masterpiece

Great game
Secret boss beat my ass so many time 👍

Honestly, it's pretty good.

Katana ZERO is the kind of game that you think you're going to sit down for 15 minutes to play, but then the story just drags you in. Sadly, it's an incredibly short experience, with me only clocking in just almost 3 hours and getting both "endings" both of which are heavily unsatisfying since you're left with significantly more questions than answers.

Some of the bosses are cool, others are less inspired and are just very "trial and error." This isn't a bad thing, but the final two bosses are just...Really lame, in my opinion. I won't elaborate on this to avoid spoilers for this 5 year old game since I feel like a lot of people haven't played this before and I know a ton of people probably got PCs for Christmas and may be picking this up to play it.

The combat is nice, but other times it feels very off. I can't count how many times I'd be standing next to someone, hit the attack button, and miss despite the fact that they're within my striking range. This led to a lot of resets and me being pretty annoyed in general with some sections of this game. The description also mentions that "each level has countless methods of completion" and to me, this is false. Most sections are laid out in such a way that only 1, maybe 2, ways exist to actually complete the section. Which is fine, but it's also probably not best to let people think that there's a ton of ways around a level.

Luckily, the story is good. Each time this game annoyed me in the 3 hours I played it, the story pulled me back in and I was able to completely write off any jank that I experienced. The only issue I have with the story is that:

-it's 3 hours long.
-The giant "To be continued" at the end also didn't fill me with much confidence. Very few games with a "to be continued" have a sequel that is truly satisfying that also wraps up all of the loose ends.
-The fact these guys (from what I've read) said that a DLC would drop a few months right after the game came out and there's still nothing in 2025 is kind of whack, especially since I can find very little to no communication about what's happening.

I will give it to the dev, he did start the development for Katana ZERO in 2013, so it could be that he's just exceptionally slow at what he does (which isn't always a bad thing) but at this point, I personally don't have much hope that the DLC will ever see the light of day, much like Silksong for Hollow Knight lovers.

Either way, if you like games that have an exceptional story and can tolerate some annoying combat, give this game a try.