Gunkatana Demo

Fast-paced action games tend to be very frustrating, especially if you are not very good at them. It usually takes one mistake for everything to go wrong, and it’s a bother to replay the whole thing all over again. On the other hand, it’s also very rewarding when you finally manage to pass that one pesky level, even if it takes you a few hundred attempts.

Gunkatana is a top-down shooter that aims to be a multiplayer Hotline Miami, only with a few new ideas and a more direct approach to the action. Hence, the whole thing takes place in small arenas, where up to four players go to head-to-head against each other in order to score as many points as they can. The only rule is to stay alive and shoot the other guys as quickly as possible.

There are multiple characters to choose from, as well as multiple arenas with different layouts. Not only that, but the maps have a rail system as well, and you can use them to quickly travel around the arena and kill everyone that gets in front of you. The characters have multiple moves and attacks, such as forward dashes, 360 slashes and even laser shots, which travel a long distance and bounce a couple of times off the walls.

As the name of the game clearly implies, each player has a katana that can be used both offensively and defensively. In essence, you can either stab/slash the enemy, or you can deflect incoming lasers by waving the sword in front of you. Obviously, it takes good coordination and fast reflexes in order to be able to do it properly, but that’s the fun part of the game.

When it comes to graphics, the style is very close to the one from Hotline Miami, or even identical in some cases. It’s not as pretty, on the other hand, at least not the levels featured in the demo. They are also quite small, which means that you’ll often kill yourself by running into your own bouncing lasers.

Although Gunkatana is not very original, it’s still tons of fun, even with the bots. Hence, as long as more characters, maps and game modes are added, this has the potential to become a real hit with the crowds.