Cyber ​​Shadow is an NES-style platform game without the frustration

Cyber ​​Shadow is inspired by a long line of games that didn’t seem to matter if you liked them.

Ninja Gaiden, and other ultra-difficult platform games of their day, found charm in making you stick around during each punitive death. Mechanical Head Games developer has modernized this approach to challenge with Cyber ​​Shadow doing something that follows the legacy of those retro games, while looking affordable and fair.

Cyber ​​Shadow is a 2D action platform game that follows a cyber ninja called Shadow, who has to save a dystopian city that has been invaded by evil machines. As with most platform games, this means that I spend most of my time jumping spikes, traps and dozens of other obstacles, using Shadow’s katana to take down the robots that stand in my way.

Image: Mechanical head games / Yacht Club games

Inspired by NES games like Ninja Gaiden, Mega Manand Shatterhand, Cyber ​​Shadow uses pixel art to highlight the beautiful color contrast in each environment and highlight the unique designs of enemies. The game is accompanied by an excellent chiptune soundtrack.

Despite its retro style, Cyber ​​Shadow never feels old. Unlike similar games like Knight shovel (developed by Yacht Club Games, the publisher behind Cyber ​​Shadow), which had slow and purposely delayed jumps and mechanics that appeared to have been pulled out of an NES cartridge, Cyber ​​Shadow it looks comparatively modern. Each move is reactive and fast, giving the game a faster feel than your inspirations.

Cyber ​​Shadow it even includes controlling your jumps in the air. If I’m in the middle of a jump to the right, I can still immediately turn left, cut an enemy and turn right back. That kind of speed allows the game to offer complex platforms and faster enemies, while still giving me time to react.

Another asset that helps Cyber ​​Shadow it’s your visual clarity. The game levels feature rooms with interesting enemies, jumping puzzles, difficult-to-avoid traps, and often a combination of all three. These rooms are almost all unique and immersive to overcome, but they are also very easy to understand.

Even in the busiest rooms, where there may be six or seven enemies, moving platforms, collectible items and meticulously timed traps, all objects have their own appearance and unique animations that make them easy to distinguish. I’ve always been able to keep the dozens of interactions on the screen separate, and when I lost control of something, it felt like I wasn’t responding to the challenge of the game, rather than a particle that got lost in the confusion. Almost all the deaths I suffered at the game seemed to be my fault, which always gave me a reason to reappear and try again.

Image: Mechanical head games / Yacht Club games

And sometimes, trying again meant more than five or six trips back to the same checkpoint. While deaths almost always sense fair, it doesn’t mean I’ve never been frustrated. Fortunately, the game still has an integrated system to alleviate This one frustration if you find yourself stuck at a particularly difficult checkpoint.

Cyber ​​Shadow there is a coin in the game that you can catch by destroying the bright orange spheres that spread through the levels of the game. This currency can be used to update specific checkpoints that divide areas at each level. While the most basic checkpoints only restore Shadow’s health, some – especially those before longer and more challenging areas – can be upgraded to do things like recharge Shadow’s magical power (which allows him to launch shurikens or fireballs that you unlocks in game) or generate a rare magic item. These items are where difficulty assistance comes into play.

These items are essentially power-ups that help to make the game a little easier. One is a spinning ball of energy that damages nearby enemies, another is a huge shield and another is a far-reaching attack. Although I can find them in the regular game at very specific times, it looks like I’m activating a cheat code when I pick them up at a regular checkpoint.

On other recent retro-style platforms, if a player often dies in a section, developers may decide to display a prompt asking if they want to decrease the difficulty level. But the Mechanical Head Games system is much better. It even allows the player to complete the content as intended; they just gain a little extra boost and disappear (most of the time) at the next checkpoint. I never had enough money to activate all the control points, so upgrading has always seemed like an important choice. Or I could skip the items entirely if I wasn’t fighting.

Image: Mechanical head games / Yacht Club games

I was particularly grateful for these items when I faced the bosses of the game, which I just wanted to get over as quickly as possible. I am in the middle of the game at the moment, and few of the battles have been memorable; most bosses’ skills are boring. They are nowhere near the maximum quality limit set by the levels leading up to them, so in the rare case that I die during one, I simply bought an item, killed the boss quickly and went back to the good parts of the game.

There is a fine line between challenging and frustrating games, especially when you’re trying to honor games that were released three decades ago. But with Cyber ​​ShadowMechanical Head Games proves that with some smart and modern twists, it is possible to make a retro-style platform game with all the difficulties of the past, and few of the frustrations.