Cyber-Core (TurboGrafx-16)
The influence of Gradius can be felt across plenty of old shoot ’em up games, its upgrade system focused on gradual improvement that can be entirely lost the instant you take damage cropping up constantly in games that end up lesser for its inclusion. It’s not a system without some merit though despite the often sloppy implementation, and Cyber-Core shows us that the concept can be used to good effect with one important alteration: a bit of leniency in how many hits you can take.
On his adventure to take back Earth from the Hyper Insect menace, Rad Ralph uses a mutating fighter craft known as the Chimera. The Chimera is able to adapt based on the color of weapon it picks up, but most importantly, when it picks up a weapon, it is granted a layer of shielding. Upgrading that weapon by picking up more of it will not only give you a stronger version of that power, but it also continues to add to your shielding up until you’ve reached a maximum of three hits that won’t take you down, and collecting those weapon power-ups again will start to refill any missing shields. What’s more, even once you’ve run out of shielding, your craft can still weather a few blows, your upgrades now serving as layers of health. A hit will knock you down a level in your upgrade chain, and only once your Chimera has returned to its default form can it finally be destroyed by an enemy attack. Not only does this design approach make collecting upgrades more rewarding, it allows the player to properly enjoy the new weapons they’ve gained while still incentivizing a careful approach because the weapons can still be lost quite easily. Cyber-Core definitely pushes against the player hard enough that damage is a constant risk, and since upgrading your ship also causes it to get bulkier as it further mutates into an insect-like form, being stronger also comes with the caveat that you’re more likely to get hit. However, pressing the select button will allow you to change your ship’s speed, allowing for slow careful movements or high speed dodging depending on what best suits The Chimera’s current size and the battle situation it finds itself in.
Having the freedom to actually pursue upgrades without always being knocked down to square one after the smallest hit helps keep Cyber-Core exciting and gives the player a real sense of strength, and even when you are at your weakest, you still have a decent enough weapon and speed to handle what you’re facing, you just need to dodge a lot more and enemies will slip past your shots more often. This vertically scrolling shoot ’em up starts you off with a serviceable forward facing shot and bombs you can drop down on enemies who crawl along the ground instead of fly up in the air with you, but the upgrades begin to change how these work. Bombs are upgraded the same across the different upgrade types, going from single drops to double and triple drops instead, but it’s the gun that gets the biggest changes. When you spot a green bug with a swollen abdomen, shooting it will loose one of the four colored weapon types. Red works up to large ring shots fired in a cone in front of you, Blue works up to a spread shot that takes on a shuriken like shape that shoots at a rapid pace, Green fires in the most unusual way as its shots swirl around you to protect you from all angles, and Yellow focuses on forward facing power with its laser shots. Collecting any color besides the one you’re working on will knock you down to the start of that upgrade path, but building up to a powerful craft isn’t hard to do if you’re careful to only grab what you need. For people who might want a challenge, there is also a super version of the Chimera that combines all four weapons if you collect the weapon items in a certain order and reach one hit away from death, the game granting ultimate power with the condition you never get hit again.
The enemies in Cyber-Core manage to challenge whatever weapon route you go with, meaning even at your highest power you will still need to dodge carefully to avoid the onslaught of insects and their own forms of firepower. You can hope for the rare invincibility or screen wipe items, but most of the game is about that careful movement, your own increasing power further necessitating it as the Chimera grows in size with its power increases. Most of the game’s enemies are some sort of bug, the player having to face off with giant beetles, flies, spiders, ants, worms, and some creatures that aren’t really analogues for real life creatures but can pass for one with a bit of imagination. There are some enemies that break away from this concept though, and while the mechanical weapons that crop up late in the game can be justified as part of the tools these often cybernetic insects are using to conquer the globe, the plants that fight alongside them and the boss that is pretty much just a floating brain don’t really have a good explanation for why they’ve joined the Hyper Insects in trying to shoot you down as well.
