Cyber Citizen Shockman

As a whole, Cyber Citizen Shockman is an excellent side-scrolling platformer that has a few signs of its age, but the core gameplay is timeless. It’s a tightly-controlling game which helps it age nicely. The same holds true for sharp, but simplistic character models and environments that have a good amount of color and life to them, which can stand out even more thanks to having CRT and RGB filters used during gameplay. The soundtrack is the weakest point, but doesn’t prevent this two-player sword-based Mega Man-style platformer from being a must-buy for any fans of the genre.

Ratalaika did a fine enough job bringing Cyber Citizen Shockman to the Switch, and it’s neat to have it in English after all this time. If you’re already sold on the game itself, worry not – it has been done proper justice. I just personally don’t find the game to be all that enjoyable, even taking its age into account. I know it has its fans, but I’m not one of them. Still, if you want to dive into an era of gaming that doesn’t pop up all that often these days, this will certainly take you there.

Cyber Citizen Shockman is a gaming museum piece, and a labour of love, but if it's gameplay you want, then track down the far superior sequels.

I can’t exactly recommend Cyber Citizen Shockman if you’re just looking for a good platformer to play. However, if you know what you’re getting into, you can rest easy knowing that it’s a decent porting job that does exactly what it says on the package. Then again, it doesn’t cost all that much to find out for yourself, and may also encourage Ratalaika to localize more niche titles. So, I guess what I’m saying is: Yes, definitely buy Cyber Citizen Shockman.

On the whole though, while some fun can be had if you really dig in and attempt to learn Shockman with total conviction, it remains the lesser of its series, has aged fairly poorly, and will really only appeal to diehard retro enthusiasts who want to own a piece of gaming history on a modern format.

Put simply, Cyber Citizen Shockman is a peculiarity of a retro game. Though I appreciate it being brought to new audiences some 30 years later, I can’t say it holds up very well. My hope is that the series grew over time and got much improved, since I know Ratalaika is bringing other games from the franchise to the West. But if you’re looking for an amazing retro experience, you’ll probably be disappointed with it.