Thanks to Ratalaika Games for the review code
Title: Cyber Citizen Shockman 3: The princess from another world
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $5.99
Release Date: 05/03/2024
Story
In the final PC Engine installment of the Shockman series, you take control of the two heroes on their final adventure as they set out to investigate an alien spaceship, and their plans revolving around a Demon King from another dimension!
Being on PC Engine CD now, you’d think Shockman 3 would be more story driven than 2, but surprisingly the story here really isn’t that prevalent. You get an intro cutscene, a couple of cutscenes every now and then, and then an ending that feels incredibly abrupt without feeling like you did much of anything.
Needless to say, this is more silly like the first game was, so I guess the lack of seriousness here makes sense, and considering how some of the cutscenes don’t even hesitate to parody other popular games on the PC Engine, the plot here is more to give the heroes a reason to go on another adventure.
Presentation
The Ratalaika wrapper returns, with the usual border/display/filter options all making a comeback and looking as good as ever. With the game having a lot of spoken dialogue, all of the dialogue is presented with subtitles now, and they look great, presenting in a very readable fashion via an overlay. I was a little worried they’d leave the voices unsubtitled like Image Fight II on their Irem set, but no, Ratalaika has done a great job here.
They even went as far as to edit the in-game graphics for the few traces of Japanese text present during the ending and bonus cutscenes, translating those into english too! Add in the return of a bunch of scans for manual, box, and key/concept art, and you definitely have another localization effort filled with love.
As for the game itself, the music benefits from the CD upgrade and is rather good, although I found the score overall to be much less memorable than the outstanding OST from Shockman 2. Still, one track is a great remix of a tune from that game, and the rest of the OST here is catchy, so it gets the job done. The visuals look far better than the previous two games, with the HUD being so simple it easily blends in with the gameplay and is non-intrusive, and the few animated cutscenes are well done. There’s even some impressive use of scrolling during certain segments. For a CD-ROM game that didn’t use the Super CD advantages, Shockman 3 is a very pretty game.
Gameplay
Upon starting the game, you have two versions to pick from, but that’s where we run into our first unfortunate issue with this release; no matter which one you choose, you’re still stuck with the English version! No matter what I did or toggled in the settings, the JP version of Shubibinman 3 would just not enable whatsoever, as it would still give me the US version with the english text cutscene edits. I was able to make the subtitle overlay Japanese, but that was the most I could do, so it was Shockman 3 through and through. Either way, that seems like a pretty weird bug in need of being fixed, and might annoy some other purists wanting to compare and contrast with the Japanese version of the game, so I figure I’d note that.
Otherwise, the wrapper’s display options look good, rewind and fast-forward work great, and you have optional cheats to toy around with if you so choose, including the option to unlock the Bonus video from the start of the game.
The Bonus video was a series of funny cutscenes that would show up in the options menu upon beating the game, and since you can unlock it right away, you can witness Kyapiko reading off the various winners of a PC Engine art contest from the early 1990s, even showing off all of their winning artwork! However due to the fact all the winners won this contest decades and decades ago and aren’t able to be cleared for this reissue, the specific voice lines that name the magazine and the winners themselves are muted, leaving them redacted as XXXXXXXXX in the subtitles. Still, it’s impressive this made it into the reissue at all, let alone in a translated fashion! There are even three funny comedic skits thrown in at the end, all of which have been hard subtitled into english.
With the bonuses outta the way, how’s the main game? Well, you go from stage to stage, now deviating away from the run and gun focus of the prior game and back to something more akin to the first Shockman, with both heroes using their sword. They can still fire a charge shot by holding down the B button, but an oddity in this game is that using the shockbeam will freeze your movement in place until the shot leaves the screen, so bear that in mind if you try to use it while moving.
Still, the swordplay here is much, much better than in the original Shockman, and it reminds me a lot of how the Valis games handled the sword. You got decent enough reach, do plenty of damage to enemies, and the game as a whole is rather gentle, a much appreciated decrease in difficulty compared to the wildly spiking curves from the prior two games. It even makes Co-op much better than before, as while you still share the same health bar, the more easygoing nature of the difficulty and shorter stages makes for a much more enjoyable experience overall. You even have the return of side-scrolling shooter stages, and both of these are far, far better designed than the ones in Shockman 2, even throwing in a cool Cho Aniki reference in one of them!
You have a higher difficulty in-game if you find the adventure a bit too easy, but even then the game is a lot more fair than the prior two entries. Unfortunately, while this all sounds like it could lead to Shockman 3 being the best game in the series, a few quirks set it back for me. While easier, the stages are rather short, almost to the point that you’ll be just getting the hang of a level only to run into the boss and destroy it in no time! If you use the shockbeam, bosses can even die before they finish speaking their dialogue to you, including the final boss! The harder difficulty level is definitely a must to prevent that, but even that won’t help the super short length of some stages.
On one hand, that’s a good thing since when you die, hitting any button upon death will immediately kick you back to the player select screen, making it seem rather abrupt if you’re in the middle of attacking an enemy. Still, selecting your character again will put you right back on the stage you were just in, so you have infinite continues to use here. Needless to say, by the time I was getting the hang and having fun blazing through the stages in Shockman 3… It was already over! Just under forty minutes for the entire adventure, and as much as I had fun, I couldn’t help but feel that this one felt a bit more incomplete in comparison to the previous installments, with a final act that comes so fast and outta nowhere it barely has any time to develop.
Playing with a friend and on the higher difficulty is another way to get more time in, but really there won’t be much to draw you back to this one after you beat it. At least the prior two games had high enough difficulty, some of the best HUCard music and alternate routes to warrant attempting it more than once! Another annoyance that I’m unsure if it stems from the port or the original game is how hitting the D-Pad at any point during a story cutscene will start speeding it up, and completely mute out all the audio. Accidentally hold a direction as a cutscene begins? Sorry, you gotta rewind and not do that, or listen to the whole thing in complete silence. A very strange bug indeed, and considering how buggy the second game could get at times, it would not shock me if this was a quirk with the original disc.
Conclusion
Shockman 3 had the potential to be the best game in the entire franchise, and a grand sendoff for the main trilogy. It was on CD, had more balanced gameplay than ever before, the best co-op experience of the bunch, and just was a great time all around! But sadly, it ends far, far too quickly without much resistance whatsoever, and considering how some oddities of this port and the original game left me scratching my head, the most edge I can give this game above the others is that it isn’t absurdly difficult anymore; now it’s absurdly easy!
Still, if you’re looking to close out the Shockman series, love PC engine platformers, or just want a co-op action game to play through without much fuss, this is still a solid one that’ll serve a good half hour or so of your time. It’s just a shame, since aspects of the second game could have been greatly expanded here to make Shockman 3 the ultimate entry in the series, but as it stands, you just have an easygoing game that ends right before it can ramp up.
I give Cyber Citizen Shockman 3: A princess from another world a 7 out of 10,