In 1994, a Super Famicom/Super Nintendo game based on the Cyborg 009 franchise was made one year after a game was made for the Mega-CD/Sega CD. This game was set immediately after the Cyborgs defeated Black Ghost. Another unrelated threat arrived to challenge the 00 Cyborgs.
The game was never released in the States or in English. However, I was able to find an English patch for the game. However again, the patch ended up messing up on a very important spot in the game. When you get to the point where we finally learn who the villain is and what their motivation is, the entire segment is accidentally replaced with the dialogue from the Arctic Circle mission. So I still had to scramble to translate that myself. For the most part, the patch, provided by Bec of RomHacking.com, was very good and I am beyond appreciative for it.
And thank god because I was trying to translate the whole game on my own and the text just would not stop (it auto-advanced too quickly) and the font was awful. It took me way too long to figure out what certain hiragana and katakana were purely because of the font, and I’m still very uncertain about two of them which look nothing like any characters I’ve seen.
But enough jibber-jabber, what of the actual game?
Story
The plot of this game is really cut and dry. After the 00 Cyborgs defeated Black Ghost, a series of odd occurrences start happening across the world. Gilmore’s like ‘Oh thank god nothing’s happening in Japan….ya know…where we are.’ And then things happen in Japan. Random robots or weapons from across the world get hacked and start attacking.
You’ll be faced with four missions with a hacked robot boss at the end of each mission. After defeating the first four bosses, Gilmore and 001 get kidnapped by the enemy. When they’re being held, Gilmore and 001 were able to find a photo and information on their captor. This is the part I had to translate myself, so this may not be completely accurate.
The man’s name is Giss. He used to be a famous figure in the field of electronics. The aforementioned photo was a picture of Giss and his son who had tragically died in a car accident. After his son died, his personality drastically changed. Giss experimented on human beings as sources of electricity, and then he started experimenting on himself. His experiments lead him to gaining the ability to control computers all across the globe. His goal, I believe, is that he wants to destroy all the world’s computers….for some reason.
When you finally confront Giss, he doesn’t say anything to you, and, after the final battle, he just dies….and everything’s okay again.
The end.
The story is fine for a quick SNES/SF game. I just would have liked a tiny bit more substance with Giss. Like maybe a small cutscene with him, him declaring his own motivations, some dialogue from him or something. Even him just talking about his son, who doesn’t even seem to get a name.
Missions
As I mentioned, there are a total of five missions in the game, but it seems like the missions are randomized besides missions one and five. I say this because I was watching a playthrough of the game (That playthrough is also where I got these screencaps since I didn’t record my playthrough. Thank you very much, Retro View.), trying to understand what to do since I didn’t have access to a manual to even figure out the control scheme. We had the same missions on mission one and two, but when we got to three I had a different mission. They had the Arctic Ocean mission and I had the England mission.
I thought maybe there were just two different versions of the game for some reason, but then I found and downloaded the English patch and replayed the first mission because I couldn’t restart from where I was with the new patch, and the second mission wasn’t the same as the first time I had played. The second mission for both my first time playing and the playthrough was the Greece mission. In my second time playing, I got the Arctic Ocean mission as my second, and I didn’t get to Greece until mission four, for some reason.
I have no clue why missions two through four are randomized. There’s literally no reason to do that. The only reason one and five aren’t randomized is because one is coming off the start of the main storyline and five is the finale.
Mission: Japan
Leader: 009
A pretty basic level with a little bit of everything to help introduce us to the mechanics of the game and how the levels will typically work. It has water hazards, platforms that are high up, dark areas, places blocked by boulders etc.
The enemies are pretty basic. There are some floating orbs that shoot at you, some mole robots that shoot at you, some pillars hiding in the ground that shoot missiles at you, some pillars that shoot lasers at you, some domed things on the ground that shoot at you – basically a lot of things that shoot at you. There are different types of enemies throughout the game, but they’re still largely the same concept. The only thing that really changes with the levels are the hazards.
You’ll quickly take notice of the fact that these levels are all insanely confusing and frustrating mazes with zero indication of where you’re meant to go. I got lost several times throughout the game, and that was with a playthrough to follow. It’s very easy to get trapped as well. You’ll never be softlocked, at least far as I could tell, but you will get into spots where getting out is a giant pain in the ass for no other reason besides the controls being janky.
