Cyber Shadow
Management loves saving money, so when Stacey Henley says she’s using fewer pixels and reusing old ideas they were all aboard.
Management loves saving money, so when Stacey Henley says she’s using fewer pixels and reusing old ideas they were all aboard.
Remember shoulder pads, Rubik’s Cubes, and dancing to Duran Duran on your Walkman? This author doesn’t because they were born in the 1990s, but Cyber Shadow can make any millennial feel like they can remember those times all the same. The eightbit ninja sidescroller is dripping with 1980s cool, from the Transformerstyle bots, a ridiculous motorbike section, and the Nes-era Ninja Gaiden-inspired cutscenes. Ninja Gaiden isn’t the only game Cyber Shadow takes its cues from, though. There’s obvious shades of The
Messenger and Castlevania in the level design and boss battle format, while each level’s many hidden pathways are reminiscent of Metroid. Perhaps the most obvious comparison to draw is to Shovel Knight, with the pair sharing a publisher in Yacht Club Games.
Cyber Shadow is a much more concentrated experience than Shovel Knight, though, with a heavy emphasis on action and combat. It’s also a tad more forgiving. ‘Retro action sidescroller’ is such a crowded genre that it’s difficult to avoid unfavourable comparisons (something else has always done it better), but Cyber
Shadow is fun and different enough to find a place near the front of the pack.
Ninja chainsaw
Like most of these kinds of games, you could probably describe Cyber Shadow as ‘tough but fair’. Where its peers would place the emphasis on ‘tough,' though, Cyber
Shadow focuses on the ‘but fair’ part. It’s not that it’s easy, it’s just a lot cleverer with checkpoint placement. Checkpoints break up short, thematically related sections, helping you find your rhythm whether you happen to be storming through acid-covered sewers, dropping down tunnels or trying to climb while avoiding plummeting hazards. There’s no cost for dying either; in fact your score carries over from death to death. It’s a welcome approach and one that encourages you to take risks, try out new approaches and experiment.
Cyber Shadow gives you the arsenal for varied play. too. While you initially start out with only the ability to slash with your katana, over time more powers come into the mix, with ninja stars, fireballs, dashing and others giving you new options while you’re taking on mini mechs, moths and mechanical monsters all in the same enclosed space. As well as these permanent additions to your attack style, which typically come after defeating a boss, checkpoints will often enable you to buy a bonus attack that lasts for a limited time, too; particularly useful if said checkpoint is before a boss you’re struggling with.
Most of the time, these power-ups are simple but effective: a slightly longer sword to help you keep your distance from enemies, for example. Occasionally though, you get something which makes it possible to cause carnage, like the Swag Blade, which is a magical chainsaw that whirls around you, destroying anything it touches. It doesn’t make much sense for a ninja to have one of these, even in a cyberpunk-style future, but unlike the other weapons in the game, it makes you almost invincible for a short time, making it the best thing in your arsenal.
Slowly, slowly, catchy ninja
You won’t be starting off with all that power, though. In fact, things are a little sparse at first with just the katana, especially as you can only attack in the direction you’re facing. Combat opens up later in the game, so it’s worth sticking with it, but there are other disappointments early on. The sprint ability changes the game so much you feel it would have been better to have it from the start, and the parry ability feels like a bit of a waste. There’s not that many enemies it’s effective on, and Cyber Shadow always feels better when you’re dealing damage on the front foot.
By far our biggest gripe with the combat is knockback – where taking damage causes you to stumble back a step. A lot of classic games have it, and a lot of retro-style games mimic it. We don’t like it in any of them and we don’t like it here. Most of the enemies will just take off a single HP bar, but some arena hazards (lava, spikes) will cause instant death. Taking minor damage from a flying bug at full health, only to be knocked back into a spike is
one of the few cheap deaths in Cyber Shadow. Even if you appreciated knockback more as a design element, we don’t think you could consider that a fair punishment for a single misstep.
Knockback irritation aside, there is a lot to love about Cyber Shadow’s enemies. Several have fun little gimmicks, such as splitting into two smaller enemies after being hit, picking up the reward crates around the levels and throwing them at you, or firing projectiles that bounce to keep you constantly dodging. Probably the best are the floating green cylinders – they don’t attack at all, but rather just hover menacingly directly above you, matching your footsteps, ready to sap your health as soon as you jump. They move on a short delay though, so if you’re fast enough you’ll get the better of them.
Those green cylinders aren’t Cyber Shadow’s bestlooking enemies, but it features some fantastic designs elsewhere. Despite the tiny size and resolution of the sprites, we see huge variation, from Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em-style robots armed with pistols to spindly, metallic facehugger-inspired bugs. The bosses, meanwhile, go in the other direction, and take advantage of their ability to dominate the screen, fully embracing the 1980s philosophy of ‘more is more’.
It sometimes draws a bit of a sneer when you compliment the graphics of retro titles like this: after all, games have had ‘better’ graphics for decades. But Cyber Shadow’s high-contrast colours, black spaces, minimalist NPC sprites and hyper-designed bosses offer the perfect examples as to why this art style remains so well loved – it’s effective.
There’s one boss battle against a flying robot with a ray gun/sword that takes place on a skyscraper’s rooftop during rainfall while laser beams flash down from the sky. Keep your raytracing, your photorealistic CGI, your teraflops. This is the optimum graphics level to experience such pulpy chaos and we won’t hear otherwise.