What is it?
Katanaut is a 2D sidescrolling action game, a so called roguelite, set in a gritty cyberpunk horror science fiction world – on a space station, actually. The player controls a humanoid robot called Naut who uses both close combat and firearms to battle various enemies and monsters. The object in every stage, or “room”, is to locate the exit door. As is common in the genre there are a lot of weapons and upgrades and stuff. Getting to the exit as fast as possible isn’t always the best option since there are new and better weapons, upgrades, currency, secrets and lore to be found. There are a lot of games in this genre; Neon Abyss is just one example of a somewhat similar game. Others have drawn comparisons to Dead Cells and Blasphemous.
Is it player-friendly?
The controls are easy to understand and not overcomplicated. Using and choosing weapons and upgrades is relatively simple; easier than in most other similar games. The platforming is quite forgiving, and regarding combat the game has great difficulty options including an invincibility option.
Is it any good?
The fast-paced action is great with responsive and easy to use controls. The pixel graphics and sound enhance the dark atmosphere. Completing the game isn’t necessarily that difficult, depending on your difficulty settings of course, but this is a game that actually entices you to keep playing and find and try more stuff. All in all there isn’t much to complain about here! There are a lot of roguelite games but this is one of the better ones in the 2D action platformer subgenre.
Peter Öberg
A review copy was provided.