Recently, I covered Street Cleaner, a throwback side-scrolling action platformer with an emphasis on being as accessible as possible to all players. Cyber Shadow, also a throwback side-scrolling action platformer, is a love letter to games like Ninja Gaiden and attempts to offer a challenging experience while including some modern features. The end result is a game that certainly accomplishes that goal but winds up a bit lower on the accessibility totem pole. Street Cleaner aimed for a mix of short and long-range action and ran the risk of not nailing either. Cyber Shadow is a short-range action platformer through and through with few exceptions.
Shadow starts off with a lot of his prior powers depleted and learns his clan has been taken over by a former mentor. The plot is developed through Ninja Gaiden-esque cinematics, only with far more detail than would be seen on the NES and with a greater emphasis on character interaction and motivation. Shadow’s abilities scale up nicely throughout, and every new stage makes him feel stronger through gaining new moves and the increase in the player’s skills and experience. The developer has thrown in some modern conveniences like an in-game shop that allows for health regeneration or a minor power boost. There’s no fail state if Shadow runs out of lives, only checkpoints that require a bit of retreading. Checkpoints are usually fairly frequent, but there are some stretches where there’s a large gap between them filled with easy-death scenarios that cause the experience to drag a bit. They’re few and far between but really kill the flow of the game when they happen. The overall game feel of Cyber Shadow is rock solid even though a few controls aren’t quite as responsive as they could be. That kind of issue takes it down a notch from the absolute upper echelon of action platformers like Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden, but it’s only a small notch, and for a one-man crew, that’s remarkable. Cyber Shadow is an incredible game to play and one that requires precision, which makes it a mixed bag when it comes to accessibility in some regards. The minute-to-minute platforming requires great precision, and anyone with fine-motor impairments will be unable to enjoy that aspect of the game. Combat against rank-and-file foes relies on timing, and a turbo controller won’t really help there.
#SUBJECT ALPHA CYBER SHADOW PRO#
The boss patterns will require a loss or two to really nail down, but using the 8bitdo SN30 Pro+ for the Switch version made the game easier in several ways compared to the Pro Controller.
Cyber shadow review pro#Įven with a newer d-pad, the Pro Controller doesn’t quite nail down pixel-perfect platforming as well as it should. Here, that manifested itself in quick left-to-right movements not registering, but they worked out fine on the SN30 Pro+.
8bitdo’s controllers also have a nice turbo functionality that I wouldn’t recommend for most players, but if you have tendinitis or arthritis that makes repetitive button presses difficult in a prolonged period, give it a shot. Personally, it helped out with minimizing joint fatigue and stiffness after a three-hour play session.Ĭyber Shadow is quite accessible from a visual point of view thanks to using bold colors and large text. There’s also a lot of contrast in the game’s world, so the player can easily see Shadow against any stage. This makes it much easier to play than a lot of 8-bit action platformers where players could easily lose track of their character due to colors being too similar to one another.
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