The story divided reviewers, while the unresolved ending was criticized. Critics praised the gameplay-which they favorably compared to Devolver's Hotline Miami (2012)-and the visuals, writing, and music. It sold 500,000 copies in less than a year and received positive reviews. Katana Zero was published by Devolver Digital for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows on April 18, 2019. The development was prolonged and Stander worked mostly alone, although he recruited artists to design the visuals as well as musicians Bill Kiley and Thijs "LudoWic" Lodewijk to compose the synthwave soundtrack. He focused on attention to detail and looked to films such as Sin City (2005) and John Wick (2014) for story inspiration. Using GameMaker Studio 2, Stander sought to make a difficult story-driven game that did not force the player to wait through dialogue and cutscenes. He had previously developed freeware games, such as Tower of Heaven (2009), and conceived Katana Zero as his first commercial game. Stander began working on Katana Zero in 2013. In-between levels, the story is told in sequences where the player converses with non-player characters through dialogue trees. Katana Zero features side-scrolling hack-and-slash gameplay in which the player attempts to kill all enemies in a level without being hit, using Zero's abilities to manipulate time, dodge attacks, and take advantage of environmental hazards. Zero unravels his past while completing assassination contracts. Set in a dystopian metropolis, the neo-noir storyline follows Subject Zero, a katana-wielding assassin with amnesia who can slow down time and predict the future. His DK West song combines rap with Malaysian traditional music elements including Dikir Barat.Katana Zero is a 2019 platform game created by the indie developer Justin Stander. He is a guest composer for the upcoming game, No Straight Roads by Metronomik. After receiving 4 degrees in music and making music in Berkeley, California Az now is physically based in Kuala Lumpur. He has also been interviewed on GameSpot and featured in the GameSpot Asia Beat Podcast. Prior to moving back to Malaysia, Az played in a video game music band in San Francisco. Do check out the game & the soundtrack if you’re into the 80s and 90s as I am.Īz was the featured classical guitar soloist with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) for the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy Kuala Lumpur premiere conducted by Arnie Roth (USA) at their three sold-out shows.Īz also performed for the South East Asian premiere of A New World: Intimate Music from Final Fantasy at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas in Kuala Lumpur conducted by Arnie Roth (USA) and featuring pianist Benyamin Nuss (Germany). I could talk more about the Katana Zero soundtrack but these are 10 things that I dig the most about it. Somehow, Katana Zero is both adventurous and respectful at the same time. Some game soundtracks purposely limit the sounds they use and some try to go overboard with the variety. I think the main thing about the soundtrack is that it draws upon a lot of different influences yet still manages to be a strong coherent work. I love how immersive the whole experience feels. Overall, the soundtrack does its job amazingly well to paint the world of the game with the gritty meets noir meets violent underground world. “At Home” paints the Eastern influences – again tastefully done.
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