Fast, loud, vibrant, and violent. Devolver Digital’s newest signee Katana Zero wastes no time making an impression, filled to the brim with the sort of constant carnage you’d expect from a game about a contract-killing samurai. It’s immediately cool in a way that Bad Boys or John Wick is immediately cool. (Is Bad Boys still cool?)
But it’s impossible to deny its DNA, and Katana Zero quite obviously models itself after one of the most influential and successful indie games of all-time: Hotline Miami. It’s everywhere. Although the format is different — Katana Zero opts for a side-scrolling view rather than a top-down vantage point — it bleeds Hotline Miami. Each level is a flurry of melee attacks (this samurai doesn’t have guns, at least not in the hour-long demo I played), one-hit deaths, and strategic route-finding. Katana Zero even does that thing where you kick in doors and the enemy on the other side automatically dies.
Source: Destructoid Katana Zero wears its Hotline Miami influences on its kimono