The fourth – and I think final – game in the Cyber Citizen Shockman series has now arrived on Xbox. But this time around, we are playing a prequel to the main series, featuring new enemies, and new Shockmen. It plays very similar to its predecessors, but also makes things a bit easier after the high difficulty found before.
Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero is a 2D side-scrolling action platformer that was initially released in Japan in 1997 for the Satellaview add-on for the SNES. Like most of the others in the series it never released outside of Japan. At least not until now, thanks to Ratalaika Games. And yes, that does mean that it comes with another load of easy achievements, but the game isn’t all that long anyways, completable within an hour. Maybe even quicker if you utilise the handy cheats available…
Unlike the first game in the series, there is no explanation to how these new Shockmen arrived. I always liked that aspect of the story: Yes they were now superheroes, but they never asked to be cybernetically enhanced. This moral dilemma would be something explored better in modern games, but seeing that kind of thing in this 30 year old game was a shock, man.
Anyways, it is absent in this prequel, with two new heroes that seem perfectly fine adopting this new moniker. Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero is playable in two-player local co-op, with each Shockman playing slightly different. Teaming up also gives you the opportunity to land some combo attacks. However, when playing solo, unlike previous games, you do not get a choice, so you are forced into playing the same character.
That isn’t too bad though, as this character, Raita, is once-again melee focussed; much like the first game. Future instalments opted for a more ranged style approach, so this change of focus is welcome. Playing as second player Azuki brings back the ranged attacks, swiping her sword to produce beams to attack enemies with.
Speaking of, enemies can still pack a punch in Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero, but the sheer volume of them has been toned down significantly to make things a lot more easy going. That’s not to say it’s too easy though, it is still designed like a coin-glugging arcade machine, so you will struggle.
The cheat screen present in previous titles makes a welcome return. Here you can choose to make yourself invincible, make enemies all one-hit kills (including bosses), add turbo effects to your attacks or all of the above if you really want to make things a breeze.
In these overlay menus you can also change the display mode if you don’t like the old school 4:3 presentation, set the rewind speed or fully revert to the Japanese language version of the game. This port features a translated English version as the default but the option is there if you prefer the original language version as well.
The bosses in the series have been a real mixed bag. You’ve had the public designed bosses of the second game and the completely leftfield designs of Cyber Citizen Shockman 3: The Princess from Another World. Thankfully, in the prequel they make a lot of sense. There are fewer designs in total, as one boss features heavily throughout, but they are all coherent to the game itself at least. I’ll be honest though, I do kind of miss the more outlandish designs of previous.
For some reason as well, there are moments in Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero where the frame rate drops substantially. These appear to be at specific moments as opposed to randomly happening, either when an explosion plays out or there are lots of enemies on screen at once. I can’t for one second believe this is down to my Xbox Series X not being able to handle a 16-bit title, so it has to go down as a poor port. This is not the first time in this series that this has happened either.
Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero has a levelling up system of sorts. Almost every enemy you defeat drops a piece of loot, ranging from jewels to video game cartridges and even some ancient Peruvian gold. These each have a score value associated with them and once you reach a certain score, starting at 50000 and then every subsequent 100000 thereafter, you earn an extra hit point. Through some of the tougher levels that have some very tricky environmental hazards to avoid, these extra hit points become crucial.
Scoring is also tied into the ‘hardest’ achievements in-game. Most of Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero’s achievements will be unlocked simply by defeating the bosses. Five achievements are related to your score though, with 450000 being the top score needed to unlock all extra hit points. As long as you defeat every enemy and pick up every item you will reach that score towards the end of the game. And, if like me, you still didn’t have it by the last level, the final boss drops a boatload of points on you so don’t worry too much.
Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero gets the balance just right in terms of difficulty, something that previous games struggled with. It also brings the melee attacks back, but it would have been nice to have had a choice when playing solo. Some crazy boss designs are also missing, with the game being seemingly more reliant on one boss popping up repeatedly.
Still, graphically this is easily the most impressive looking title in the series, and with yet another banging soundtrack, it may be the best of the lot.