However, whether they’re a recognizable bug like a scorpion or something seemingly made up, the game’s 8 stages all keep the enemy variety coming. All insects seem unique to their stage, the game constantly throwing new creatures at you to fight and coming up with interesting variations so that the game remains consistently fresh until the end. Different bugs will fly around in a bullet spewing frenzy, try to head right towards you, skate across the water’s surface, or develop into new foes if you don’t shoot them while they’re more docile. There are some enemy concepts that aren’t too hot, the blue stars in the final stage that home in on your position seemingly designed to wear you down to the point the game places many upgrade carrying bugs in that stage to alleviate the pressure these foes put on you, and the scorpions in what appear to be a ruin stage can make the screen a bit claustrophobic as they march in step with each other and send bullets all about. There are problem enemies, but the constant push to face new foes means soon you’ll fight your way to something new rather than having to deal with the troublesome ones for too long.
Most levels feature large mini-boss enemies along the way, these more durable foes sticking around to face you for a while and able to soak up plenty of shots even from a fully upgraded weapon. These are often the largest regular foes you face, some looking like a real world insect plopped into the game world and others going a bit more fanciful just like the twists to the regular bugs, and of course that approach remains consistent when it comes to bosses. Some end of level bosses will be things like a giant grub or a stag beetle with a jetpack while others are monstrous creatures you could get away with calling an arthropod but couldn’t place your finger on what kind exactly. These battles carry on the game’s focus on tight dodging that’s helped by layers of shielding, but a few of these stronger foes can only be hurt by your bombs, a design decision that makes them a bit less exciting and slower to kill than the foes you can use your carefully kept weapon on. If you do lose your fighter craft despite all this, the game will send you back to a level checkpoint, but it always makes sure you enter the next area or boss fight with at least once chance to get a power upgrade so a new life won’t end too quickly.
THE VERDICT: Cyber-Core lets the player enjoy working their way up to an incredibly powerful weapon without trying to yank that power away just to achieve some form of challenge. You get to have the incredibly strong shot type in Cyber-Core, but your increased size and the aggressiveness of the enemies do mean you need to be adept at dodging to keep it. The shields allow some wiggle room though, that simple leniency allowing the player to engage with difficult enemies while still having a chance to upgrade the Chimera into one of its thrilling final forms. A few enemies do strain the difficulty balance a little, but the game keeps moving through new insect foes so often that none stick around enough to drag the experience down.
And so, I give Cyber-Core for TurboGrafx-16…
A GOOD rating. I cannot stress how nice it is to find an older shoot ’em up that isn’t going to punish the player for taking a hit from an enemy type they’ve only just met. Cyber-Core doesn’t really ambush the player with its insect enemies, the player not needing to immediately recognize how they need to respond to a new threat to avoid losing everything they’ve worked towards. This keeps Cyber-Core from growing frustrating and yet the default unmutated craft is still a decent enough tool to use that you don’t feel like you’ve been hobbled just by being knocked back down to it. The spacing on weapon power-ups and the ability to gain additional shields don’t just give the player a better chance of survival, it allows the game to design enemies who can put up more dangerous fights, Cyber-Core not having to restrict itself as much since you can take a few hits before being reverted back to the basics. The bugs just make for interesting enemies in general as well, seeing the new types, be they realistic or not, ensuring the progress from the green areas you start in to the more desolate and cybernetic final areas is interesting all around. The game’s pursuit of new enemy types does mean a few push the limits of what feels fair and the bosses that only engage your bombs feel a bit plain because of it, but a few duds in this mostly well designed shoot ’em up don’t hurt too much because you can push through them instead of facing instant death.
While it’s not quite copying Gradius’s upgrade system as much as other shoot ’em ups of the time, Cyber-Core takes Gradius’s concept and mutates it into something that fits its game world while leaving behind the worse parts of that old upgrade style. The game world and the player’s pursuit of power need to be properly balanced, and Cyber-Core manages to do that well while also providing constant creativity when it comes to the bugs you’ll be blasting.