Cybernator (1993)

Also Known As Assault Suits Valken (Which is the sequel to Target Earth also known as Assault Suits Leynos) This game is just like the first and basically feels like a Gundam/Robotech kind of universe (i'm not admittedly familiar with them so fans might disagree but hey... there is a city inside a big space ship!)

Assault Suits Valken features a LOT of anime style call out texts (like Mega Man X has) This makes the game feel very anime like but is honestly a minor annoyance that I found unnecessary. You also have filler-text mission 'briefings' before starting a new level. Maybe these things were cut from the US version of the game (i'm unsure) The game looks pretty cool at times and is a feast for anyone's eyes that appreciate 16 bit art

Now the special sauce here is the fact you have lots of shooting, lots of different stuff to shoot at, and lots of rather cool weapons to shoot with! The game features a weird 'rolling aim + movement" style that Target Earth had. IT really just feels like a more beefed up version of Target Earth. With better graphics, better weapons (in my opinion) and cooler looking enemies to shoot.

The way you get and use weapons is also a bit different. Once you get a weapon you keep it forever and you can then upgrade it in the way you upgrade weapons in tried and true horizontal shooters like Gradius.

I felt like my ability to hit things in this was a bit easier than Target Earth, but i also found this game to be a lot more difficult.

It was satisfying to finally complete this gam as well as Target Earth, the only other game that I know that has controls like this.

Cybernator, for SNES

Rating: 7.8/10; Good

Cybernator looks, controls and feels just like Gun Hazard, though it is not an RPG. It is a shooter platformer where you pilot a mech. It has the same great aiming mechanic where you can press “up” and “down” to give a full 360 degrees of coverage. The same thruster and dashing mechanics, which help you get around. A separate dash button is an improvement, though it still has the annoying double press “left” and “right” to dash, which will lead to accidental dashing. The mechs again feel heavy, preventing you from taking any action while recovering from a vertical drop. You can also block with your shield, though I found it to even prevent damage from attacks that come from above or behind.

You start off with a gun and punch for weapons, and can find additional weapons in levels that can be kept for later levels. Each weapon is unique with its own properties and reloading style. The gun works the same as weapons from Gun Hazard, in that it has infinite ammo and will take time to reload when your ammo bar runs out. Unfortunately, there is no reload button, so it encourages you to deplete the entire bar each battle so you can go into a new battle at your best. The punch depletes the entire ammo bar each attack, with the amount of bar depleted corresponding to the power of the punch, so it is not something you can spam. The missile has a fixed amount of ammo before it is unusable, and the other weapons deplete the ammo while firing and automatically recharge when you are not firing; something that was missing from Gun hazard.

The biggest problem with this game comes from flight. Some levels have zero gravity and allow you to freely fly around. Unfortunately, the buttons for changing elevation are the same as those used for aiming. Terrible design! Even worse, many of the boss fights (including the last boss) occur while flying, and these are a huge cluster fluck as you try to fight with the conflicting controls. There is a button that locks your weapon in position, obviously to help with these flying parts, though the game did not explain that and I only found out by reading a guide after beating the game. While it is better than not having this feature, it is still far inferior to having separate moving and aiming controls! They should have made the jump button for going up, and one of the other buttons for going down. There are also parts where you are forced to proceed in rapid side scrolling, and these are not much fun because they disable some of your abilities (such as blocking), and are so fast that you will have a hard time dealing with the enemies; it becomes more about minimizing the damage you take rather than defeating the enemies. There were a couple of boss fights where you had to complete a timed objective, with the boss trying to stop you. I found that the game did not make it clear enough that there was an actual time limit, and what exactly you were supposed to do.

The game is fun, though short and the story is minimal. There is no character development whatsoever, and I was left completely untouched by the ending (as in why should I care about these people?). However, compared to many other action games, this story is good, though I did not like how the game suddenly stops every time story text is displayed. Has some replayability to fully explore the levels and find anything you may have missed.

Note: This is for the Aeon Genesis translation of Assault Suits Valken, not the Cybernator original English release.

I am torn about how I think about Assault Suits Valken. On the bad side, this mech game (part of a genre on the Genesis/SNES that includes things like Assault Suits Leynos, Metal Warriors, etc) has a lot of intense action sequences with lots of movement but also requires carefully slow movement and precision since the mech itself is a big ol' target and taking fire is almost guaranteed. There are collectibles to power up weapons and gain health, but they are indeed woefully few and far between; luck and intense memorization of levels is necessary for survival. This produces more frustration than fun in that regard.

But where is the fun? Why 3 instead of 2 stars? From first view, the game is gorgeous. The mechs move in a wonderfully unique way and the action packed segments really make for some beautiful set pieces. There's a slight bit of depth that may be confusing at first (finish enough side missions, get happy ending) to figure out how some objectives work, but they're worth it for that story. As if someone wrapped some of the best that a Gundam/Votoms show could whip up and packed it into an SNES cartridge, the story for Valken is very good, even if it boils down to the lone soldier in a mech war basics. Kudos to Aeon Genesis for re-translating the originally botched script!

You'll find yourself dashing, and waggling your arm around to shoot through levels, but it's a brisk enough encounter that you won't be at it for too long. Things will get intense and filled with losing lives fairly quickly, but a good plan for each level will eventually get you through. Or you could get shot.