The game starts as a bland and limited platformer with a kind of "metroidvania" level design and checkpoints, even though there really isn't a connected world the same way it works in other metroidvanias.
It's divided by levels so there isn't much exploration either. As far as I know, you can only find energy tanks (collect 3 and get permanent extra HP), every new ability is dropped by bosses.
And almost every one of them feels useless.
The dash slash and pogo attack (and double jump) stand out because it gives Shadow a lot of movement options that can be chained together in a lot of different ways, but you only get to use them simultaneously more than halfway through the game.
Until that point, Shadow's moveset is so limited and the powerups are so weak and specific that it really feels like a really long introduction. When you finally get to the good part, the game still feels like it's trying to teach you how it works.
For example, the last level makes you purposefully pogo enemies to reach platforms for the first time, even though it's one of the first abilities you get.
My favourite parts of the game are the sections where you can rush levels full speed by chaining all of Shadow's abilities, I think the levels that are full of spikes and small corridors don't belong in here.
Combat is as straight forward as you'd expect, and the bosses are just Megaman bosses (and Serris from Metroid Fusion), but it can be fun and dynamic sometimes, and I think the parry is super cool.
There are also a number of powerups, some of them feel like life savers, and the rest of them are kinda useless or not much useful in comparison.
I think this game can shine as a speed game, finding the fastest routes could be so fun. But overall it falls short, the story is uneventful (and feels like any Megaman X but with a twist), and it does nothing special that couldn't be found in the other games that inspired Cyber Shadow.
It's divided by levels so there isn't much exploration either. As far as I know, you can only find energy tanks (collect 3 and get permanent extra HP), every new ability is dropped by bosses.
And almost every one of them feels useless.
The dash slash and pogo attack (and double jump) stand out because it gives Shadow a lot of movement options that can be chained together in a lot of different ways, but you only get to use them simultaneously more than halfway through the game.
Until that point, Shadow's moveset is so limited and the powerups are so weak and specific that it really feels like a really long introduction. When you finally get to the good part, the game still feels like it's trying to teach you how it works.
For example, the last level makes you purposefully pogo enemies to reach platforms for the first time, even though it's one of the first abilities you get.
My favourite parts of the game are the sections where you can rush levels full speed by chaining all of Shadow's abilities, I think the levels that are full of spikes and small corridors don't belong in here.
Combat is as straight forward as you'd expect, and the bosses are just Megaman bosses (and Serris from Metroid Fusion), but it can be fun and dynamic sometimes, and I think the parry is super cool.
There are also a number of powerups, some of them feel like life savers, and the rest of them are kinda useless or not much useful in comparison.
I think this game can shine as a speed game, finding the fastest routes could be so fun. But overall it falls short, the story is uneventful (and feels like any Megaman X but with a twist), and it does nothing special that couldn't be found in the other games that inspired Cyber Shadow.