Check it out: Cyber Shadow

 

Developed by: Aarne "MekaSkull" Hunziker 

Published by: Yacht Club Games

Type of Platformer: Straightforward with action

Collectibles: Yes but they are just upgrades and the money is..just to restore HP and SP at checkpoints.

Difficulty: Medium-tough

No of Levels: 10

I'll admit that I was a bit interested in it simply because it's published by Yacht Club who is best known for Shovel Knight. And pleased I was...though my hands pained from the action played. 

The premise..is weird. You play as Shadow who wakes up from his sleep by some robot and the robot tells him that Mekacity is in shambles because of Dr.Progen going berserk after being unable to save his daughter essence and Shadow must save her..by restoring the ninja clan...

Yeah, the story is weird and the weakest point of the game. It's basically just a fancy Super Mario plot. Like literally the game tells you to save her at all costs just like Mario(Not to mention that there are also secrets that are direct references to the Super Mario series). 

The same goes for the cast as they just sit there and do nothing. Sure, they tell you what's going on and what to do but it's not like it's not obvious what going on and what to do either. So to sum up the story..a futuristic Super Mario plot that involves saving a damsel who trains you..to save her...yeah I know.

No wonder her dad hates this guy

But ok the plot's not great but everything else is. The game is structured like those of classic NES platformers. The most notable is Ninja Gaiden just by the swinging of the sword. You make progress slicing enemies and defeating one sub-boss and the main boss in each chapter. At the end of each chapter, you get a new move that makes your life easier(more on that later).

Along the way, you earn money that you can use to refill HP and SP at a small cost though frankly, the amount you get is very less. At max, you can only get 2 for each enemy, crate, or anything you slice. But what is SP you ask? It's a special gauge that lets you use the special techniques that you can use from your main moves. 

Some moves are locked with it(like the shuriken) while others can be used to make them a bit stronger like the air striking which allows you to strike enemies from the air instantly or an uppercut that shoots flame balls above. Of course, if your SP is empty, you get no additional effects from these moves thus making them weaker. 

So how is the level design? Pretty good as there is a lot of variety here. You have your basic broken cities type, factory kinds, stealth kinds, a bit of nasty stuff here and there, the works. The levels represent their gimmicks enough that you know what the level's gimmick is focused on, and the levels do a good job of rewarding you for destroying cracked walls like in Castlevania where you can get items or secrets. 

As for how platforming is, the controls are very tight and responsive so you shouldn't have any problems reaching platforms. While there is knockback upon getting hit, the platforms are broad enough that you won't always instantly fall down to death because of the platform's space. 

Spikes are instant deaths however and they are placed most often below while some others at the sides. While bottomless pits are present, I believe they aren't very frequent and only a few levels have them. 

The only issue I have with the controls is performing certain moves like running faster and parrying because they require tapping the d-pad fast. Certain platforms will be hard to reach early on, but once you get all the moves, you'll be able to reach them in no time.

Like the Airstriking ability which lets you bounce on enemies, and this allows you to do higher jumps as long as you keep using that pogo stick.

This is what I meant by nasty!

So that's the gist of the overall game. Just run, slice, and beat the bosses like your typical classic games era. So if it's that simple, then what makes it so special in the first place you may ask? Well, a couple of things.

First of is that the enemies have so much variety in them and each one has their own form of attacking you. Some are one slice kills while others can take more than a hit. You never feel like you're seeing the same enemy type constantly unlike most games like Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, and many others who have the same enemies with few new ones.

Sure, it will mean that it has some learning curve for each level since many enemies are new but considering the game's difficulty, it makes no difference either way as you're going to keep dying on your first playthrough. The same can be said for the bosses as they have good attacks and make quite a challenge just to beat them. 

Secondly, the game visuals are stunning especially its animated cutscenes. And yes, it's been done to death countless times. But it really does feel rewarding to see explosion sprites of enemies and the sword slashes. Even the backgrounds are good to look at. The only type of visuals that are not nearly immersive is those brief cyber sections that take place inside of some kind of a pod.

