It’s been a long time since this reviewer has played an action platformer game that conjured fond memories of days spent playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES; though Katana is slightly more violent in both nature and graphics then Super Mario Brothers was.Katana Zero was developed by Askiisoft and first published by Devolver Digital for PC and Nintendo Switch in 2019. The game has only just recently been released on Xbox One on October 15, 2020, through Game Pass.
The plotline of Katana Zero is that as the player controls a katana-wielding assassin known as Subject Zero and the aim of the game is to help Subject Zero complete various assassination contracts given to him by his psychiatrist, who also supplies him with ‘Chronos’, a drug that allows him to slow down time and predict the future. The usage of dreams that slowly reveal more to Subject Zero’s story in between the missions, as well as the introduction of a little girl who is Zero’s neighbour draws the player in and helps to emotionally connect with Subject Zero. Each mission of the game starts with a visit to the Psychiatrist where the real-time conversation element of the game truly shines; following the conclusion of the meeting, Zero is always presented with a mission dossier that contains the relevant information of the target; once the dossier has been read and destroyed, the mission then starts.
Katana Zero offers a vivid and interesting refresher course to platform games. Katana Zero presents the player with a neo-noir styled kind of game that makes one feel as if they are playing on the old NES or Atari gaming systems that we had when we were kids, long before the days of the fancy PlayStation and Xbox consoles that we have today. For myself, it did take a while to adjust to the fact that the graphics were not of the modern-day quality that we have come to expect but once you get past that, you come appreciate the old school graphics. Add the amazing soundtrack and game sounds to the overall game experience and it becomes a game that quickly draws the player in and quickly starts to move through the levels.
Aside from the graphics being old-school and the awesome soundtrack, the controls on Katana Zero were easy to master with each button having an assigned action such as jumping being the A button and light and heavy attacks being the X and Y buttons with B performing the grab/throw action. Understanding the actions assigned to the buttons and timing the actions of the character whilst facing the enemy became important as the game does offer the player a checkpoint to continue from if Subject Zero is killed in combat with that checkpoint being the start of the mission. This reviewer made it to the boss level of the second mission and on the way back to the waypoint; the mistake of running into a laser caused the character to be killed and the mission to be completely restarted from the checkpoint.
This is where the gameplay became slightly frustrating; fighting the enemies means the player needs to correctly time the fends and attacks as if it is mistimed, it leads to instant death and restarting the level all over again. Whilst that was as stated slightly frustrating, it did allow for players to try different things each time you have to restart the level until you find the perfect method for you to advance the game. Sometimes the easiest way to advance was to look at what the environment offers in terms of throwables and doors that you can use when kicking it to defeat enemies. The ability of Subject Zero to slow down time by using the LT button as well as the ability to roll using RT comes in handy when the missions present the player with a degree of difficulty that otherwise wouldn’t be passable without the special abilities.
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J for One More Game
7 – Good – This is an all-round solid game that delivers some features really well. It’s a game that most gamers will likely enjoy. If you’re not a fan of the game or genre then you may want to wait for a deal before picking it up.
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Katana Zero was reviewed on an Xbox One X. It is also available on Nintendo Switch and PC. It is currently apart of Xbox Games with Gold.