Cyber Citizen Shockman 2: A New Menace [Review]

Cyber Citizen Shockman 2: A New Menace is a game made in 1991 and Ratalaika Games a company I really like had the misfortune of rereleasing this game in 2024. The game now has English subtitles as of 2023. This game previously only came out in Japan. Honestly, this relic should have stayed in the past. This game wants to be Mega Man or Contra but really falls short of that goal.

The game has lots of visual glitches and the emulation is bad. The game itself is incredibly hard and almost impossible to progress without just turning on all of the cheats to have invincibility and to install kill bosses. In local co-op, if you charge up your blaster and your teammate is in the way they get launched for no reason. It doesn’t add anything to the gameplay but annoyance. The platforming is subpar at best. Things pop in on the screen while you are platforming causing enemy attacks and hazards to just appear while you are mid-jump. Also, the characters have a delay after a button press for jumping. Some levels in this game make me feel like it wasn’t ever play-tested and everything in the levels seems to be out to get you Literally.

The second level of the game is in the ocean. Players are to control a submarine, and the stage starts to randomly move large rocks in a pattern that doesn't repeat itself and is almost impossible to pass. When you die in the game it’s permanent and you start from the beginning. Sure the option is available to go to the options menu and choose your starting level but you have to quit the game completely and reload it to get to the options menu again…. The music is good at least.