{"id":19984,"date":"2020-03-25T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T00:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19984"},"modified":"2020-03-13T01:17:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T01:17:28","slug":"code-shifter-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/25\/code-shifter-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Code Shifter (PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In Code Shifter, you play as Stella.\u00a0 She works as a programmer at a fictional video game company testing codes and deleting bugs.\u00a0 When a malicious virus threatens the company\u2019s latest release, Stella is on the case with a program that lets her avatar \u201cSera\u201d defeat the bugs in a 2-D platform jumping cyberspace world.\u00a0 But the cool part is that at certain moments in the levels, you can switch to 8-bit pixel versions of characters from other Arc System Works games and licenses they own.\u00a0 These include games like Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, Double Dragon, River City Ransom, and more!\u00a0 Code Shifter is available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

Before you start a level, you\u2019ll play as Stella and walk around the office in a 3-D isometric perspective.\u00a0 You can talk to co-workers to gather information and move the story along, and when you are ready to bust some viruses, just walk on over to Stella\u2019s computer and log in.\u00a0 You\u2019ll select stages from co-workers file folders and play as her avatar Sera.\u00a0 Sera can jump, run, double jump, and perform slash attacks in 2-D sidescrolling fashion.\u00a0 At certain points you can change into other Arc System Works characters, and this is where things get cool.<\/p>\n

There are two types of characters you can get.\u00a0 Hero characters you can play as, and Assist characters are a one time use.\u00a0 Some of the characters you can play as include fighters from Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, the brothers Lee and Abobo from Double Dragon, Kunio from the River City Ransom series and a lot more I don\u2019t even know!\u00a0 Heck, even the River City Girls are playable!\u00a0 Each character is represented in an 8-bit chibi form, and they even play a neat chiptune theme song in the background for each character!\u00a0 Certain ones have special skills that will help you progress.\u00a0 Characters with fire or ice attacks can break ice and fire obstacles, respectively.\u00a0 Fighters who can harness electricity can power on certain moving platforms.\u00a0 There are many more characters with moves like that, and in a way it makes me think of Kirby.\u00a0 When you beat a main boss, Sera can change outfits as well that give her skills and that reminds me of a GameCube game called Mega Man Network Transmission.<\/p>\n

In between levels when you are in the office, you can also play the game Stella and her team are working on.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Colorful Fighters and is a competitive brawler for up to four players and features the fighters you can play as in the main game.\u00a0 I only wish it wasn\u2019t so hard to unlock new characters for Colorful Fighters.\u00a0 There were other problems I had with the game, too.\u00a0 Mostly minor ones, but they added up to cause me to be disinterested with the game faster than what I wanted to.<\/p>\n

For instance, when in the main game, if you take damage you don\u2019t get knocked back, but you also don\u2019t flash invincible for a short bit, so you can lose energy really fast when hit if you aren\u2019t careful.\u00a0 Also, every characters\u2019 movement speed and jumping ability is different, and it makes platforming hard to get used to sometimes.\u00a0 The slightly floaty controls don\u2019t help either.\u00a0 Which is surprising since Arc System Works is known for precise fighters.\u00a0 I also don\u2019t like how hard the stages get late in the game, and talking with employees kind of bogs the game down a bit.\u00a0 But you\u2019ll want to talk with people because they might give you a chip you can equip to Sera to boost her attacks and defense, etc.\u00a0 I also which they would tell you which games some of these characters come from, as they get pretty obscure!\u00a0 But otherwise, this is still a fairly decent 2-D platformer, especially if you like Arc System Works\u2019 games and characters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Code Shifter is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Use of Tobacco.\u00a0 You can punch, kick, slash, and zap cartoony enemies, but they just disappear when defeated.\u00a0 And since this is all happening in cyberspace, nobody gets hurt anyway.\u00a0 One of the characters you can play as is a guy in a brown dress suit with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth, so there\u2019s the Use of Tobacco descriptor.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger players may find the game too difficult.\u00a0 There is a co-op mode, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Code Shifter, you play as Stella.\u00a0 She works as a programmer at a fictional video game company testing codes and deleting bugs.\u00a0 When a malicious virus threatens the company\u2019s latest release, Stella is on the case with a program that lets her avatar \u201cSera\u201d defeat the bugs in a 2-D platform jumping cyberspace world.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19985,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984\/revisions\/19985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}