I’m always in the market for new titles to play in between major first party releases. While I love triple A titles such as Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, occasionally I enjoy browsing the e-shop to pick up a game that may have flown under the radar or is simply a little on the shorter side.

That was how I first encountered Cyber Shadow and then immediately fell in love. Developed by Mechanical Head Studios and published by Yacht Club Games, Cyber Shadow is a side-scrolling platformer with an 8-bit aesthetic. Taking clear inspiration from classic Ninja Gaiden, players will take control of a cybernetic ninja named Shadow who sets out to rescue his clan in a post-apocalyptic world.

As somebody with a passion for platformers and pixel art, my interest peaked quite quickly as I booted up the game to enter the first level. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to complete it, I believe more people need to give this game a fair shot. 

Slash Your Way Through

Shadow Fighting the first boss

As mentioned earlier, Cyber Shadow takes clear inspiration from classic Ninja Gaiden. From our main character appearing as a palette swap of Ryu Hayabusa, to the grueling struggles found in each level. On the note of the difficulty, Cyber Shadow features some truly challenging and well thought out platforms. Typically for games attempting to replicate aspects of classic titles, there is a lack of understanding on how one goes out implementing them. Modernization is the name of the game and Cyber Shadow does that quite well.

The platforming challenges and enemy placements are difficult but, never to the detriment of my enjoyment. I rarely found anything this title threw at me to be poorly designed or a lackluster attempt to squeeze more hours out of the story. It helps that plenty of checkpoints litter the stages, which allowed me to attempt any challenge as many times as I needed. It’s modern touches such as this — as well as ditching the “lives” system that allowed Cyber Shadow to pay homage to classic titles such as Ninja Gaiden — while still appealing to modern audiences which I can appreciate. 

Shadow is also a fantastic character to control. I’ve played plenty of platformers in my time and the physics for him feels just right. A good weight to your jumps and momentum carries through your movements which helps the player feel confident, which is something Cyber Shadow excels at. Power ups, both temporary and permanent, appear throughout this title and I believe they’re handled well. Temporary power ups act as a crutch to get through some of Cyber Shadow’s more difficult platforming while the permanent changes however, add a great deal of variety to Shadow’s tool-kit which only further made him a blast to play.

Difficulty and Bosses

Shadow Fighting the MechaDragon

I want to further highlight how well Cyber Shadow handles difficulty. More specifically, the difficulty curve as I progressed through the game. Classic titles have a tendency to exploit unfair or grueling level design to lengthen their overall play time. One of the easiest ways to go about this was a difficulty spike. I don’t think I need to explain why these types of practices aren’t great, as it typically results in frustration from the player when  dealing with such inorganic challenges. Plenty of titles inspired by these classic titles fall into a similar trap in a faulty attempt to be authentic.

Cyber Shadow however avoids this and instead teaches the player through subtle escalation in difficulty. I especially enjoy how this design philosophy works in tandem with the permanent power-ups. Levels begin to slowly incorporate challenges around each new skill I obtained and the ability to return to previous levels at any time allowed me to practice should I ever need it, which is a fantastic touch.

The boss encounters in Cyber Shadow are a mixed bag. While a good amount of them are well designed and feature some thoroughly thought-out attack patterns, they suffer from fairly bland arenas. Many of the bosses have a tendency to stick you in a featureless room, resulting in some lost potential in how intriguing some of these encounters could have been.

Beauty of Cyber Shadow

Shadow Fighting on a Tank

The 8-bit aesthetic is one many games go for and I know that due to that, it’s become a bit stale. That being said, I think there is a lot that can be done with pixel art, and Cyber Shadow takes advantage of that to create a quite pleasing package. The setting for this title is a post-apocalyptic city with hints of science-fiction horror through the underground labs and mutant abominations Shadow must fight, and I love how it’s presented.

The cold steel grey of the city skyline contrasts well with the vibrant colours of the laboratory below the city. I especially love the designs for each of the mutant enemies. They appear as true freaks of nature with the lack of visual detail due to the 8-bit style only further enhancing the presentation.

Cyber Shadow was quite a pleasant title that I enjoyed from beginning to end and walked away knowing that more people needed to give this title a shot. It isn’t too expensive on the Nintendo e-shop, and so implore you to give it a look if anything I said interested you. 

Well, that is all for my thoughts, thank you for reading and until next time…

If you’re interested in more opinion pieces than check out our piece covering Pokemon Legends: Arceus and you can check out gameplay for Cyber Shadow here