Chronos allows Zero to see what will happen if he undertakes specific actions, and how enemies will react. Zero takes this drug partially to survive, but also because it makes him an almost unstoppable assassin by giving him the ability to peer a short way into the future.
The aforementioned Chronos that Zero takes is not just a story element it’s the framing device by which the entire gameplay operates off of. But Katana Zero goes the extra step to connect this to its overarching narrative with how it contextualizes its slow motion, failure, and even its entire core gameplay loop. Playing through a room is satisfying in its own right, but then getting to watch yourself tear through a room, deflecting bullets and slicing guards to pieces effortlessly without displaying the slow motion crutch you used, goes the extra mile to emphasize just how powerful Zero appears to everyone around him.īy itself, this might simply be an interesting gameplay touch that adds a degree of satisfaction for players who wish to bask in their power. It’s a very simple touch, but it goes a long way towards showing how strong Zero is, rather than simply telling us.
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After every cleared room, the game shows the player a replay of their actions, except in full speed without any of the slow down that the player used. What starts to make Katana Zero stand out as a unique title is the framing of its slow motion mechanics. It encourages the player to make good use of a limited resource.īut bullet time is by no means a mechanic exclusive to Katana Zero. Your time slowing abilities are finite and have to recharge over time, however, and given that each room has a time limit of its own you often can’t simply just wait for it to recharge. The protagonist, Zero, can slow down time at any point to better react to enemies, and make it easier to parry incoming gunfire or time a precise roll. Perhaps the most immediate distinction between the two games is the inclusion of a bullet time mechanic in Katana Zero. Get past these surface level similarities, however, and you’ll find a notably different experience, one with several extremely unique elements that make it worth examining in its own right.
Both games even play with the concept of drug usage by the main character, although Katana Zero’s narcotic of choice, Chronos, has a much more stated and significant role.
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Levels consist of moving between a series of rooms and picking off enemies quickly and carefully, with some slower, story focused segments in between to provide more context to the world.
If you stopped at that initial look, you could easily be forgiven for believing that Devolver Digital just transposed Hotline Miami into a sidescrolling format, added some more katanas and called it a day.
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However, if you’re willing to look past its over the top presentation, you’ll find a fascinating blend of story and gameplay that blurs the line between the two and provides a spectacular example for how to harmonize these concepts.Īt a glance, Katana Zero invites numerous comparisons to Hotline Miami, with its color scheme, pixel art aesthetic, soundtrack, and everything-dies-in-one-hit gameplay loop. A relatively low budget, pixel art platformer/slasher from Devolver Digital probably isn’t going to garner mainstream appeal, and it most certainly isn’t where one would expect to find a title with one of the most unique and interesting methods of narrative telling in recent memory. In a year full of great titles, 2019's Katana Zero perhaps understandably flew under most people’s radars. First up, last year's cult hit, Katana Zero. I'll be trying to elaborate on what sets a specific design choice apart, why it does or doesn't work, and what the industry can learn from it. Welcome to the first part of a monthly series taking a look at unique or interesting game design. By Paul Broussard, posted on 09 July 2020 / 4,393 Views
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