Speedrun Mode

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