And thirdly the music. This is seriously some good stuff almost on par with that of Ninja Gaiden but a bit of a modern twist here and there. Most instruments are chiptune based but there are a few songs that use modern instrumentations. It's upbeat, fast, and chaotic which fits the theme of the overall game.

This part right here. You first beat blue robots, Then purple ones that give out flames that can hurt you and destroy those crates. Then after the crates are destroyed, a robot with legs springs up there! So much enemy variety!

But now it's time to talk about the cons..big time and I know it sucks but no game is ever perfect. The main one is the difficulty. The game can get brutal. For one thing, enemies come in large quantities and you're hardly given enough breathing space. 

On top of this, health pickups are very scarce. Most of the time, you get less replenishment of health, and very rarely do you recover in large amounts. 

You're only real chance of getting a full heal is reaching checkpoints which the game also isn't very generous as they appear after two or three sections later meaning you are often forced to do large chunks of the levels over again.  

Though the drop rates for SP and money are good enough and enemies unlike Ninja Gaiden, for the most part, do not respawn off-screen after killing them until you leave areas so there is some level of fairness. 

And the game has certain power-ups that can be found midway or through checkpoints that appear based on the levels. Like the Blade Extend which extends your sword's range and makes it more powerful and another one called Swag Blade that ricochets around you defeating enemies from anywhere it swings to. However, getting hit a few times deactivates the power-up, so you still need to be careful.

It also doesn't help that because of moves being locked on earlier, your beginning progress gets much harder than later ones until once you get three of them(which are called essence) which honestly, should have been with you from the beginning because even if you account that the moves you get help unlock certain areas, only five of them are broadly used while the rest serve as utilities for combat. 

This one looks tough..but it's a cakewalk if you do what I did. 

The other problem is the collectibles. Besides HP, SP, and money items that do their things, there are three upgrades that you can get. One upgrades your health by one, one where if you get three of them...upgrades your health by one, and the last one..upgrades your SP by one. 

I mean, the collectibles themselves are decent enough, but I was hoping for something like additional abilities that reduce the damage you take or something like Mega Man X? And I'm fine with this...it's just the process of getting some of them that are tedious. At some point, warping to previous areas becomes difficult unless you progress to furthermore levels. 

This makes backtracking to certain levels difficult as you manually have to travel them(which is not advised if you ask me). And some of them take a while to get as they have a do or die situations instead of just giving you the upgrades.

But wait a minute. If I said straightforward, then why am I mentioning backtracking? That's more like Platform-Adventures, right? Well not really, since the levels here are not fully interconnected for one thing and they are completely optional and don't do anything but give you a feat which is this game's list of achievements. It's like Mega Man X. You don't need the health upgrades if you don't want to but the rest of the game is still straightforward.

Anyways, the final problem is the game's length. As of this post, there isn't anything you unlock after beating it. No new difficulties(which is odd because the achievements say to beat the game on Normal), no new game plus, not much replayability. The only form of replay value is completing the feats and 100% of the game but that is just about it.

And sure, for a game lasting 5-6 hours, you should expect that much but I know a lot of games that offer more than that even DLC like Blaster Master Zero for example. It's why I think that as of now, the game is lacking in terms of content.

That discount is based on backtracking and some feats by the way. So don't call me a wimp!

So to wrap it up, great game to check it out. Sure, story, some design issues, and lack of content are some downers but if you can get past that and want something like Ninja Gaiden, this game is for you!

Until next time folks, this is me saying... 

                                                            START SLASHING!

                    (Cause its ninjas here and ninjas like...*whip* *slash* eh? EH?)

Dissapointment: Yooka-Laylee

 

Platform: PC, Wii U, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One
Release date: 2015
Type of Platformer: 3D platformer
Developed by: Playtonic
Collectibles?: Yes and they are needed to 100% the game. 
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Total number of levels: 5(Excluding Hivory Towers which is just the hub world)

So Yooka-Laylee...I'm honestly glad that I had low expectations for this. I mean it's not really a bad game but coming from the ones who made Banjo-Kazooie, you expect that match to be there and it instead lacks so much polish and content.

