#KATANA ZERO OST AUTHORS PC#
This kind of had me hoping you could actually use your own music for the game, but outside of possibly editing certain files on your PC I didn’t see a way to do this. In fact, at the start of each area you look to put a cassette tape into a tape player to play the music for the stage with the title of the track showing at the bottom of the screen.
Graphically the game looks pretty good and the music fits the mood of the game. How you respond can shape the story in certain ways, though sometimes it may be better to be aggressive while others it pays to be more patient with your response. You can also wait until the meter is in the white to respond, erring on the side of civility so to speak, and you’ll usually get a couple more possible responses. While the meter is in the red you can interrupt whoever is speaking and (usually) respond with whatever response is shown below the meter. Throughout the game you’ll have to respond to the current conversation and you’ll see a red and white meter appear at the bottom of the screen. As you get deeper into the story you learn more about Chronos, who you are, and that combined with the dialog really helps this game earn its M ESRB rating…I’ll just leave it at that.Īnother mechanic that makes Katana ZERO interesting is that you can somewhat influence the story based on how you act during certain missions and respond to various dialogue. The medicine you’re taking is called Chronos and it prevents you from dying…well you die, but you then relive that same moment again, but this time with knowledge about what just happened (shown in the game as the video recording rewinding and letting you record the segment again).
#KATANA ZERO OST AUTHORS HOW TO#
After that you’re given a dose of medicine followed by an assignment, sometimes with specific instructions about how to handle the mission. The first few areas start out with you talking to a psychiatrist about recurring dreams you’re having as you try to figure out what they mean. Yhe story starts out fairly simple and then gets a little crazy as the game progresses. It’s a nice addition to the game and if you’re negatively affected by those effects, they can be turned off in the options menu. Most of the areas in each level begin with what appears to be a video recording and ends with a replay of your successful attempt to reach the end of that segment (minus whenever time was slowed down which looks pretty cool). Something you’ll notice when you first start the game is the TV/VCR motif you’ll see from time to time, from starting a new game to choosing Continue and plopping a VHS tape into a VCR when picking a stage to go to and choosing where in the tape to go to so you can continue where you left off. When you die you’ll simply restart the current area from the beginning. Afterall death is inevitable but it doesn’t have to be permanent. While the tutorial stage is on the easy side, you will eventually die in this game which happens in a single hit. You also have a limited amount of time in which to complete each area, but outside of a couple of areas where stealth is involved, the time limit was rarely ever a problem for me. You have a limited amount of time that you can slow down before you have to wait for the meter to recharge so use it sparingly.
Slowing down time gives you plenty of time to react to bullets by either roll dodging them or you can slash at them and deflect them back at whoever fired it. However, bullets tend to come out rather quickly, which is where slowing down time comes in. Performing a rolling dodge lets you dodge enemy attacks, including bullets and lasers. Aside from normal movement and slashing with your sword, you have a couple of special techniques at your disposal slowing down time and dodging attacks. The game begins with a small tutorial stage that teaches you the mechanics of the game while you’re on an assignment from someone. Still, I’m always up for a trip through the world of retro-styled games so let’s take a look at Katana ZERO and see if the game is any better than that mess of an intro.
Granted I based that on seeing someone running through the streets with a sword, but after playing it a bit it’s not really like it at all. It also helped that the game kind of reminded me of Ninja Gaiden at first which is a notoriously difficult game. Naturally with it’s retro-styled graphics I was immediately interested as I’m a sucker for anything that uses sprite-work similar to the NES and Super NES eras. A while back when watching an event on Twitch I kept seeing ads for an upcoming game called Katana ZERO.