The boss for this level is the giant enemy crab – the Crab Walker. He is defeated very easily by 005. All you have to do is hop on on the platforms of its legs and shoot at its eye with 005’s special ranged ability. Technically, I think any Cyborg would work well here as they all have blasters that could work just fine, but 005 has more powerful ranged attacks. About three or four shots and it’s down. 009 then swoops in, accelerated, and grabs the two cyborgs before it explodes.
Mission: Arctic Ocean
Leader: 008
This level is a fucking nightmare. I hated every second of it. Not surprising considering it’s an underwater level. Your leader here is 008 because Pyunma’s the only cyborg who can breathe underwater. He’s also the only cyborg who can swim at all – and 90% of the level takes place underwater.
The beginning of the stage is a long series of ice platforms, all just leading to some energy and experience, which, considering you have to deal with numerous robot fish who jump out of the water and shoot six bullets in a spray pattern every couple of seconds, it doesn’t really feel worth it. Once you get the items or if you want to skip that altogether, you just dive into the water as 008.
Do not under any circumstances turn into any other cyborg while in this part of the level. They drown, which is weird, because all of them are supposed to have at least extended lung capacity, but they all drown pretty fast when underwater too long. Your health goes down in chunks when you’re underwater, and it does not recover when you get out of the water, which I think is pretty lame and doesn’t make sense.
In the Japan mission, I fell into the water, was slowed down way too much, couldn’t swim and couldn’t get out as 009 in time. I did not have 008 in my roster because I didn’t think I needed him. Even the picture of the boss in the mission briefing was in the middle of a dense forest. I had been given no indication that there would even be water to fall into, nor that the other cyborgs were so slow or drowned easily. Even being under waterfalls for a second will deplete your HP. How does that make sense?
008 moves normally underwater, and his special ability allows him to swim upwards, which the other cyborgs, barring 007, can’t do for some reason – they can only walk underwater – and quickly swim in any direction. Unlike every other level which can reasonably be done with an assortment of any of the cyborgs, this one needs to be done with 008 – you have no choice whatsoever. Which is fine because he’s forced upon you as the leader of the group in this mission, but you still have to be him for nearly the entire level.
Figuring out where to go in an underwater mission is even more annoying, especially since one part of the level technically has two ways out as opposed to one exit in every other level. And where you exit from actually does matter. I had found the right exit, which immediately started the mini-boss of the level, the Black Moby Dick submarine thing, to bob up and down in a very enclosed rocky area. I had no idea I had to go left under the sub because that seemed like suicide, so I went up, and quickly kept getting crushed, but it was clearly an area I was meant to go on because there were enemies.
After I died, I found the left entrance, which didn’t trigger the sub bobbing up and down, but I still had to deal with the dozen or so turrets. The water being so difficult to maneuver in made it hard to dodge the shots. However, I did discover a little mini-cheat all by myself. Are you proud of me? :3
If you walk to a point where you can just barely see the turret and wait for it to sound like it just shot, you can time your approach so that it doesn’t shoot you. I think it’s either glitching on the shot when it’s barely off-screen or it’s shooting in the complete opposite direction for some reason. I never see any bullets when I do this, so I think it’s the former.
Still, it’s hard to avoid getting hit going through here, but I was probably just frustrated and going too fast. I got to the other side, which I thought would be the end, but it wasn’t. Getting to the end just triggered the sub to start bobbing up and down. Turns out going the right way was correct as it was a bit of a shortcut. But, again, the way the map is laid out leads you to believe going under it would be suicide and you have to go up. Not to mention that, it’s a submarine. Typically the entrances to subs aren’t on the very bottom – they’re on the top. So I just wasted health for no reason. Yay.
The only way to get to where you need to be under the sub is by dodging more turrets and using 008’s propelled underwater skill, if you can manage to trigger it. This is tricky and a pain in the ass. You’re bound to lose health either by the sub crushing you or the turrets hitting you. Still, for some reason, it was easier than the top section. Go figure.