But before I start to talk about its problems, let's talk about its plot, progression, and collectibles. Yooka the chameleon and Laylee the bat are relaxing about and reading a big book when suddenly, a bee named Capital B and the scientist Dr.Quack prepare their plans for sucking up every book in hopes of finding that "special" one. 

As you can guess, Laylee's book gets taken away along with its pages and the two decide to head to the Hivory Towers to retrieve the book. That's just about it for the overall plot and frankly, that's all that needs to be said as most of the dialogue is centered around breaking the fourth wall and making puns.

But you of course must be wondering whether the entire cast feels right at home like Banjo-Kazooie and that..is a yes and no answer. Yes, the cast is colorful having a sense of quirkiness and gibber. But are they humorous as the bear bird duo cast? No cause like I said much of the humor tends to break the fourth wall which won't deliver many laughs but mild chuckles at best.

It also doesn't help that they don't have much personality as they just serve their purpose and just end at that. The only character that stood out for me is Trowser who is a snake that somehow wears pants.

So then the progression..as you probably know, 3D platformers perform differently than 2D ones where the goal is more often than not to find the main collectibles to unlock more levels. In this case, you enter levels through books, and to unlock further levels, you need to get pagies. Pagies are found by finding them, solving puzzles, accepting missions, and completing certain other tasks. 

Some Pagies are locked however and cannot be obtained unless you get newer moves from snakey pants Trowser. As you progress through the level, you'll come across sections which seem incomplete. As such, you have to use Pagies to expand the level further which is arbitrary as you're exploring the levels to get them in the first place. It's why I always unlock the level and then expand it to get the whole thing rather than half. That way, I never get to see incomplete sections that stop me from getting stuff.

And you thought that we had enough of Shovel knight...

You get a jump and a double jump at first but later on, you unlock more moves both when you in Hivory Towers(Which Trowser gives for free) and in the levels. Some of these moves deplete your gauge but by waiting for a while or touching a butterfly(more on that later) the gauge replenishes.

Unlike Banjo-Kazooie where you can almost get all collectibles without roadblocks, all the levels here have some roadblocks that stop you from getting stuff. So I advise you to unlock all the moves first so that you can get all the collectibles.

Speaking of which, the collectibles are like how they are in Banjo-Kazooie.

1. Pagies: Like Jiggies except they talk a lot more than Jiggies and you don't insert them into the book like how you would for the jiggies with the paintings.

2. Quills: Remember those red and gold feathers from Banjo-Kazooie? Well, they are just that..except instead of offering specific amounts to fly or be invincible, they are Trowser's main currency(what does he need them for?). Get enough of them to use moves and getting them all in a level grants you a Pagie(Except in Hivory towers...) 

3. Mollycool: Similar to the Mumbo Tokens in Banjo-Kazooie that after getting enough of them, turn you into something else to complete certain objectives. Except you only need to get one in each level.

4. Play Coin: Get these to play Rextro's arcade games in each level. Beating the game and getting the high score combined give you two pagies.

5. Ghost Writers: Like Jinjo's from Banjo Kazooie, getting all five of these ghosts gives you a page. Except the five behave differently. Yellow Ghosts stand still so you can get them easily. Red ghosts charge at you and you need to hit them three times while missing their attacks. Blue ghosts giggle when nearby and can only be touched when using Laylee's Sonar Shot at them. Green ghosts play catch me gimmick as they run in specific paths and you have to catch them. Finally, the Purple ghosts want to be fed some ice shots to be touched.  

6. Butterfly booster: Boosts extra health like the extra honeycombs. The only difference is you require one at each level.

7. Power extender: Increases your ability gauge.

Boy, that's a decent amount of collectibles I think(though not as decent as Banjo-Kazooie in my opinion). But how well placed are these collectibles? I guess..decent. Mollycools are placed both near and a bit far from Dr.Puzz while Playcoins is right around where Rextro is. Butterfly Boosters and Power extenders are well placed and can be in unexpected areas. 

