Cyber ​​Shadow is a NES-style platform without the frustration

Cyber ​​shadow was inspired by a long series of games that did not seem to appeal to you.

Ninja Gaiden, and other ultra-tough platformers of his era, found it fascinating to let you hold on through every penalty. Mechanical Head Games for developers have modernized the approach to challenge Cyber ​​shadow by making something that complies with the legacy of those retro games, while also feeling accessible and fair.

Cyber ​​shadow is a 2D action platformer that follows a cyber ninja named Shadow who must rescue a dystopian city that has been overrun by evil machines. As in most platform players, this means I spend most of my time over nails, traps, and dozens of other obstacles while using Shadow’s katana to take out the robots that are in my way.

Image: Mechanical Main Games / Yacht Club Games

Draw inspiration from NES games such as Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, en Shatterhand, Cyber ​​shadow use pixel art to highlight the beautiful color contrast in each environment and highlight the unique hostile designs of the game. The game is accompanied by an excellent chiptune soundtrack.

Despite its retro style, Cyber ​​shadow never feels old. Unlike similar games like Skop Knight (developed by Yacht Club Games, the publisher behind Cyber ​​shadow), which contains slow, deliberately delayed jumps, and mechanics who felt as if they had been ripped from a NES cartridge, Cyber ​​shadow feels relatively modern. Each movement feels reactive and funny and gives the game a faster feel than its inspiration.

Cyber ​​shadow even includes the air control of your jumps. If I’m in the middle of a jump to the right, I can still immediately turn left, chop an enemy, and turn right. This kind of speed allows the game to offer complex platforming and faster enemies, while still giving me time to react.

Another asset that helps Cyber ​​shadow is its visual clarity. The levels of the game contain rooms with interesting enemies, jump puzzles, traps that are hard to dodge and often a combination of all three. These rooms are almost all unique and attractive to overcome, but they are also very easy to understand.

Even in the busiest rooms, where there are six or seven enemies, moving platforms, collectibles and carefully set sheets, all the objects have their own unique appearance and animations that make them easy to choose from. I was always able to keep the dozens of interactions on screen separate, and when I lost track of something, it felt like I was not up to the challenge of the game, rather than a particle getting lost in the shuffle has. Almost every death I suffered in the game felt like it was my fault, which always gave me a reason to react and try again.

Image: Mechanical Main Games / Yacht Club Games

And sometimes, to try again meant more than five or six trips to the same checkpoint. While the deaths are almost always feeling fair, that does not mean I never got frustrated. Fortunately, the game even has a built-in system to illuminate that frustration, you would be stuck at a particularly difficult checkpoint.

Cyber ​​shadow has a currency in the game that you can pick up by destroying glowing orange balls that sow the levels of the game. This currency can be used to upgrade specific checkpoints that break up areas in each level. While the most basic checkpoints will only restore Shadow to full health, some – especially those in front of longer and more challenging areas – can be upgraded to do things like recharge Shadow’s magical power (with which he can throw shurikens or fireballs that you during the game) or spawn a rare magical item. These items are the place where the difficulty relief comes into play.

These items are mainly power shots that make the game a little easier. One is a rotating ball of energy that damages the surrounding enemies, another is a massive shield and another is an attack with a long range. Although I can find it at very specific moments in normal play, it feels like activating a cheat code when I pick it up at a regular checkpoint.

In other recent retro-platform players, if a player dies too many times in one division, the developers may decide to give an indication asking if they want to lower the difficulty level. But the mechanical head game system is much better. This still allows the player to complete the content as intended; they just get a little extra boost, and it’s (mostly) gone with the next checkpoint. I never had enough money to activate all the checkpoints, and upgrading one always felt like an important choice. Or I can skip the items completely if I am not struggling.

Image: Mechanical Main Games / Yacht Club Games

I was especially grateful for these items when I was able to defy the game’s bosses, who I just wanted to get through as quickly as possible. I’m currently halfway through the game, and few of the fights were memorable; most of the bosses’ abilities were boring. They are nowhere near the high-watermark of quality determined by the levels that lead to it, so in the rare case that I died during one, I simply bought an item, killed the boss quickly, and returned to the good parts of the game.

There is a fine line between challenging and frustrating games, especially if you want to pay tribute to games that were released three decades ago. But with Cyber ​​shadow, Mechanical Head Games proves that with some clever, modern twists it’s possible to create a retro platform with all the problems of the past, and little frustrations.