You occasionally come across computer terminals, or literal disembodied spirits of deceased, either of which can be read as bits of text. The game has a story, and while I can’t say the narrative really grabbed me, I did appreciate the clever ways that story beats are communicated to the player. (I ended up using this help the majority of the time, so don’t feel discouraged from partaking.) There are also unlockable items at each checkpoint, called “Service Pods”, which can give you a power-up, should you need it for any particular section. That said, checkpoints appear frequently and are spaced pretty generously overall. The challenge here might be too much for a lot of players I suspect, as replaying the same section over and over again can get discouraging. And similar to The Messenger, I’d say it is actually a little too difficult. In terms of difficulty, Cyber Shadow really leans into the ninja tradition of being pretty damn hard. (Speaking of beat’em ups, parries can be executed in Fight’N Rage.) Good on Mechanical Head for showing us how it’s done. Sure, 3rd Strike basically perfected the execution of parries, but I see no reason why similar moves haven’t made their way into more modern fighting games, side-scrolling beat’em ups, and even 2D action platformers. I’m rather surprised that relatively few games (especially 2D action games) have made use of the mechanic. Parrying and then reflecting back projectiles is certainly a high-risk, high-reward maneuver, which is exactly what makes it so badass.
That return-to-sender wave will dish out considerable damage to any enemies it collides with. If Shadow then slashes the stationary energy ball with his sword, it will be propelled outward as a wave attack. Instead of causing damage, the parried projectile will be frozen in place, transformed into a pulsing ball of energy. YES, this game has SF3-style parries! When a projectile is about to hit Shadow, you tap forward just at the moment of impact. Gotta go fast!Ī different skill gained in Cyber Shadow is my personal favorite: parries. And while I’m not a speedrunning person, this move alone makes it feel like the game wants me to speedrun it like the sprinting through every level is the way the game was meant to be played. This dash attack is also invincible, so you can really tear through enemies using it. You can cover some long gaps with the dash attack, and it can be paired with a jump for added clearance. If you press the attack button while sprinting, Shadow will perform a dash attack that flies a good distance in an instant. It’s not exactly like a metroidvania, where a newly acquired skill allows you to further traverse the game world, but it kind of feels that way.įor example, the Sprint you unlock in Chapter 5 is pretty big game changer. Your robot ninja protagonist acquires new skills along the way, which allows for the incremental introduction of techniques to not overwhelm the player, and also provides a sense of growth and mastery. While the game is linear and level-based, it does have a great sense of progress and discovery. But I didn’t actually get around to writing a review for ages, so nothing got posted…until just now. And then…well, I did start playing the game immediately.
I preordered Cyber Shadow and started putting together this blog post well in advance of the game’s release. From developer Mechanical Head Games (Aarne “MekaSkull” Hunziker) and published by Yacht Club Games (the makers of Shovel Knight), this one seemed to have it all: classic ninja action gameplay, that retro pixel art aesthetic, the overall hardcore vibe of the NES. Anyway, the reason bring this up now is that Cyber Shadow is one of those great indie games.įrom the moment I saw previews of Cyber Shadow, I knew I had to play it as soon as humanly possible.
Cyber shadow dash free#
Plus, let’s face it, I’m just not great at managing my free time. Since I’m doing this for fun though, I rarely manage to post my reviews in a timely fashion. When a legitimately great indie game is released for Switch, I try my best to scoop it up and play it right away, in the hopes that I can post a review fairly quickly.
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