You find the entrance to the sub, indicated by a white arrow, and blow a hole in it. Once you’re in the sub, the underwater part is over, thank god, but now you have a weirdly designed sub which trades in the normal maze format for a level maze format. You have about four levels each that are accessible through a series of elevators. You have to find the right elevators to get to the top and the boss room.
It’s actually not as frustrating as the normal maze levels are. I think this map may actually just be somewhat small compared to the others considering it’s meant to be a submarine. However, the confusion starts back up again when you reach the boss room.
Unlike every other boss room which is accessed via leaving the area by running right off screen indicated by a white arrow, this boss actually has a giant door. A door so giant I initially thought it was just part of the background and that I was in the wrong place (After all, why would such a massive door be in a submarine in the first place?), so I left and then came back later. As I stood there wondering where to go next, the door activated (Doors in this game activate by standing in front of them for a second or two). I thought I had tried waiting in front of the door the last time I was there, but maybe I didn’t wait long enough…?
Anyway, the boss of this level is shockingly easy compared to the difficulty of the rest of the level. Again, 005’s your ace in the hole here. Two arms reach out to grab you, but there is one safe spot. You just goad the arms into attacking then shoot with 005’s special ability when the arm retracts. Each arm takes one hit. When the arms are gone, it will then shoot at you with mini-turrets before opening up to reveal its giant kill-me spot, which also gets destroyed with a handful of blasts.
Suddenly, you become 008 and swim away, meeting your two friends up on the ice, which, uh, how the hell did you guys get up there?
Really, the only thing enjoyable about this level is the music, because it is really nice. So fitting and pretty. I loved it.
Mission: England
Leader: 005
The reason 005 is the leader here is because there are apparently boulders blocking the English Channel or something and only 005 has the strength to destroy them.
This is largely an underground level, which is weird because this is supposedly the English Channel. There’s a little more darkness in this level, which means 003 can be of some use here, but it’s a mostly straightforward level. The boss is definitely the easiest boss in the game. I don’t even really see how it qualifies as a boss. You literally walk up to the tank cannons and, as 005, you one-punch each barrel. You don’t even need his special ability, just his normal punch works fine.
Then there are three little turrets and computers with force fields that are also easily destroyed, but this time with 005’s special ability. Just one shot on each pretty much finishes the job. Retro View used 004’s leg missiles for the middle section in their playthrough, but I got through it without using 004.
Then 005 destroys the rocks which we didn’t even see and were like lazily put behind the boss at the last second, and the three leave to their next destination.
Mission: Greece
Leader: 002
Gilmore says 002 is needed for this mission because it involves planes and he’s the only one who can fly, but that’s pretty much a lie. You never need 002 at any point in this mission. You never even see any planes.
The start of the mission throws you into the sky, I have no idea where their starting point was before the level started, but you can easily land on the platform for the actual level no matter which cyborg you are, and there’s never any section where you can’t go through it without flying, nor does the boss require him, so….
Actually, being honest, he’s pretty much a detriment in the boss fight.
The only thing really different about this level is that some sections have some sort of giant train or trolley thing running through them, which only push you at first but damage you if you get crushed against the floor or wall.
Since there’s not much to talk about regarding the level, let’s just talk about the completely random boss fight with Apollo.
Yes, Apollo the cyborg from the Mythos arc. No reason given as to why he’s here or how. He should either be dead or this is pre-Mythos arc, which doesn’t make much sense. Is he being controlled? What’s going on? I have no clue how we went from being on an airplane to being in a Greek colos…..wait, the Colosseum’s not in Greece. Where the hell are they?
Apollo’s actually a bit of a pain in the ass. He’s certainly the second hardest boss in the game. He starts by zooming across the boss room on his chariot, trying to hit you with his horse. However, you can easily avoid these strikes by ducking. After about four passes, the horse will come in on the lefthand side of the screen to stop and shoot at you. 005 kills the robot horse in a few basic punches. Horse is easy – Apollo’s the pain.
Apollo also zooms in back and forth across the boss room, but he’s faster and does more damage. The reason I said 002 might be a detriment here is because, if you stay under the top of the wall, Apollo will stay in an area where you can easily hit him. If you fly above the wall, he’ll follow you and more easily hit you while it will be really difficult to hit him, even with a blaster.
