#sidescrolling

"Dreamweaver" Game Art

Fiolina Germi 1/8 (from Metal Slug) By Embrace Japan

Taken by nuo2x2 with Nikon 1 J5

quick question, how many of you select Fio when playing Metal Slug without even thinking?

3/9/20

Developed by Askiisoft, released April 2019

Sidescrolling ninja games are about as classic and retro as you can get. This makes the format ripe for indie developers, and with each ninja game of late, they’ve mostly brought something new to the table each time. While The Messenger is still my favorite ninja game I’ve played of the past several years, Katana Zero puts a very unique spin on the genre with an innovative story and gameplay. Taking place in a noir city drenched in neon light, we play as an unnamed samurai assassin. This game was published by Devolver Digital, who have published a number of unique and great indie games over the years, including Ape Out, Hotline Miami, The Talos Principal, and Gods Will be Watching. The developers themselves, Askiisoft, are American based, and I believe this is their first product ever.

The main draw of Katana Zero is its time manipulation gameplay. We can pull the right trigger on the controller for a roll (which helps dodge attacks) and pull the left trigger to slow time outright (allowing you to deflect bullets). You can also pick up items in the environment and throw them at any angle as a projectile weapons. In between levels is time spent at the samurai’s run down apartment, or at his therapist’s office. One of the other most interesting features about Katana Zero is the dialog decisions within conversations, and the fact that you can interrupt the speaker with an angry or persistent response. This lends itself to role playing, but depending on what you do in a conversation, can lead to revealing different information. 

Katana Zero is beautifully animated with 2D retro graphics, but certainly with a modern spin on the 2D effects, making it look more colorful and fluent than what you’d find from the Nintendo or Super Nintendo era. Blood splatters the walls when you kill enemies, and the subject matter of the story is also very mature, making this not necessarily a game for kids. The enemies may die in one slash, but you die in one hit as well. I like this because it means you still have to plan and be somewhat strategic with how you approach a room full of enemies. Each screen of each level is its own self contained obstacle course, and you will die often. The game puts you back to the beginning of the stage immediately for a retry. Mysteriously, when you do pass a screen, you get a VHS video playback of your exploits all at normal speed. This feature feeds into the story later down the line.

The writing is very strong, and dialog bubbles are animated with colors an motion to emphasize tone. The game is quite witty and funny in many places as well. Katana Zero will only take you a couple hours to complete, but it leaves itself open for plenty of replay value, given the branching dialog and quickness of the combat. However, I wish the game let you play with the combat for longer stretches of time, beings the combat is so fun, yet the levels are so start and stop. Katana Zero is a very well made game with one of the most unique stories of this genre I’ve ever played. Although it didn’t necessarily strike me on any significant level, I can see myself playing it again and again to try and reveal different endings or see differential conversations. Recommended for those who enjoy slick retro games with a focus on clever storytelling.

I got a bunch of inspiration the other day and started to work on a superjail game idea. If anyone would like to take a look, feel free. Here’s the google drive where I’m keeping everything:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bsyYAjSA6VMxpJQ8O0HT2r-ESG5Te6Bk?usp=sharing

To give a basic overview; it’s going to be a sidescrolling beat em up/collectathon. The gimmick is that each level will let you bring in two characters (eighteen in all to choose from once unlocked) which can work together and help (or even hurt!) in different ways. The goal is to explore each level and experiment with each character combination while fighting enemies/bosses and saving up for upgrades.

I have LOADS more work to do, as I just started this a couple of days ago, but I’m planning on formatting the whole thing together once I’m done and sending it off to Adult Swim. Who knows; maybe they’ll like it. 

I’m just a writer, so if there’s any animators/artists out there that would be interested in working on this project (or other writers! It’s a lot to do alone!) please DM me! Oh, and you must be 18+ to participate because of the source material.