Cyber Citizen Shockman was a series of 2D action platformers back in the 16-bit days.  They starred a pair of superhero cyborg teens (a guy and a gal) who were created by a crazy professor.  They would fight intergalactic baddies with their swords and beam attacks.  The first two were on the PC Engine, which was the Japanese version of the TurboGrafix-16.  The second game was even brought out to the US.  The third game in the series was on the CD add on in Japan.  And now you can play it on modern consoles (reviewed on PS4 here).

You can choose to play as either the boy or the girl, but they both play the same.  You can also do two players as well.  Jump with one button, and swing your sword with the other.  You can also charge up the attack button and release it for a long range beam attack and you can even control it a little bit.  Defeated enemies drop batteries you can collect that I think give you life and continues.  But I’m not sure since the game doesn’t have any instructions.  As a Turbo CD game, there are fully voiced anime cutscenes and enhanced graphics.  You can also view artwork in a gallery.

My main problem with this game is that there aren’t any instructions.  There is a scanned manual you can look at in the gallery, but it’s all in Japanese.  Luckily the game is pretty easy to figure out.  The game also gets hard quickly, but if you have trouble, you can always activate an assortment of cheats via the menu.  The game is pretty basic and doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, but I still had fun playing a game I otherwise wouldn’t have even heard of.  I never had a TG-16, so it’s nice to play some retro games I haven’t played to death already.

Kid Factor:

Cyber Citizen Shockman 3 is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood.  You swing your sword at robots that explode when defeated, but that’s pretty much it.  I didn’t notice any blood, but for some reason the closing credits have some pretty gruesome monsters in the background.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the menu text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may find it too difficult but you can activate cheats to make it easier.

Tags: Game Reviews