Ghosts writers are the toughest to find since even the hunter tonic doesn't sense their location, meaning they are in cryptic parts. Like I spent a lot of time getting the last one in Galleon Galaxy and...let's just say that my curiosity wasn't very rewarded for that one. 

And lastly..there is one collectible that I didn't mention in the list which is the hardest to find and I didn't notice until recently that there are five collectibles called pirate treasure which have skulls with diamond eyes. I never noticed them but getting them is nothing but achievements and it's optional so do it if you want to.

Now that we have those out of the way...let's talk about the two main problems here which as said before polish and content.

Polish

Now before I say anything bad, I want to say that the visuals and music are good as you'd expect for a 3D platformer. However, I'm more of a Banjo fan than a Ukulele(Which sounds like Yooka-Laylee) But kudos to Grant Kirkhope for composing the music here. The only flaw here in the music is that the main theme doesn't exactly match the feel of other themes in the levels like Banjo-Kazooie. 

The first things that come to mind are the technical issues the game has and the butterfly effect. Now I'm not sure if this is apparent even with the console versions but on PC, the game suffers a lot of stuttering and it's very distracting especially when doing some platforming.

Then there's the butterfly effect. You might have noticed that I said Yooka has to use his tongue to get those tasty butterflies. But filling the power gauge also requires butterflies so how can sticking up tongues do that? Short answer...it doesn't and you instead have to touch the butterflies.

So why is this a problem? Well, let's say you're in a situation where you're low on health, you see butterflies. You're tongue doesn't reach enough from a bit far off so you decide to get close to it..only to have mistakenly touched it. So you've filled your power gauge instead. The inverse is also true for power gauge. 

You'll get confused as to what to do to get what you need until you get used to the butterfly effect. I don't know about you, but it's a cumbersome game design. There are many times that I get to butterflies and touch them only forgetting that I have to stick Yooka's tongue to get health and my chances of getting health when I need it are gone. Just imagine a typical platformer where to get points you have to touch the burger but to restore health, you have to eat the burger...but that won't give you points. 

This way of game design to me is unnecessary as you're better off having a different item to serve filling up the power gauge. Heck, Banjo-Kazooie has red feathers to fly and yellow feathers for being invincible..and that was done on limited hardware!

But I'm just getting warmed up! The next problem is the moves. Some of which serve little purpose and are not alternatives for damaging enemies. Like for example..what do you think of body slam? A typical ground pound move right? And what do you use it for? Switches? Sure.

But can't you use it for anything else? Nope. I mean you can try to use it for enemy bashing but it won't be effective when comparing to your tail whip attacks. But ok forget body slam. What about the others?

Well, rolling is used for..slippery slopes and faster movement but isn't effective for enemies. The same goes for many of the moves. The one move air attack is supposed to be used to attack those Corplet Drones but it rarely works and the best way is to use grenades or transforms at them.

Looks cool. Too bad its only job is to dash at piles of snow...

Then there's the problem with moves that are seriously broken balance-wise..like Kirby's UFO broken! The Flappy Flight which you get before the last level allows you to fly for a limited time. The thing is..because it's linked to your power gauge, it will deplete very slowly which means that it will take a long time for it to be completely depleted. This may as well means that platforming past that becomes obsolete as you get this that lets you like..fly anywhere. The same goes for Sonar Shield as you're practically invincible and it's very easy to cheese the final boss because of this..even those drones!

Compare this to Banjo Kazooie. Red and Yellow feathers are required to get to use their respective powerful moves and you can only store 100 of them each. While the red ones are plentiful, the yellow ones are very rare and are only useful in few situations. Which one you think has a better balance of powerful moves here? I'd say Banjo-Kazooie.

And the last part is the level design. The biggest problem is the lack of proper geometry. Now if you don't know what this means, basically, geometries are the 3D versions of platforms designed to stop players from jumping on something that is not a platform, to make players play the levels correctly as in not cheating. 

For example, In 3D platformers like Super Mario 64, you see a slope where a red coin is? Missed it from falling at the top? Well going back there won't work as you'll just fall off. Trying long jumps or triples won't work either. So you'll have to go all the way back to the top to try again(or you can try glitching if you want to...)

