In addition to this, each stage is designed to be explored to a minimal degree. This kind of ongoing mind game proves to be a nice accessory to the overall experience, as you have the (limited) power to effectively lower the difficulty for each leg of a level, as you see fit. If you keep getting kicked back to the checkpoint, it might be worth it to spend the money and even the odds a bit, but then you might not have enough to spend on the next checkpoint, which could be right before the boss. These extra boons aren’t cheap, however, so you’re effectively asked to bet on your confidence in your own skill. Each checkpoint usually refills your health, but if you're willing to stump up the cash, they can also refill your SP and give you one of those temporary power-ups. Learning new enemy patterns and level gimmicks takes time, and the lessons you need to learn will be beaten into you over your repeated failed attempts.Ī lot of the sting of the difficulty is mitigated by the use of smartly-placed checkpoints, which also employ an interesting risk/reward system. What’s here is always manageable and fair it’s just that the margins for error are kept quite slim. The key thing here, however, is that the level designs never feel cheap. Death spikes, bottomless pits and inconvenient enemy placement are the norm here, and you’re all but guaranteed to fail a run of a new level on your first try.
Between these additional skills and the temporary power-ups, Cyber Shadow proves to have a nice and flexible combat system, one in which you’re always sure to have some extra aces up your sleeve, but never enough that they break the overall difficulty.Īnd what a difficulty it is! Typical of the era being emulated, Cyber Shadow doesn’t bother pulling its punches at all when it comes to challenging the player. This can be refilled relatively easily via enemy drops, but you’ll never have as much SP as you want, which forces you to be careful in how much you rely on these extra abilities. These new abilities and weapon types are introduced at a consistent clip, and while they prove to be intensely helpful, all of them cost you precious SP to use. For example, you receive the ability to toss shuriken early on, which can be a godsend when you’re trying to get through an area where you don’t want to get too close to enemies. In addition to this, progressing through the levels sees you gradually expanding Shadow’s core set of abilities with new tools and moves. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked) If you get hit three times while holding one of these items, it gets destroyed and you’re likely not going to find another one before you next die. Such power-ups can have an enormous effect on your chances of survival, but they are limited in how long they stick around. For example, destroying a collapsible wall may yield you a power-up that fires an energy blast every time you swing your sword. In addition to your katana, Shadow has a variety of limited-use power-ups and secondary tools that can help give him the edge in combat. Cyber Shadow is the sort of game that proves to be ridiculously simple on the surface – you merely have to run, jump, and slice your way through every level – but the intensity of the level design and the continuous introduction of new obstacles and enemy types keeps the experience from growing stale.
Shadow has a trusty katana that dispatches most enemies in only a couple hits, and he must make use of his well-honed agility to dodge and jump his way through extensive gauntlets of cruelly-arranged obstacles. It’s not a story that’ll win any major awards, but this is also a narrative that has a little more depth to it than you may expect from a relatively simplistic game.įrom a gameplay perspective, Cyber Shadow draws most strongly from the classic trilogy of Ninja Gaiden games, as you’re tasked with going from level-to-level in a linear fashion while cutting down anything that gets in your way. Though the story is fittingly sparse (this is an 8-bit action platformer, after all) it’s rather striking how well it manages to set an effectively heavy tone as transhumanistic themes are explored over the ten-ish hour campaign. Shadow is awoken in a bizarre and darkly technological setting and is tasked with piecing together what happened to his kin and how he can stop the grand threat that saw the fall of his clan and the world it existed in. The story sees you assuming the role of a ninja named Shadow, who stands as the last surviving member of an ancient order of ninjas.
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