"Deploy all suits now!": Assault Suit Valken (Cybernator) Review

Overall Score: 4.4/5

B+

Reaching a bit back for this one. Known as Assault Suit Valken in Japan, Cybernator came out in the US in 1993, the era before Konami became the fan pariah it is now. Typical of the 16-bit era, Cybernator is a side scrolling run-and-gun arcade style action game. Think Contra if Bill Rizer was in a big mech.

Gameplay: 5
To a degree the game is your typical 16-bit fare. Although, while run-and-gun side scrollers were a dime a dozen before the PlayStation came onto the scene, Cybernator is a particularly well made one.

The player controls the titular Assault Suit Valken, a towering humanoid mech that stands about 2 stories tall. The Valken comes equipped with a vulcan gun that has a slight spread effect, a punch attack, and an indestructible shield that is used for blocking attacks. Other weapons come along like a powerful laser cannon. The Valken also comes with a booster for limited flight and boosted jumps, as well as grind rollers on the feet to allow it to "skate" short distances. The player can also direct the angle to fire the Valken's gunpod from, from straight up to straight down (for a total of 9 directions the Valken can aim), so the player can attack targets above them as they ascend, or strafe targets below them as the drop down, or boost jump or hover. The shield is also conveniently given it's own button so the player doesn't need to cycle though to equip it in order to block attacks. Aiming the Valken's gun is done with the d-pad, but there is also a "hold" button that lets the player lock the direction the gun is aimed, allowing the player to move forward with the gun angled upward or downward, or with the gunpod aimed forward to retreat back while firing forward. The Valken itself can also take a pretty generous beating itself before going down, meaning the player can take quite a number of hits, it certainly is no "glass cannon", but be careful it isn't a Gundam either. With health pick-ups along the way, the game certainly isn't "Nintendo hard" either like, say, R-Type III, but it is plenty challenging enough.

Along with the usual surface levels that have you stomping around in the Valken there are also several levels that have a sort of flight pack or "sturm booster" to use Gundam terminology, that player more like side scroller shooter along the lines of R-Type. The nice thing is, this format is actually introduced in the second level, so the player is able to experience both styles of levels right away.

Levels range from space colonies, to deep space, to various locations on Earth, spanning from snowy mountains to the enemy capital with the final location being the enemy government's assembly building. The levels in deep space actually differ from levels in the colonies or on Earth in that there is less gravity and less friction so the controls become more floaty or slippery, adding to a functional difference between being in space an in an atmosphere in addition to an aesthetic difference.



Stability: 5
As standard with the era, before DLC, before patch downloads, a company had only one chance to get it right. You released a broken product and that game was done, there was no fixing it once the game had shipped. That said, I've played though the game with nary a hiccup. No crashes, no can't advances, the game is perfectly stable.


Plot: 4 

According to in game text, the game happens in the context of a massive war between two superpowers, the Federation and the Axis, over the dwindling resources left on Earth. Story progression is done though text between missions, and in mission dialogue, with a short intro at the start of the game. Fortunately the game will pause for a bit as the text scrolls, so the player isn't trying to fight and read at the same time. The player fills the boots of Jake, a pilot with the Pacific States Marine Corp. within the Federation military hierarchy.

While extremely light by modern standards, the plot is actually fairly fleshed out for an action game of the era. Usually for a lot of action games of the era, there are a few paragraphs of plot in the instruction booklet, and that's it. You can fill in the rest with your imagination. Here we actually have a few named characters with regular dialog from them.



The overall plot itself isn't really all that original. Natural resources run low and war breaks out between rival powers, and ends with your side eventually storming the enemy capital and bringing the war to it's conclusion. No crazy twists at the end. We don't see your side doing anything questionable. It's pretty cut and dry. But on the same token the plot is presented in a more in-depth way than it's contemporaries.

