Developer: Askiisoft

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Played on: PC

Release Date: April 18, 2019

Played with: Dualshock 4

Paid: $15.73 (Multi-game bundle)

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“This is just sidescrolling Hotline Miami,” was one of my first thoughts upon starting Katana ZERO, and I have to say that I wasn’t immediately sold on the concept.  Sure, it had the same fun brand of gory, balls-to-the-wall action, but it didn’t feel as visceral and animalistic as its top-down cousin; it felt, dare I say, sanitized.  Fast forward a few hours, and I found myself spiraling deeper into a gradually unfolding non-linear narrative, punctuated by bursts of hectic gameplay that had me simultaneously holding my controller in a death grip and wanting to hurl it across the room.  Katana ZERO is a harsh game, both to the player and its characters, but it managed to draw me in like few games in recent memory have and transcend its inspirations to become a real hack n’ slash gem.

I’ll keep the plot details light to avoid spoilers, but the basic premise is that you are the titular Zero, a katana-wielding amnesiac clad in a bathrobe who’s a merciless contract killer.  The organization he’s working for sends him out on hits, and he executes them, leaving no survivors.  In between missions, there are sections where Zero relaxes at home, has nightmares, and later speaks to his psychiatrist – who’s also his handler and supplier for a mysterious injectable drug – about his messy mental state.  The crux of the game centres around Zero gradually figuring out how the killings he’s carrying out could be connected, while also seeking a chance at redemption through caring for a young girl he meets in his apartment building.  As things progress, themes such as addiction, trauma, and manipulation get woven in as strange new characters enter Zero’s life, and it quickly becomes clear that all is not as it seems.

Katana ZERO’s detailed pixel art, smooth animations, and use of text effects really sell the dialogue in its story sections.  Almost every character is a dirtbag in some way, and yet they all remain oddly compelling.  I especially found myself entertained by the psychiatrist, whose gradually unravelling patience with Zero gets expertly contrasted with his otherwise calm, professional demeanour.  Walking into his office and watching him say, “What.  The.  HELL DID YOU DO?!?!” never ceased to get a smirk out of me, despite also being worried about how the situation would unfold from there.  Additionally, the game’s use of timed dialogue choices is excellent; while many seemed to simply offer a few variations on the same general sentiment, it still provides some nice player agency while also getting messed with later on to disturbing effect.  There’s even an interrupt system that lets you speak out of turn and cut off whoever you’re talking to.  While it’s a great feature to both speed through story sections on replays and let players craft a more brusque version of Zero, I think it speaks to the quality of the narrative and writing that I rarely ever used it for fear of missing out on some juicy tidbits of information.

I’d also be remiss not to mention Katana ZERO’s overall VHS tape-inspired aesthetic, used for hard cuts, flash forwards, rewinds, and visual glitches.  As the story unfolds and gradually gets more twisted, the effects ramp up, with scenes looping on themselves or being told multiple times with intermittent glitches messing with the info.  There were actually a few times where I was genuinely concerned that something was wrong with the game, and it did a great job of keeping me off-balance while playing.  It’s an excellent vehicle for telling a non-linear narrative where the details are slowly being filled in by Zero’s patchy memory, and I was gripped from start to finish.  The worst thing I can say about it is that some story threads do get left hanging at the end; it really felt like the game could have been an hour longer just to wrap everything up with a nice, bloody bow.  There is talk of upcoming DLC that could change that, but I would have preferred if it was in the base game.

Equipped with nothing more than a short jump, a dodge roll, and a powerful katana (which interestingly can propel you through the air depending on how you aim your slashes), Zero moves like the wind through hordes of enemies, slashing them all to pieces as he goes.  Certain items can be picked up and thrown as another means of taking out foes, though they can just as easily be hit by a stray bullet and miss their target.  Taking clear inspiration from games like Hotline Miami, in Katana ZERO, you and basically all your foes die in one hit.  It’s a brutally punishing system that forces you to restart the current room each time you fail, though there are some features to make things easier.  One underrated yet crucially important factor is how quick resets are: you die, press any button, the game plays a short rewind animation, and you’re back to the start, ready to try again.  It’s subtle, but the speed at which the room could be reset frequently put me into the same trance-like state I got into while playing Hotline Miami.  Death became meaningless as I hurled myself into the same challenges over and over, regardless of whether meaningful progress was made from one attempt to another.

The other feature is arguably the game’s selling point: time dilation.  Holding down a button slows time to a crawl, including Zero’s movement, enabling everything from carefully-engineered multikills to well-timed bullet parries.  All of these moves are of course possible without slowing down time, but doing so gives a chance to more carefully evaluate the situation and execute stylish plays that might otherwise be out of reach due to the required fast button inputs.  I think that making the time dilation a limited-use feature was a mistake from an accessibility standpoint, though.  There’s a meter that gradually depletes as long as you’re slowing down time, and while it does slowly recharge once you return to normal speed, waiting for it to do so kills the flow of the game.  There are also situations where particularly complex fights saw me running the meter out before finishing up the confrontation, forcing me to be more selective about where and when I used the power.  It wasn’t a huge problem for me – I just powered through over the course of dozens of attempts – but for gamers struggling more with Katana ZERO’s tough as nails combat encounters, it could be incredibly frustrating.

Enemy variety is solid, though you’ll be seeing the same faces a lot throughout the game.  Opponents are generally split between gangsters and police officers, with certain cop units boasting more deadly weapons (seriously, the shotguns can go die in a hole) and riot shields that force you to dodge roll in to hit them from behind.  There are also sections where you have to dodge disintegrating lasers, giant crushers, and even rapid-firing turrets, the latter of which are some of the most annoying parts in the game.  One area in particular was simply a short hallway with a turret at the end, and yet it took me countless tries because I could barely activate my time dilation before being riddled with bullet holes that I had no time to react to.  There were also a few points where I got shot by off-screen foes, which is always aggravating, though thankfully a plethora of closed doors and tight areas in levels meant that this happened relatively infrequently.  Finally, there are a few boss fights, which really put the combat through its paces.  The final boss specifically was a gauntlet of pain that I barely made it through, and by far one of the most intense fights I’ve done recently.

I already briefly mentioned Katana ZERO’s great pixel art and deliberately glitchy visuals, but I really want to reinforce how excellent the presentation is here.  Combat feels fast, but weighty, and – while not quite reaching the levels of depravity in Hotline Miami – some of the later cutscenes and animations made me genuinely uncomfortable.  Similarly, the synth-infused soundtrack doesn’t reach the highs of its contemporaries, but it still provided pulsing beats that propelled me through each level, no matter how many attempts it took.  There’s also some great piano-focused tracks that play during the game’s quieter moments, which did an excellent job providing a come-down from the intense action of the main levels.

It’s been a long time since a game absorbed me as thoroughly as Katana ZERO did.  For context, I pretty much marathoned the entire game in one sitting, staying up late into the night pushing myself forward through level after level, watching with intrigue and horror as Zero’s story spiralled out of control.  Even once I finished playing, I was completely wired and kept thinking about the game in the lead-up to writing this review.  Oddly enough, I don’t really feel compelled to go back to it: it was such an intense experience that I think I need a bit of a break before I consider diving back into its world.  There’s no doubt about it, though: despite a few small hiccups, Katana ZERO is a damn fine action game and one that I think will be sticking with me for quite a while now that I’ve finished it.

9/10