Confusion abounds with this one. This isn’t the same Shockman that was originally released for the TurboGrafx-16 back in 1991, which was a localisation of Japan's Shubibinman 2. This, Cyber Citizen Shockman, is a new 2023 translation of the original Shubibinman game from 1989; and frankly, that’s the most special thing about it.
Here, a map overworld offers a choice of multiple paths, each leading to a very brief platforming stage scattered with enemies and pitfalls to leap over and avoid. Each has a boss, ranging from nice-looking mecha-styled things or well-rendered monsters, requiring little except rapid spamming early-on, and more concerted strategy later, depending on your health. Visiting the map screen offers up brief dialogue exchanges and the option to heal yourself or buy weapon upgrades with gold acquired during the stage. Deaths will slightly penalise your gold bounty, but hostages you save with each boss defeat also offer transient bonuses, health-ups, and occasionally become permanent map fixtures, like the dedicated healing nurse. Boosting weapon power is your modus operandi, eventually acquiring the chargeable Shockbeam - an addition that makes things much more enjoyable and shifts your approach to enemy negotiations.
The problem is, the game is hobbled by the most infuriatingly sluggish controls. Your character's initial walking speed is treacle slow, and not much better at full trot. Shockman is also beholden to one of the worst crimes 2D gaming can commit: inertia. This causes you to slide a good few steps in either direction while you crush the D-pad trying to correct your position. The game’s incredibly short stages have clearly been designed around this control scheme, although it seems more a lazy method to artificially expand the campaign’s lifespan - and that’s on top of a lot of structural recycling until you reach the finale.
To its credit, there are some interesting design features, with a choice of male and female characters (who play identically) and a two-player simultaneous mode. The shop and upgrade pursuits are decent objectives to work toward, but ultimately it’s so hamstrung by its laborious movement and infuriating jump mechanics that it’s hard to recommend. It looks and sounds ok for an early PC Engine title, and it’s cute enough, but there are three more entries in the series that get progressively better.
As with other Ratalaika Game retro revisits, the presentation is rudimentary but comes with a fairly comprehensive set of options to adjust the image, screen curvature, scanline density, and gamma, all of which are highly tweakable. Fast-forward and rewind features make things that bit more bearable and the gallery is always a nice diversion if you want to peruse clean scans of the manual details, as well as original case and media.
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.
Comments 11
Waves hand
This is not the Shubibinman you're looking for.
When the Wii U shop was closing I had a look at all the VC games and decided to download Shockman because it looked like a decentish Megaman-like game. I haven't gotten around to it yet. ...But I didn't even know it belonged to a greater series. Hmm.
Should-be-binned-man
@gaga64 Dad?
It's a mediocre game but a good port, then? Are the other games in the series getting a release as well?
Makes me glad I got Shockman (Shubibinman 2) on the Wii U Virtual Console before it closed.
Regardless, if the price is right in the Mexican eShop, I'll give the original game a go one day.
@ArcadianLegend99 yes, my child?
Shockman is such a strange series. According to this article all three of the PC Engine games play completely differently. For instance, the second game aka Shockman removed the sword attacks, world map, hostage rescues and item upgrades, and play more like Mega Man. The third game brought back sword attacks but also dumbed down the platforming. I just hope the sequels get brought over as well.
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/schbibinman/
When are you guys going to do a full review of 2k drive? Noone is reviewing the switch version
I also find it funny that the reviewer of the second game on VC said it's not as good as the first game and complained about features being removed, completely opposite of this review.
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/2007/04/shockman_virtual_console
@Sinton apparently yes, they should be working their way through the series. Could have easily been a compilation package though. I’m not sure if the final entry, originally for Nintendo’s Satellaview, will make an appearance though, as Colombus Circle obtained the license for it and released it as a physical Super Famicom cartridge in Japan in 2017.
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