![]() Our character's other novel ability is to be able to reduce time to a crawl, for a limited period, during which you can pull off a bunch of moves with much more time to press buttons. It becomes about refining the procedure, until you pull off a clean execution, and move on.Īnd if that's still not working out, you can always slow down time. Time is repeating, so you can expect the guard to come from that door this time, and attempt to roll past him as he fires (rolling makes you invincible, like in real life), then dart in, grab that vase and lob it at the other guy before he notices, then sproing up to take out the two foes above you. Then try again, with your new information. Run in, take out guards, learn where the surprises will come from, and in an ideal run, defeat them all and escape. Although (rather conveniently from a game design point of view) you can only rewind to the beginning of each level. You can rewind time, with learned knowledge, and carry on. And that's because each new area is a challenge to complete, a scenario to solve, through both deliberate and accidental failure. I think it's because this is a game that gives you enough tools to master, rather than simply relying on reflexes alone. As someone who has balked at the turn for the near-impossible that gaming has taken of late, I've surprised myself by being good enough at Katana. But I do wonder.įirst of all, this is slick stuff. It does make me wonder whether my incredibly positive pre-release opinions of this game might be significantly tempered by a game that makes boss fights even more tedious by never letting you make a single mistake throughout. Also, er, it saves me having to worry too much about how tough the end-of-preview boss is proving to beat. I've reached the point where the developers want us to stop, and it's a good, healthy chunk of game to be writing about. It's probably a good sign when previewing a game that I feel frustrated that I can't play more. And yet on top of that there's the temporal meddling, some peculiarly introspective downtime, a novel and fascinating conversation system, and the fact that your incredibly vulnerable character is in fact, um, immortal. It's a surprisingly interesting weakness to give your ninja-esque mass murderer, who is fast-paced, all dashes and slides, rolls and manic combat. A side-scrolling reflexy beat 'em up, painted in very pretty pixels, with a character who cannot take a hit. ![]() Katana Zero is much more than it first appears.
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