Speedrun Mode is a game mode in Katana Zero. As its name suggests, it is primarily intended for speedrunning the game.
Speedrun Mode can be accessed after beating the game.
Settings[]
Speedrun mode gives the player several options to optimize a speedrun of the game:
- Hard Mode: "For those who desire a real challenge" - toggles Hard Mode (see "Hard Mode" below).
- Stable Seed: "All enemies and bosses have consistent behavior between runs" - all runs have the same optimized cycle, even between resets.
- Skip Cutscenes: "Skips all apartment, therapy and nightmare cutscenes" - does not skip all sequences (see "Action Only" below). Enabling this option disables the secret boss fight (except if "Secret Boss" is enabled below).
- Action Only: "Skips major cutscenes and ambient rooms." - it also skips all the cutscenes skipped by the option above.
- Skip Replay: "Removes all level replays except during scripted cutscenes." - removes all level replays except the one in Mansion.
- Dragon Dash Max: "Starts The Dragon's dash ability at maximum distance. (Controller only)"
- Secret Boss: "The player will encounter the secret boss fight regardless of their behavior." - The Psychiatrist boss fight will always occur at the end of the game.
- Show Timer: "Displays the total time of the run and the time played on the current level."
- Show Death Count: "Displays the player's death count for the run and the death count for the current level."
- No Slomo: "This challenge option will remove the player's ability to use slowmo. The fan in the factory is removed."
- Weapon - allows the player to select between the different swords. Note that they must be unlocked before they can be used in Speedrun Mode.
- Starting Level - allows the player to select which level they will start at.
Hard Mode[]
- Main article: Hard Mode
Speedrun Mode also comes with Hard Mode, a more difficult version of the game with more enemies, traps, and new enemy types.
Community[]
The Katana Zero speedrunning community is a thriving community supported by the developer, askiisoft. Its central hub is https://www.speedrun.com/katana_zero.
Categories[]
There are currently several categories of Katana Zero speedruns. All of them require the timer to be on:
- All Stages - complete all 11 stages, skip cutscenes, action only.
- Golden Ending - choose "life" in Chinatown; requires Action Only to be disabled.
- Psychotherapy - same as All Stages, but fight the secret boss afterwards. Requires Secret Boss setting.
- Full Run - a normal run; previously the only category before Speedrun Mode was released.
The above supercategories can be further divided into these subcategories:
- Normal
- Hard Mode - Hard Mode enabled.
- Katana - katana or prism sword.
- Lab swords - each sword has its own category.
Strategies[]
- Main article: Portal:Speedrunning