The trick to this boss is using 007 and 005 in tandem. When Apollo is zooming around, you switch to 007 to transform into a bird and fly around under the height of the wall to avoid his strikes. Once he stops, after about four or five passes, he’ll do a pretty damaging AOE. When this happens, immediately fly to the lefthand side of the screen, untransform, switch to 005, and then, when Apollo’s done and is standing for a few seconds, go punch him a few times. Doing that about two or three times will kill Apollo. Yup, he explodes and everything, making this even more confusing. 002 then gives everyone a ride as the place blows up.
Mission: Germany
Leader: 004
I don’t think they even give a reason as to why 004’s leader here, besides the fact that he’s German. Most of the briefing dialogue is talking about how Gilmore and Ivan got kidnapped. Ivan just asks for Albert specifically when their communication gets cut off.
This is our final level, and, sadly, it doesn’t do much to stand out. It has a new section where there are conveyor belts for assembly lines and you have to avoid getting crushed and hitting the little hook things, but that’s about it.
The mini-boss for this level is some sort of spaceship thing. 005 is again very useful here. It will just keep swooping down at you and you have to blast it with 005’s special attack or punch it about a dozen or two times and it will crash. It doesn’t even do much damage, to be honest.
When the ship is defeated and Gilmore and Ivan figure out who the enemy is, they send in 009 alone to fight him. Why? I have no idea. They just say only he can do it. I guess I kinda understand because his acceleration is a tiny bit helpful in the boss, but that’s about it.
After going through a somewhat unique level with colorful platforms and lightning shooting from the floor, we quickly (and linearly, for a change) get to the boss. This boss is a pain in the ass. And it has nothing to do with how difficult he is – it has everything to do with how little opportunity you have to hit him and the fact that he has way too much HP.
In the playthrough, and this person definitely knew what they were doing, it took them a solid 10 minutes of doing the same go around over and over and over and over. It took me over 20 minutes and a few tries because I couldn’t get the right pattern down. Once you do get the pattern down, it’s very easy, but also tedious.
The pattern is, stand on the middle platform in the center, right in the middle of two of the little lightning things so they don’t shock you, let the lightning things cycle through until they reach the end, then Giss will appear in a completely random spot in the boss arena. I’m not just guessing – it is random. I confirmed this by using a save state. Whenever I would put a save before he’d appear, he’d always be in a different spot on the load. And yes, I’m confessing to using a save state because, dammit, I didn’t want to have to keep sitting there for hours doing the same thing over and over and over, just because I’d wind up getting worn down by random damage. Trust me, I earned the win, and I still don’t feel accomplished.
When Giss appears, you have approximately two seconds (maybe three with acceleration) to hit him before he does his series of attacks, all of which make him invincible to harm.
First, he’ll AOE cloak himself in lightning and teleport to various random spots in the arena. Dodging is sometimes helped with the accelerator, but the accelerator only lasts a few seconds, and it really only helps in avoiding some damage. He’s only slightly slowed down when you’re accelerated. Even when you’re accelerated, he can BS damage by teleporting right on top of you, leaving no room to escape.
By the way, if you’re on a platform and, after the lightning attacks from below, he appears on the ground floor, just forget about jumping down to hit him. You’ll likely run out of time before you can get down there to aim and shoot.
After his AOE lightning attack, he’ll sometimes skim across the screen while still cloaked in lightning. Sometimes, he’s up above, meaning you have to duck, sometimes he’s down below, meaning you have to jump, and sometimes he’s right in the middle, meaning you have to hope you’re in a spot where you can get to the ground level or jump on the higher platforms otherwise you’ll get hit.
Finally, he’ll shoot some small ball of energy and teleport away, causing the cycle to start all over again. Repeat ad nauseam forever. That small ball of energy, by the way, is the one thing that never hit me….at least when it was aimed at me. For some reason, he’s so tall that if you are on the platform directly above him when he’s shooting this little ball, the hit box will be just big enough when he’s summoning it that it will cause you damage, even if it doesn’t make any sense how that would hit you.
Once you’re finally able to whittle down his health, he dies, you reunite with Gilmore and 001, and pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Gameplay
The gameplay mechanics are a little janky, I’m not going to lie. This is an action platformer, meaning the jumping mechanics have to be very good, but they’re not. You constantly miss jumps that you should logically be able to make. You make the exact same jump, down to the pixel, later and suddenly you can make it.
