When the indie scene began to take shape in the late 2000s, the first thing we started seeing crop up was a wave of retro platformers. Mostly taking inspirations from the likes of Super Mario Bros., a ton of burgeoning developers were all drawing from their past experiences playing Nintendo’s juggernaut console. No one felt that the 2D platformer was a dead genre.
So despite being treated to platformer after platformer for the last console generation, I’m still amazed when I see a retro, pixel-art game come along and mimic a popular NES title. That’s where Cyber Shadow steps in. Basically a clone of Ninja Gaiden with some extra mechanics thrown in, I was excited from the initial announcement trailer that publisher Yacht Club Games showed off last year.
At PAX East 2020, I was finally able to give this game a shot. It’s likely a good thing that I missed the previous demo because the initial level playable in Cyber Shadow might give you the wrong impression of the game. That comparison to Ninja Gaiden is almost literal. Apart from a dramatically different visual style (Cyber Shadow is a lot darker and more futuristic), the only abilities you’ll have at the start are a jump and slash. You can’t even crouch -which isn’t as uncommon in this genre as you might think.
So after some basic platforming with cool tunes and not much opposition, I was a little worried that Cyber Shadow was just a shallow experience. Thankfully, patrons to PAX East this year get to play a level much later into the campaign after Cyber Shadow opens up. As you progress through this game, not only will you receive health upgrades, but you’ll get access to a bunch of nifty ninja tools that start to make this feel a lot more involved.
The level playable this time was 4-2. Here, there were ranged enemies, wall-mounted turrets, environmental obstacles, and even a boss battle. At checkpoints, you’re able to spend some currency to give yourself temporary upgrades and a spirit gauge allows you to pull out shurikens, a downward thrust, and some upward fireballs that let you attack from afar. It doesn’t feel completely different to that first level, but you now have options.
The first level may have been a cakewalk, but 4-2 was certainly more challenging. I actually managed to die in the middle of the level to a mini-boss, though that was more from my own stupidity. The level’s closing boss had a somewhat tough pattern to discern, but the only reason I couldn’t conquer it was because of a strict time limit set for PAX. The battle, itself, was reminiscent of confrontations from Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon and even Shovel Knight. You knock platforms down that the boss can destroy, so it’s a constant struggle to maintain footing that actually lets you retaliate.
Again, this isn’t completely dissimilar to what Ninja Gaiden did, but it is a little more involved. It was nice to see that Cyber Shadow wasn’t a literal carbon copy of the past. I definitely love NES platformers, but time has moved on. Ninja Gaiden released over 30 years ago and I don’t want an exact recreation of that. Improvements to the formula would be nice and Cyber Shadow at least tinkers with things. It’s familiar, yet new, and that’s all it really needs to be.
For now, there’s no exact release date for Cyber Shadow, but it will be coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch when it does release. The demo I played was on the Switch and I did notice some tiny pockets of slowdown in docked mode. Those will likely be cleared up when the final game comes out.