If there is one issue, it is that there isn't a lot of replay value. Speedrunners and Iron Man mode players out there have plenty to chew on with this one. There's always a way through each challenge that rewards patience and diligence as well as quick and reckless speed. The levels don't just funnel you into nonstop last-second button presses and frantic pattern recognition, but offers that as an alternative route if you're quick and skilled enough. Yet, this wasn't due to aggressive trial and error made by the game just upping the punishment and getting stingy with its checkpoints – although that still happened – but growing to understand the tools given. But at the end of each level you are given a brand new ability like throwing ninja stars or a wall jump, opening up your movement options as well as your combat tactics.īy the time I had reached level seven of Cyber Shadow I was slicing through an entire gauntlet of enemies, all while jumping and twirling through a nightmarish stretch of bottomless pits and instant death spikes. Considering how tricky some enemy placements can be and how little health pickups are, the game trains you to be deliberate and cautious with your every movement the classic gameplay strategy of “move correctly, do not die” played to the letter. The game starts with you just having two actions: jumping and slashing. This is because this button-mashing brutality is a masterclass of escalation. It mixes really well with the garish color palette and stylized visuals to make the whole thing feel like the greatest NES game never released. But it does this all while spoon feeding you worldbuilding details like the madman behind the robots and how it ties into the secret ninja clan's inner workings. No doubt this game is laser-focused on putting you through linear gauntlets meant to test your reflexes, patience, and spatial awareness. There are cutscenes and environmental details all stringing the levels together with a coherent plot that is overflowing with pulpy sci-fi camp. While the gameplay is center stage in Cyber Shadow, I love how the game is dedicated to the kind of storytelling pioneered by the classic Ninja Gaiden titles. Within minutes, you are slashing through enemies as exposition is slowly drip fed to you through computer screens and dialogue with a helpful robot companion. There are robots everywhere, a destroyed city, and it looks like fellow members of your ninja clan have been captured. You awaken out of a stasis pod in an abandoned laboratory. The minute Cyber Shadow starts, you are thrown into the action. Good thing I can just take his head off in the blink of an eye. So green fire implies a chlorine based flame.
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