your kills in a brutal, yet beautiful style.
The only way to proceed through the level is to clear all the enemies. How you do that, is completely up to you. The cool part of completing the levels is that you get to watch it like a movie afterwards. I completely forgot to ask if they can all be watched in a row once you finish the game, we’ll update this post once we get clarification of that.
Although it’s 2D side-scrolling, there are some instances which showcase some depth of field. In some rooms, you can go through a door and travel down the level to another nearby door to sneak out and flank your enemies.
This game has some really awesome decision choices via dialogue and you can tell that there was a lot of thought process throughout the “forks” in the road in how to progress through the campaign. Even though this was just a sliver of the full game, those 5-10 minutes we spent playing and chatting with developers, Askiisoft made me realize that this game has so much potential, and can’t wait for the release.
It reminded me a lot of Hotline Miami, and that was one of the titles that completely slipped my radar. I didn’t get to enjoy it until much later than everyone else. That’s definitely not going to happen this time around, check out Katana ZERO!
Release date: April 18, 2019
Platforms: PC/Switch
DEVELOPER: Askiisoft
PUBLISHER: Devolver Digital