Though for some reason, while the Japanese version had character profile images in the dialog boxes, these were removed for the US localization. Not a huge deal, but it does cause a little bit of a disconnect where you can't really see what the character looks like, rendering them down to just scrolling text. The game also has two endings, a good and a bad ending, which on you get depends on your actions in two levels, one where a desperate enemy commander tries to drop an orbital space fortress on Earth (ala Gundam colony drop), and the other where the enemy is attempting to launch a shuttle carrying critical payload.

Compared to the original Japanese version there was a bit of cut content in Cybernator, not to the extent of the butchering that happened to Castlevania Dracula X. Cut content includes:

• The previously mentioned character images in the dialogue boxes. 
• The vast majority of the radio chatter between Jake and his squadmates.
•  A scene depicting the European Union banner as the Axis flag.
• A scene where the enemy president commits suicide, via shooting himself in the head, once he realizes the war is lost, possibly an allusion to Adolf Hitler given the enemy side is called "Axis". 
• A post-credits radio transmission that hints to the events of Assault Suit Laynos (another game in the Assault Suit series. Laynos was renamed Target Earth for the international release and Valken takes place before Laynos).

A couple things with this. On one hand I wanted to score the plot a 3/5 due to the cut content, but I ultimately decided that 4/5 would be a more fair score. For one thing, cutting content from the original Japanese version for the international releases was just about par for the course during the '80s and into the early '90s. It wouldn't fair to apply 2017's standards (when this kind of thing wouldn't be tolerated) to the customs and regular practice of 1993. Second, even with the cut content, there was still more of a story presented than there was with the game's contemporaries.

Graphics and Visuals: 5

The graphics, while sprite based actually has quite a bit of detail in the Valken's animation. The arm will rotate to aim it's gunpod in the appropriate direction and the Valken will change it's posture depending on the angle the gunpod is pointed at. When jumping up, the Valken will actually look up, or while drifting back in the low gravity levels, the Valken's legs will swing forward to accompany the Assault Suit's backwards movement. The level of detail is such that you can even damage the environment. Shooting the ground in some level will actually cause the ground to "crater" with rudimentary damage modeling. Might not be a big deal now, but this is 1993 on the 16-bit SNES.

The game also makes use of a variety of colors, such as the screen grab to the right which depicts a boss battle amid an atmospheric re-entry. In contrast once arriving on Earth, one level has a more alpine setting.

The Valken as well as the enemies have smooth animation, as well as the screen scroll. The total package at the end is a game that looks great in these still screen grabs, and looks just as great in motion.

 Art and Music: 4
The art style has very strong anime influences. The Valken itself has a blocky design and bears a bit of a passing resemblance to the Scopedog Armored Trooper's (Armored Trooper VOTOMS) design style. The Valken also has a bit of a resemblance to the Wanzers of Front Mission. Unlike the flashier Mobile Suits and Variable Fighters, the Valken has a more utilitarian look to it, the way a tank would. It doesn't have any superfluous design features like an ornate fin on the head or spikes on the shoulders, nor does it have a high-vis paint scheme. It's a blocky, olive drab machine without any features that it doesn't need. If the Panzer IV or the M4A3E8 Sherman or the T-34 were reincarnated as mechs, the Assault Suit Valken would be it. 

Character design is provided by famed artist Satoshi Urushihara, known for various anime, and video games (bit of warning he also does hentai so if you run his name though a google search you might get some NSFW hits), and the game reflects his distinct style. Even rendered down to 16-bit, his style still stands out.

The music, well, the music is there and does well for the background tone and atmosphere. It does it's job, but compared to other music from the era, like Street Fighter II or Castlevania IV and Dracula X are much more memorable tracks than Cybernator's outing.  That's not to say the music in Cybernator is bad, but I quickly forgot about it after I finished the game.



Final Verdict: Worth Playing!

An excellent game that sets itself apart from other side-scroller run-and-gun arcade shooters of the era. It has great intuitive gameplay and a good challenge. It's not controller breaking Nintendo Hard, but it will put your skills to the test. It, alongside games like Castlevania IV are exemplar of the kind of quality that Konami once put out. If you're looking for a good 'ol fashioned old school action game, you won't go wrong on this one.