Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3 review for Xbox Series

Retro is back in style, and while it’s little-known classics like Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3, they’re more popular.

I admit that, although I am a retro enthusiast, there are consoles that I never touched until very recently. This happened to me with the classic PC engine, which I only discovered with the arrival of a game that brought out a lot of potential from the machine. The name of this game was Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman, and thanks to him I was encouraged to try the entire vast catalog of a console who lived among the shadows of other colossi better known throughout the world. It was therefore appropriate to thank this saga for what it brought to my knowledge. This is why I have the pleasure of analyze the third part of the saga. A sequel which exploits its charismatic characters… but which loses part of its essence in other aspects which we will detail below.

Busy rest

Ratalaika games They are responsible for bringing us back Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3: Princess from Another World. This game, initially released in 1992 in Japan, offered us a quick adventure featuring the two heroes of the saga: Sonya and Arnold. The lives of these two warriors have no rest, and although they enjoy a well-deserved vacation on the beach, They will soon find themselves involved in another mess caused by an extraterrestrial threat. Of course, the two boys cannot sit idly by and will set to work to expel this special commander and all his entourage.

Press the console

The first thing that catches your eye is the visual improvement of the title if we compare it in its first part. Although it is still a pixel-based design, we notice that it is more defined, with better contour and greater fluidity in movements. Until we will have sequences with recorded voices, something very difficult to achieve at that time. Of course, there’s no glimmer of hope, and all this detailed staging suffers in o ther ways.

While in the first iteration we had some freedom to explore the phases, what we found in Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3 is a linear adventure that takes just under an hour to complete. We can choose both Sonya and Arnold, and with the exception of the skin change we see, both protagonists control the same and have the same move set. We’ll be able to jump, attack and if we hold down the attack button we will launch a powerful energy sphere.

Run, fly, fight

I like it throughout the plot that we are involved in several situations that break a little from the standard rhythm which we generally find. There are times when we climb on robots, and even We will launch into space to participate in a shoot’em up phase. The main problem is that everything is very simple, even though the game comes from a time when the difficulty was always high. Apart from a few confrontations at the end, anything can happen on the first try. And it wouldn’t be bad if it wasn’t because once we see the final credits, we won’t have anything else to do…

This isn’t the first time I’ve said it and I won’t get tired of saying it. This type of classic jewelry, of such a short duration, would be better in a joint compilation. In fact, if we had a common pack with all three adventures, it would pay a better tribute than each of them separately. We’ve seen recent cases that have done this and the compilation gains many more integers.

Classics for beginners

Of course, that drop in difficulty level we experienced in Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3 doesn’t have to be bad. For people inexperienced in “retro” gaming, this can be a good starting point as it is very user friendly. In fact, as we have already seen in other cases, we will have a rewind button in case we want to retry a section of the screen that we did wrong. Little traps that will be very useful to those who quickly feel frustrated.

And even though visually we said it was awesome…we say it with an eye toward the past. It’s not that it looks bad now, but it’s true that we could have had some sort of remastering or fine-tuning. by the workshop. The only thing we will have is the cover, the original instructions and some other illustrations that we will unlock.

Conclusions of Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3

Fans of retro gaming in general, and PC Engine specifically, have the opportunity to try one of these hidden gems that have never left Japan. Cyber ​​Citizen Shockman 3 is a timeless title for its time, with Japanese graphics, scenes, and voice acting that weren’t even normal for this hardware.

Of course, we are faced with an experiment that we will carry out in just under an hour. And also without much difficulty, if we compare it with its first part. And this is the main problem of the game, that it arrives completely alone, without a pack or any type of interesting information about the saga that allows us to know more about the product. We also don’t have a remaster itself, and although it comes with an English translation and some extras in the form of artwork, that’s not enough from my point of view.