There’s no double jump, but there is a wall jump, and it’s automatic for some reason. I didn’t even realize this until I saw it in the playthrough. Apparently, while the wall jump is automatic, it’s only automatic if you’re pointing the directional pad in the direction you want to jump next as you hit the wall, which is so awkward. I’ve never seen a wall jump ability that didn’t utilize the jump button. The fact that the game will also put little stalactites and other ceilings and stuff to hit your head on as you’re jumping doesn’t help matters.
It wasn’t terribly unwieldy, but considering the levels are already a massive maze with spots you can easily get stuck in unless you get lucky with jumps or have a character who can fly, it’s definitely frustrating.
You have a normal jump, a jump with attack, and a special ability. You also can crouch, which is useful sometimes.
Some of the characters also have a secondary special ability that is triggered….somehow. I was never able to really get down pat exactly how to do this. The most frustrating example being 008 and trying to figure out how the hell to rush in any direction. I know it has something to do with the jump or fire buttons after the ability is activated, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. It was sheer luck that I was able to activate it underneath the sub during the Arctic Ocean mission. If I hadn’t lucked out there, I’d just have to slowly float across the bottom and definitely take too much damage from being hit by the sub.
I’d constantly activate 007’s secondary ability on accident and I still don’t know how. I’d just be jumping and suddenly 007 would transform into an enemy. However, I still never managed to figure out how to use 004’s leg missile. Maybe this was just the way my buttons were mapped to my controller, because it doesn’t seem like anyone else had this issue, but literally everything else worked perfectly fine except the secondary ability.
Each mission starts with choosing a three person team, the leader of which already being chosen for you. The only cyborg you’re not allowed to use is 001 because he’s a baby I guess. Also probably because he’d be too OP for this. You cycle through the cyborgs by hitting the left or right bumpers. Despite having three cyborgs on your team, they share health for some reason, meaning you can’t switch to a fresh cyborg if you’re nearly dead.
Each level has pickups for health, energy and exp. You health is finite in each level, meaning you’re limited to purely what health you can find.
Finding energy, which is used for special abilities, is kinda useful, but energy replenishes on its own so I didn’t really find myself too excited when I found one.
Exp is doled out at the end of the level. And if you accidentally dole it out to someone you didn’t mean to give it to, tough shit. No takesies backsies. And it took me a little bit to even understand how to cycle through the cyborgs in the experience screen. On my first play, I accidentally nearly maxed out 002 (the default choice) because I couldn’t figure out how to cycle to the next cyborg. It’s the bumpers again, but it’s super finicky on whether it wants to register. Again, though, maybe that’s just my problem with the controls or unfamiliarity or what have you. I don’t really feel like exp helps make the cyborgs noticeably faster or stronger, but maybe I just didn’t find enough of it.
After each stage is over, you’re given a score, shown the percentage of exp you found from the level, and then you move on to the next stage.
I really did like how each cyborg felt useful in each level to varying degrees. I am SO HAPPY that it gave them quite a bit to do, at least optionally for the most part. I feel like, besides 008 in the Arctic Ocean level, every level could be done with any assortment of cyborgs to varying degrees of difficulty. It didn’t feel like 009 was the most powerful one because he’s the star/leader, which tended to happen a lot in the manga and anime. It really feels like a team effort, and that’s something I desperately wanted from a Cyborg 009 game, so big props to them for that.
002 can fly. He can either hover or fly fast in any direction. This pretty much just makes him slightly faster than the other cyborgs since there’s no point where you’d need to fly. Well, there are platforms that you definitely can’t access unless you have a character who can fly…..but…..I’ll address that in a bit. His flying eats up a LOT of energy, so you can’t fly for very long.
003 can use her super senses to see in the dark, which is useful a little bit, but I never used her. There just wasn’t many darkened areas to justify bringing her along, and the dark areas really aren’t that bad to navigate, especially since health/energy/exp shows up in the dark. Enemies don’t show up in the dark, which is her main benefit here, but you do have a fairly reasonable ‘light’ area around you. I can definitely see her benefit in these areas, but they’re kinda nearly entirely useless when…….I’ll address that in a minute.
