This game was recommended to me by a friend who knows I like Hotline Miami 1 and 2. I have 100% both of those games, and consider them to be my favorite games of all time. When I initially played through the game, I loved its story and atmosphere. While lightweight in amount of gameplay (normal mode story took me 3.5 hours), it was a gripping tale with distinct characters and excellent storytelling. Your choices feel like they matter, and I found myself immersed in the swordsman's role.
It also has a pretty good soundtrack. I didn't find it anything to write home about, but it was pretty good and had some awesome tracks I'll definitely be listening to again in the future.
HOWEVER, I have quite a few problems with the gameplay.

* Normal mode is far too easy; with experience in fast-paced games like HM1, HM2, ULTRAKILL, etc, I found I had to limit myself by not using the time shift mechanic unless a part was too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to avoid (eg machine gunner fires at you in a narrow hallway, you can spam click and get lucky or just use time shift). Turning down screenshake or hitpause doesn't make it much harder. (And no, I did not use it on a single boss)
* Rewind tapes showing you exactly what you did. You cannot turn this off until after unlocking speedrun mode. I can understand if someone wanted to view what they did in real time since they abused the timestop mechanic, but it's incredibly annoying for someone who doesn't use it. The "Skip Rewind" option never did anything for me. In fact, I don't know what that option even does.
* Left click to begin playing. Why is this a feature? Just show the title of the level and then let me play. It's super duper minor, but just a small annoyance.
* The game is really freaking short. Kinda weird. I took my time with the cutscenes. I could not imagine buying this at full price, especially when the story is not even over.
* Horrible obviously reused geometry (this resulted in intense frustration on hardmode)[i.imgur.com]
* You need to mash to get up. (I'm 99% sure this is a thing, I get up way faster when mashing). Why. The. EVERLIVING ♥♥♥♥. IS THIS A MECHANIC?
* Terrible key rebinding. I played this game with a keyboard and mouse. You cannot unbind roll from S + A/D, which results in constant misinputs if you use roll regularly on another key (like I did on E)
* Rolling picks up items (WHY?)
* Insane default controls (Is this supposed to be played with controller?)
* Inconsistent AI (cocking a shotgun would sometimes alert another enemy in another room, and other times would not)
* AI changing pathing randomly in normal mode (it doesn't line up with story; Chronos literally allows you to see how something will play out, enemies moving in random patterns does not make any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense)

I originally thought this game was quite good, but as I started a hard mode playthrough in search of some difficulty spike, these issues became quite pronounced. Levels were less about pure skill and were more about memorizing what inputs to do because of dumb mechanics as I explained above. I did not use time shift here either, and I actually found turning off hitpause and screenshake made the game easier.

Since I said I loved HM2, you're probably wondering why I love that game and not this game, since this game is much more well received than HM2. HM2's main issue is offscreen enemies and wide open spaces resulting in the game being unfair. However, I do not mind this unfairness as it doesn't relate to the things such as keybindings; the game is designed to be unfair. I do not mind trial and erroring my way through HM2, forcing to think on the fly if I stray from a plan or unexpected enemy pathing occurs. However, with Katana Zero's issues, most of the fault relies on the game having these issues rather than the player. It's not that I can't mash to get up, or can't deal with rolling being forcefully bound to S + A/D, or can't deal with rolling picking up items, it's just that I don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ want to.
Because I feel this way, I cannot recommend this game.

This game was recommended to me by a friend who knows I like Hotline Miami 1 and 2. I have 100% both of those games, and consider them to be my favorite games of all time. When I initially played through the game, I loved its story and atmosphere. While lightweight in amount of gameplay (normal mode story took me 3.5 hours), it was a gripping tale with distinct characters and excellent storytelling. Your choices feel like they matter, and I found myself immersed in the swordsman's role. It also has a pretty good soundtrack. I didn't find it anything to write home about, but it was pretty good and had some awesome tracks I'll definitely be listening to again in the future. HOWEVER, I have quite a few problems with the gameplay. * Normal mode is far too easy; with experience in fast-paced games like HM1, HM2, ULTRAKILL, etc, I found I had to limit myself by not using the time shift mechanic unless a part was too bullshit to avoid (eg machine gunner fires at you in a narrow hallway, you can spam click and get lucky or just use time shift). Turning down screenshake or hitpause doesn't make it much harder. (And no, I did not use it on a single boss) * Rewind tapes showing you exactly what you did. You cannot turn this off until after unlocking speedrun mode. I can understand if someone wanted to view what they did in real time since they abused the timestop mechanic, but it's incredibly annoying for someone who doesn't use it. The "Skip Rewind" option never did anything for me. In fact, I don't know what that option even does. * Left click to begin playing. Why is this a feature? Just show the title of the level and then let me play. It's super duper minor, but just a small annoyance. * The game is really freaking short. Kinda weird. I took my time with the cutscenes. I could not imagine buying this at full price, especially when the story is not even over. * [url=https://i.imgur.com/EodcDVc.png]Horrible obviously reused geometry (this resulted in intense frustration on hardmode)[/url] * You need to mash to get up. (I'm 99% sure this is a thing, I get up way faster when mashing). Why. The. EVERLIVING FUCK. IS THIS A MECHANIC? * Terrible key rebinding. I played this game with a keyboard and mouse. You cannot unbind roll from S + A/D, which results in constant misinputs if you use roll regularly on another key (like I did on E) * Rolling picks up items (WHY?) * Insane default controls (Is this supposed to be played with controller?) * Inconsistent AI (cocking a shotgun would sometimes alert another enemy in another room, and other times would not) * AI changing pathing randomly in normal mode (it doesn't line up with story; Chronos literally allows you to see how something will play out, enemies moving in random patterns does not make any fucking sense) I originally thought this game was quite good, but as I started a hard mode playthrough in search of some difficulty spike, these issues became quite pronounced. Levels were less about pure skill and were more about memorizing what inputs to do because of dumb mechanics as I explained above. I did not use time shift here either, and I actually found turning off hitpause and screenshake made the game easier. Since I said I loved HM2, you're probably wondering why I love that game and not this game, since this game is much more well received than HM2. HM2's main issue is offscreen enemies and wide open spaces resulting in the game being unfair. However, I do not mind this unfairness as it doesn't relate to the things such as keybindings; the game is designed to be unfair. I do not mind trial and erroring my way through HM2, forcing to think on the fly if I stray from a plan or unexpected enemy pathing occurs. However, with Katana Zero's issues, most of the fault relies on the game having these issues rather than the player. It's not that I can't mash to get up, or can't deal with rolling being forcefully bound to S + A/D, or can't deal with rolling picking up items, it's just that I don't fucking want to. Because I feel this way, I cannot recommend this game.