I first beat this game quite some time ago, and I had an excellent time getting into it, barring the slightly-heavy adjustment period. My only real dissatisfaction with the game was its short and abrupt ending, and I found it a little difficult to understand how the narrative was weaving a coherent tale.

Earlier this month, I revisited the game, after only having done very casual, brief gameplay between the first playthrough and that point, and I sat down for nearly a week to 100% the experience, achieving every single available trophy - yes - including the speedrun mode, which took me three days on its own.

Katana Zero is one of those games where, even at its worst, when it makes you wanna pull your hair out or literally shout out loud, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!", still manages to ooze charm and energy out of every crevasse of its gorgeous, pixelated surface. This game is, and I cannot stress this enough, beautiful, inside and out.

I could replay this game a hundred times, a thousand times, and although the dialogue option variety doesn't work for someone like me who's instinctively going to go for the best ending every time and who doesn't particularly like being mean for no reason, the story of this game reminded me over and over and over again why it's so important that video games don't become a shallow medium where nothing ever happens for any reason other than "it's fun". Believe me, it is VERY fun, but a huge part of the gaming experience is understanding the why behind every step, especially why you do what you do, and that is the core question behind this particular game's narrative.

Unravelling the mystery of Katana Zero is like a whole game in of itself, aside from the moment-to-moment, breath-taking hack n' slash (technically?) gameplay, and I wouldn't dare take that thrilling experience away from a single potential player. This game truly masters the feeling of having a cohesive narrative and the gameplay telling its own story, at the same time, and for that, it is truly special.

With FREE DLC on the horizon, expected to unfold the next chapter in this story for the ages, and even more potential content beyond that point, this is an experience that can and will sit with you for a very long time, and it's worth every second.

I hold no responsibility for anyone who reads this review and winds up running around their house in a bathrobe with a katana, six months later.

The game that paved the way for Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, and I felt their lifeblood in every second of this experience. This game was better than I could ever have imagined. I'm not in a position to say if it ruined anything from the original game, but it seems pretty faithful to me, whilst also being its own thing in many ways, and I love it for that. This was an absolute joy to play through.

My favourite part, naturally given that I'm not big on RPGs, is the overworld. The story, the exploration, even the minigames were fun other than a handful like the Yoshi one. I would've enjoyed it even more if it wasn't for my Joycon Drift absolutely fucking me six ways to Sunday.

I will say that my biggest frustration with the game was the perfect press system in combat, both with attacks and blocks. There is a disturbing amount of inconsistency with how attacks are telegraphed, to the point where it felt like a guessing game of whether I'd actually get a perfect hit or not, especially given the brutally-thin (at times) window, though it was certainly satisfying when I did get one, at least as satisfying as overcoming artificial challenges can be.

Nevertheless, minor grievances aside, playing this game was a massive surprise and a joy. I wasn't expecting to get it for a good year or so, given that it only just came out and I used up pretty much all of my money on three games that I was far more emotionally-invested in, but my mother managed to pull through for what was an otherwise-very-shitty Christmas, and I'm so happy that she did.

This game is genuinely a 9/10. I don't care if there's recency bias or if my score lowers later down the line, Super Mario RPG was an absolute pleasure to play through and I will not retract my appreciation for it in the final days of 2023, especially given that my 2024 kicked off by finally finishing it. Side note, the length of this game was SHOCKING. I mean, I always knew Mario games were longer than people made them out to be, especially the RPGs, but DAMN, this one is PACKED with content and I loved it. The fact that anything even similar to this was ever on the SNES is just mythical to me. Fair play, Nintendo. Fair fucking play.

P.S. I totally get the Geno appeal now. What a guy.