However, after you've made it through each stage once, there's little incentive to go back and continue playing. Each new screen is an enticing challenge, and each visceral kill is satisfying enough on its own to make each retry feel worth it. Endlessly retrying stages lets you memorize the level layout, enemy placement, and item locations until you pull off the one perfect run that gets everything done without taking a single hit. Reflecting bullets with a well-timed sword strike and dodging through attacks with the immensely useful dodge roll will get you out of many sticky situations, but they require precise timing and leave you vulnerable afterwards. With the variety of moves at your disposal, there are plenty of ways to get through any encounter. Restarting is snappy, and sends you right back to your starting position with the press of a button. Any enemy attack that connects will require you to restart a stage, but each level takes no longer than a minute or two to complete. Speaking of challenges, Katana ZERO's difficulty strikes a great balance for first-time players, but it's noticeably lacking any optional post-game content that ramps things up further. Neither is necessary, but either is sufficient to overcome the game's many brutal challenges.

The result of all this is an incredibly intelligent system that rewards those who study the stages and master the game's mechanics in equal measure. The easiest path through a stage is never immediately obvious and usually requires trial and error to uncover, so you'll spend plenty of time dying and retrying. You still have to eliminate every enemy before moving onward, but taking on the baddies two at a time is much easier than instantly alerting everyone to your presence and having to dodge through walls of instakill bullets. Each level is riddled with staircases, doors, windows, and hazards that allow you to carefully choreograph your approach and manipulate your enemies into a vulnerable position.īrute forcing your way through each stage is always an option with sufficiently fast reflexes and careful finesse, but each level has at least one critical path that allows it to be completed with minimal resistance. Everyone - including you - can be taken out with a single strike, so quickly and effectively eliminating enemies before they have a chance to retaliate is a necessity.

You control a nameless katana-wielding mercenary who's tasked with assassinating a target while wiping out the armies of thugs that seek to stop him. Katana ZERO's sword-slashing combat is great, and it has an impressive amount of flexibility that allows for a variety of fulfilling options.

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