 Ssss... That's drunk. This channel has been around for almost 10 years now, and I'm much better at making videos now than I was when I first started, so when I go back and watch the video I made for Cybernator back in December 2013, I know I can do much better now and do that game proper justice. Cybernator has long been one of my personal favorites, and hey, what better thing to do than talk for a while about one of your favorite games? So, let's do that. Cybernator was released in April 1993, published by Konami, but made by NCS, otherwise known as Messiah Games, who made all sorts of other great stuff, ranging from shooters like Glalancer on Sega Genesis, tactical strategy games like Langrisser, as well as silly, ridiculous stuff like the Shouniki series. I should mention that in Japan, Cybernator is known as Assault Suits Vulcan, and it's the prequel of Target Earth, or Assault Suits Rhenos on Sega Genesis, and the series later continued on Saturn, PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and Cybernator has recently been given an updated, re-release titled Assault Suits Vulcan Declassified for Nintendo Switch, developed by M2, and yeah, it's awesome. It's also got an all-new translation, although I'm not sure if it includes the Japanese ending, if it does, let me know in the comments. But we're just talking regular old Cybernator for Super Nintendo here, and you've got one health meter and three continues to get through seven levels with no saves or passwords, and it's B to jump, and you hold it down to hover for a bit, and it's Y to attack, A to dash, X to flip through your weapons, L to hold your aim, and R is your shield. When I played this as a rental back when I was a kid, I remember being really impressed that this game actually used every button on the controller. I was used to fighting games doing that, but not much else, so I really got hooked on trying different stuff to get through certain parts of the game. Like I said, this is a prequel to Target Earth story-wise, but the graphics, presentation, and sound design are all significantly improved in this game. But what I love most about Cybernator, and why I think it's held up well over time, is that the controls feel consistent across different settings and game modes. Like for example, in level one, you can breeze around and blow up these turrets with your melee attack, man that's satisfying, I could do this all day. Then in level two, the game shifts to a horizontal shoot-em-up, where you're dodging huge asteroids and flying around in a lower gravity environment. Level three is similar to the first level, but then level four has you plummeting to Earth with your suit burning up in the atmosphere. The feel of the controls of all three of these kinds of levels is a bit different, but not too different that the game suffers. Sometimes when games try this, it falls kind of flat. Like Battletoads for NES, that's another game that matches together different genres. In that case, it's a beat-em-up, a platformer, and you get all the turbo-tunnel stuff too. But that's a game that never totally clicked with me, because the controls feel so different from level to level. It's not the case with Cybernator, the controls feel consistent throughout the entire playthrough, regardless of what you have to do. The story complements the game structure too, the action takes place in the not-so-distant future after World War 4, and everyone is fighting over oil. Yeah, that'll happen. You play as a dude named Jake Brain, gotta love that name, and you follow his path as he joins the Federation and fights against the Axis government. The way the story is told here is through lots of character dialogue, portraits, and cutscenes, and it's all really well done, although personally, I'm not really a fan of just stopping the game out of nowhere, just to slowly scroll some text at you. Hey, General, I'm a little busy right now, can it wait? But still, I always admired how the story segments were done. I love how the game starts with your ship slamming into another ship, Kamikaze-style, which allows your mech inside this enemy ship to start kicking some ass. I mean, it's easy to go into a game like this and expect just a real simple playthrough where you're a mech, moving from left to right, blowing stuff up, the way the game flows from beginning to end has you following a path where you're infiltrating enemy ships, following them as they crash to the planet's surface, and then making your way into enemy headquarters. There weren't many other 16-bit action games like this that did that effectively. Now, some people may find this game to be pretty tough, and yeah, the controls take a little bit to get used to since there's a bit of a delay with how your mech jumps, and sometimes you may feel like a sitting duck, but all you gotta do is whip out your shield to protect yourself. Also, aiming is a little weird. Like, for example, to aim straight up, you have to hold down up on the D-pad, and your weapon has to rotate around to aim that way. Some people may not like that, but it works for me mostly because this approach gives the player 32 different angles of attack, and since you're rarely standing still in this game, it works out well, and the game doesn't require you to be that exact with your aim anyway. This game can be a bit of a challenge, though. I've finished it a few times, and it still gives me trouble, especially the shoot-em-up levels, but if you're looking for even more of a challenge, what's also nice is that the game gives you a chance of unlocking the most powerful weapon in the game right away, the napalm gun, and it's just a simple matter of not shooting anything in the first level except for the boss. But even then, that only gives you the napalm gun for just the second level. If you want to keep it, you have to clear the second level without taking damage and without shooting anything except the boss. If you can manage all that, then you've earned the napalm gun for the rest of the game. I really can't overstate how fun the settings are, though. Like, in this part, a boss evacuates his ship since it's about to crash down to Earth, so it's up to you to redirect its course by blowing up this energy core thing while the boss tries to stop you. Man, I remember playing this as a kid and my heart was just pounding from this point on for the rest of the game. Cybernator is full of little detailed touches, too, like these dudes running away from you after their cover is blown, floors and walls take damage from gunfire. It's clear this game wasn't just slapped together as a simple action platformer or whatever. A lot of work went into this one, so hats off and a sincere thank you to all those who helped make this one. And I also want to quickly mention that the Japanese version of this game, Assault Suits Vulcan, has portraits of the characters with each line of dialogue while the US version does not, which is kind of weird. If I had to guess why that is, it's likely something to do with the process of translating to English, and maybe English letters just took up too much space or something, I don't know. The Japanese version also has a different ending. In the US game, you beat the final boss and you get some text and the credit. But in the Japanese version, your mech flies up to the top floor of this building, finds Bob Evil or whatever his name is, and rather than face the consequences of his crimes, he pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head. Whoa, that is freaking nuts. Interestingly, there was no official word on who made the call to take this out of the game. Supposedly it was either Konami or Nintendo, but come on, we all know who it was. So yeah, in case you can't tell, I really like Cybernator. I go back to it all the time. It's tough, but not stupidly difficult. It's a longer playthrough for the genre, and it usually takes me well over an hour to finish. The graphics are great, the music is great. It's just one of those games where you can clearly tell it was made by people who actually played lots of video games and really knew what they were doing, which sadly can be hard to find sometimes with older games. The Japanese version was later ported to PlayStation 2, but you're gonna wanna avoid that one because it sucks. They change the controls around a bit, and it just doesn't play well as a result. Stick with the original. It's one of the best on Super Nintendo, and check it out on Switch if you can. It's well worth your time. All right, I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.