004 has a scatter machine gun that shoots in three different directions. He also has a leg missile that can be shot upward. 004 comes in handy once, and, like I said, even then, I didn’t really need him since I used 005 just fine.
005 has the ability to destroy stone barriers, allowing the player access to certain locations in the level. But his main claim to fame is his higher defense, his powerful punch and his ranged super punch ability, which makes quick work of many bosses. There are two downsides to 005, however. His special ability is super slow, both on activation and recovery, and he has no blaster. His basic attack is pure melee.
006 has a flamethrower, which can destroy obstacles and is a slightly longer ranged attack than the super gun. I never used 006 either. I think any barrier he can destroy with his fire is one that can be destroyed with a super gun or 005’s punch. I think there might be some metal barriers in the final level that could be melted by him and no one else, but I’m not sure. It’s a shame, because, being the Mole of the group, he could’ve tunneled under levels or dug to other levels or something.
I’ll address 007 in a minute.
008, as we’ve discussed, has swimming abilities. They’re very much just like 002’s flying abilities, just….ya know…underwater. Also, he’s the only cyborg who can breathe/take no damage by being underwater.
009 has his accelerator, which allows him to evade some damage, and avoid certain obstacles, which is cool, but A) for some reason, the accelerator shuts off after about five seconds and I don’t know why. Any other power that is meant to stay on, like 002’s flight or 008’s underwater abilities, stay on the entire time unless you press the button again, but 009’s accelerator just won’t stay on. I get that having it on indefinitely would make the game too easy, but I still feel like it should be able to stay on a bit longer and maybe have a cooldown instead of having it be in five second bursts. And B) While it is nice to avoid some damage and obstacles, the controls feel too janky for me to ever use him unless I was forced. His accelerator did help a bit in the boss fight against Giss, I think it helped me avoid some damage, but it also lead me into zooming straight into his face several times.
As for 007…..
He completely breaks this game.
007’s ability is listed in the Fandom page as simply being the ability to turn into enemy robots, giving him their attack abilities, which, honestly, is just kinda lame because nearly every enemy has the same gun, and the blaster’s better. They also may or may not be tricked into thinking he’s an ally and won’t attack him when transformed this way. It was hard to tell.
What that page doesn’t tell you is what his other special ability is – turning into a tiny game-breaking bird.
Now you’re probably wondering how turning into a little bird when you’re up against robots and god knows how many weapons of war is worth anything, let alone is game-breaking.
Basically, Lil’ Bird 007 allows you to avoid nearly everything in every level.
Stuff up high? Imma bird, let me get it.
Ooh scary enemies down below. Imma bird, I’ll fly over them.
This level is a giant maze, so difficult to find my way on foot. Imma bird, I’ll just fly around until I find my way.
Platforming in this game is a bit of a pain. Imma bird, no need to platform at all.
Ooh these things are shooting every which way. Imma bird, my hit box is too small to get me most of the time.
Uh oh, this place is cloaked in darkness and there are enemies everywhere. Imma bird, I’ll just follow the ceiling, fly to avoid the enemies and make my way just fine.
Lil’ Bird 007 isn’t even hindered in water. He still loses HP, but he has the same amount of speed and mobility, which makes no sense.
Lil’ Bird 007 is also much easier to handle in the air than 002, and the transformation takes up much less energy than 002’s flight. There’s no reason I can see to ever use 002 besides the fact that he flies faster, but, like I said, he eats up so much energy that it balances out.
The only thing that annoyed me with Lil’ Bird 007 was the fact that he’d sometimes randomly get his head stuck on the ceiling, but that was it. Flying around as 007 made what would have been an extremely frustrating traverse through each level into a relatively easy affair. Not to the point where I never found any challenge in it, but still enough to lift quite a bit of stress and frustration from my shoulders.
005 is also fairly game-breaking, but not nearly as bad as 007. 005 is basically the boss machine. He makes quick work of pretty much any boss, sometimes embarrassingly so. I’d actually want to see how he’d fare against Giss, but the game doesn’t let you fight him with anyone else besides 009. The only boss where any other cyborg was useful was Apollo because I really needed flight, and like I said 007 was better in that situation than 002.
