Katana ZERO (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.5 Update

Katana Zero is a 2019 platform game created by the indie developer Justin Stander. Set in a dystopian metropolis, the neo-noir storyline follows Subject Zero, a katana-wielding assassin with amnesia who can slow down time and predict the future.

Zero unravels his past while completing assassination contracts. Katana Zero features side-scrolling hack-and-slash gameplay in which the player attempts to kill all enemies in a level without being hit, using Zero’s abilities to manipulate time, dodge attacks, and take advantage of environmental hazards.

In between levels, the story is told in sequences where the player converses with non-player characters through dialogue trees. Stander began working on Katana Zero in 2013. He had previously developed freeware games, such as Tower of Heaven (2009), and conceived Katana Zero as his first commercial game.  Using GameMaker Studio 2, Stander sought to make a difficult story-driven game that did not force the player to wait through dialogue and cutscenes.

He focused on attention to detail and looked to films such as Sin City (2005) and John Wick (2014) for story inspiration. The development was prolonged and Stander worked mostly alone, although he recruited artists to design the visuals as well as musicians Bill Kiley and Thijs “LudoWic” Lodewijk to compose the synth-wave soundtrack.

Experience exceptional combat as you slash, dash, deflect gunfire, and use traps and explosives to take down your enemies. With each level uniquely handcrafted, you have countless ways to creatively approach each battle and eliminate foes as you see fit.

The game’s storytelling is unconventional and enigmatic, with the cinematic sequences seamlessly woven into the gameplay. As you unravel your character’s past, you’ll be taken on a thrilling journey full of unexpected twists and turns.

GAMEPLAY

Katana Zero is a 2D platform and hack-and-slash game presented from a side-scrolling perspective. Controlling the player character, the katana-wielding assassin Subject Zero, the single player completes assassination contracts for a psychiatrist. Zero can run, jump, wall kick, pick up and throw items, attack using his katana, and dodge.

Zero’s ability to slow down time and predict the future allows the player to activate a slow motion effect, enabling them to predict enemy movement easier, although use is limited by a meter that gradually refills. The game features eleven levels, which use Zero’s precognition as a framing device; the player’s attempts to complete each level are presented as possible scenarios Zero has foreseen.

Levels are split into several rooms, and the player must kill every enemy in a room using their sword, throwable objects, such as lamps and pots, or environmental hazards, such as lasers. Aside from occasional bosses, each enemy dies in a single hit. Certain levels feature unique game mechanics, such as a stealth mission in a nightclub, a motorcycle chase, and an alternate player character.

Any damage results in instant death for Zero, requiring the player to restart from the most recent checkpoint Katana Zero has been frequently compared to Hotline Miami (2012), as both feature levels filled with enemies, one-hit kills, and require players to determine their chosen route strategically. Outside the main game, there are two additional game modes: hard mode features more difficult levels with new enemy varieties, reworked bosses, and additional challenges; and speedrun mode challenges the player to complete every level in the fastest time possible, with the options to modify enemy behavior and skip cutscenes.

STORY AND DIALOGUE

Katana Zero follows a neo-noir-style storyline, with psychological horror and black comedy elements, set in a dystopian metropolis after a war. Subject Zero is an amnesiac veteran with precognitive abilities. He assassinates drug dealers for his psychiatrist, who acts as his handler. The news media ascribes these killings to a serial killer known as the Dragon. Zero experiences recurring nightmares of a child, whom he identifies as himself, in a hut. A scientist runs in, warns the child to hide, and is shot moments later by a soldier.

He discusses his nightmares with the psychiatrist, who supplies him with a drug as treatment. Zero also befriends a young girl living next door to his apartment and becomes attached to her. In between levels, the player converses with non-player characters (NPCs), such as the psychiatrist, the girl, and a Russian psychopath antagonist named V, who admires Zero’s lethality. In a real-time dialogue tree system, the player chooses responses during conversations and can interrupt an NPC’s dialogue at any time.

Their decisions determine how much exposition is presented and how Zero is characterized for example, Zero comes across as rude if the player repeatedly interrupts.  Although they do not change the overall plot, players’ dialogue choices can affect certain events, and one boss fight can only be activated by making specific decisions. Zero and the psychiatrist’s relationship becomes strained as the psychiatrist grows increasingly disagreeable and Zero suspects he is withholding information about the assassinations.

After the Dragon, a separate swordsman with clairvoyant abilities similar to Zero’s dismembers and abducts V, Zero learns about his past as a supersoldier and that the drug he had been taking, Chronos, both gave him his abilities and causes users to withdraw to become trapped within their minds. Zero, tired of being manipulated, kills the psychiatrist. The girl goes missing and the story ends on a cliffhanger. A flashback reveals Zero’s nightmare is a memory from the war, that he is the soldier and not the child, and that the Dragon is his comrade.