Or how about any 3D platformer where you can't just use the interior of the walls that are just for the design of the walls as platforms? Or how about certain invisible walls that stop you from going there and moving elsewhere because those parts are simply for visual purposes?

If you can see where I'm getting at this, then you would understand by now what I meant by chalk. You can practically jump and any object and do a lot of sequence breaking. See a platform too high to reach? No problem..just jump on those two snowed bricks that aren't platforms and then jump on that platform instead of using the intended move. The same goes for the transformations that you get at each level. Their purposes are more like one-time use, unlike Banjo-Kazooie where the transformations could even be used outside of the levels!

Having a hard time collecting stuff. Jump on one of the taller rocks and just look around. I mean you can literally jump on anything to make collecting and progression easier. Heck, there isn't any chalk added for the amount you can fly either..and if you fly too much, you end up being instantly dead, and believe me, I tried it!

You feeling lucky?

And this really is the big problem and why it needed a lot of polish. Besides this, the cart levels with Kartos are terribly executed. The moves are limited and the gem placements aren't tweaked right meaning you can't get all three gems in a row if you didn't time your jump at a very accurate point. It's honestly my most hated part of the entire game but somehow, I managed to get all of them completed..and for what? just one Pagie for each level(well two from the fourth level but that's beside the point.)

And that's that..for polish anyway. Let's talk about...

Content

Let's see what you have here... seven collectible types to get, a hub world, five levels..and what else? Multiplayer? O..kay? Still not enough for my satisfaction, however. Like ok..what do you have in each level that stands out?

Let's see..three types of enemies that are always the same no matter what? Nearly half of the objectives are the same for each and every level? And A hub world that is completely empty throughout?

I'm being serious. All you do in the levels is finding Pagies in the same fashion whatsoever. You have your basic simple puzzle types, mine cart types, arcade types, race types, and then boss types which admittedly are the best in the game as the bosses are very engaging.

Sure, some puzzles stood out..but those are few and far between. Everything else has the same kind of puzzles like jumping through hoops before time runs out, taking the knight pigs to their destined location before the time runs out(yes you read that right.), reaching to specific parts before time runs out. That is all there is to it. Like 70% of the game is focused on gotta do it within the time limit.

And even if that isn't entirely true, the objectives still lack in variety and don't really mix with the theme of the levels very much. The only level to actually stand out with variety is the level is Capital Cashino where instead of Pagies, you receive tokens which you can exchange for Pagies. Not only that but every objective you do actually is unique and not like the other three levels you do(well, except for finding ghost writers and getting 100 quills). But then the final level doesn't do anything at all and is just level one, two, and three all over.

Now let's look at what Banjo-Kazooie had to offer when in comparison. Its got...

Eight collectible types(Two for offensive and one for flying), NINE levels with variety(even enemies!), a hub world that needs two collectibles to expand the world further, and a real ending unlocked after 100% the game. Which one here offers more meaningful content? Yooka-Laylee? Or Banjo-Kazooie?

Now you're going to argue that since Yooka-Laylee has fewer levels, then it should make up with more quantity of things to do in the levels like the quantity of the collectibles. Well ok..but what does Yooka-Laylee let you do with the stuff that you max out on? Unlocking Tonics which are just buffs?

If they were gonna put N64 low poly graphics, why even bother with high details?

I'll admit that the one that has N64 graphics looks impressive but other than replaying the game in lower graphics, what other reasons would you have to get all the Quills and Pagies? At least with the bear and bird duo, there's a good incentive to 100% the game but here? You get nothing in doing so and the final boss only needs 100 Pagies which is already easy enough to do as said in the polish section.

Look, I get it. It's not very bad levels like..the not so good times for Sonic or an unpolished mess from the getgo. But coming from the dudes who did Banjo-Kazooie, it's a disappointment. 

But hey let's not end all bad here. The new game Impossible Lair seems to be more positively received and the next time we venture to Yooka-Laylee, we look at Yooka-Laylee and the impossible lair.

Well, that's that from the Super Platform Gamer. Until next time, this is me saying...

                                                            GET JUMPING!