Graphics
The graphics are alright. Everyone looks okay. The only characters who look a bit off are 007, who looks strange and a little older than he actually is, and 008 who is very blue. This is likely because of the redesign for the movie, Legend of the Super Galaxy, where they finally got rid of the blackface design and tried to lessen the racist implications (to appeal more to western audiences) by both giving him a less offensive design and giving him bluish purple skin, which was, for lack of a better term, an overcorrection. Giving him a non-blackface design, yes, do that, but making him bluish purple kinda makes it bad again. Not as bad, but still.
This isn’t like making Mr. Popo blue or Jynx purple, this is an actual black person being made blue. As in, it makes off like the character just isn’t black anymore. This is bad enough for any black character, but being very prideful of his African heritage is a huge part of Pyunma’s character, so making him blue feels like they’re being very disrespectful of that.
The levels and bosses all look good with some impressive detailing, but none of them really stand out. The levels, barring the Arctic Ocean level, just kinda blend together after a while. And the bosses, while being unique, also don’t do much to make themselves memorable. They’re just robots that shoot at you. The only one that stands out is Apollo, and that’s only because his appearance is so random and he’s frickin’ Apollo. Even Giss himself doesn’t have a memorable design. He’s literally just a shadowy monstrous figure. Definitely doesn’t give off grieving father vibes.
Music
The music is pretty darn good, especially the Arctic Ocean level. All of the songs were quite fitting and exciting, even if it did start to get pretty repetitive.
Conclusion
I know I complained quite a bit about this game, but it’s actually pretty decent. Like I said, my favorite aspect of the game was that they recognized that each cyborg had their own unique abilities and tried to incorporate them into each level to give them some degree of usefulness, and they didn’t make 009 OP or like you couldn’t beat the game without him. They did just hand the final boss over to him, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
You definitely can beat this game just using an assortment of whatever cyborgs you want, allowing fans to play their favorites and giving the game some replay value. The only issue with that aspect is the aforementioned game-breaking Lil’ Bird 007. If you don’t ‘cheat’ and use him, though, you’re probably fairly fine with everyone else.
The levels are a mixed bag. On one hand, being so huge and maze-like allows for a good degree of exploration, which is great, but on the other hand there’s nothing to find.
Unlike in many other games where you can find power-ups or cool Easter eggs, hidden rooms, items you can keep in reserve or extra bits and pieces of the story, the only thing to find in Cyborg 009 is health, energy and exp, and I feel like only health is worthwhile because you can’t regen health in any other way. You can sit and wait to restore your energy. You may or may not need exp. But you need health.
And let me tell you that it’s pretty disappointing to follow a path to a dead end only to find health that, at the moment, you don’t need. If you wind up getting hurt later, chances are you won’t bother trying to remember where in the maze the health is to replenish it, and it’s a waste to take it if you’re full health.
Did I mention that enemies automatically respawn when their spawn points scroll off-screen? No respawn time at all – it’s instant the millisecond you go beyond that point. So if you do scramble to get health after getting hurt, chances are you’ll lose some health on your way back.
The controls are workable, but awkward. The jumping feels really weird and characters don’t make jumps very well. They jump high, hang in the air and then quickly plummet down. This wouldn’t be a problem at all in any other type of game, but considering it’s a platformer with HUGE maze-like levels, it’s a pretty glaring issue. It’s not broken by any means, it’s just very frustrating and needed more finesse.
It’s very difficult to find much information on this game online. You can find the bare basics, but that’s about it. You can’t find really any information on the story or a copy of the manual or anything. There are a few reviews, but most aren’t terribly detailed. Giss doesn’t even have an entry on the Cyborg 009 Fandom site.
Overall, this game had a very cool idea and foundation, and there are definitely aspects to love, but it just amounts to be a very okay game. My major issues in regards to the malfunctioning controls are probably just user error somehow. I can see why it never got an American release. If the end boss fight wasn’t unreasonably long, I’d probably replay just for the sake of trying out the other cyborgs and seeing how they fare, but I’m hanging it up. It was a quick bit of fun, and a suitable game entry in the Cyborg 009 franchise.
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