Wearing its 8-bit inspiration on its sleeve as it does, Cyber Shadow was never going to be an easy game to get through even casually. But after the first achievement popped at the end of Chapter 1 and I audibly muttered ‘oh no’ to myself at the 16G reward, I figured it was time to finally check out the list. Oh no indeed. Not only does the entire list consist of 16G, 31G, and 91G achievements, but it’s also only, like, an unobtainable and a grind achievement away from filling out an entire ‘evil achievement’ bingo sheet. Speedrun achievement? Check. 100% achievement? Of course, and one for 0%, too. Collectables? By the dozen. Missables? You know it, and plenty of ’em. Deathless achievement? Obviously. It’s one mean list, and I initially had no interest in going for the completion. But as the game opened up and its wonderful retro aesthetic, tight gameplay, and killer soundtrack drew me in, I slowly came around to the idea. Not only that, but I still wanted to give it some love on the site, although having missed the boat on both a first impressions piece and a review by that point, we’d have to get a little creative to do so. Thus, The Road to 1K was born — part review, part guide, part diary, and all in all, just a (hopefully) fun new way to shine a light on games we on staff are loving and trying to complete, but which we might not otherwise be able to cover. There may be a few ‘spoilers’ in terms of game content, in case you’re bothered by that kind of thing. Well, with the explanation bit out of the way, let’s get into it…
Session one: 0-363G
I was actually tempted to call it a day when that first 16G achievement popped, since it rounded out my score for the first time in ages. Still, a combination of wanting to cover the game in some way and curiosity to see more drove me onwards in spite of all the awkward numbers that were bound to follow. Looking at the stats on-site, I certainly wouldn’t have been the first to tap out there — Saving the clan, that first achievement I unlocked, has been earned by 97% of TA players, while the achievement for completing Chapter 2, Rise to the challenge, drops way down to just 47%. Turns out there were several more I could have unlocked before my first, too, as every boss has its own achievement for defeating it under certain conditions. Even after checking the list, this still managed to throw me off, as they’re not listed in the order they appear in the game. Also, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to try and get these during my ‘casual’ first run, since it was clear from the list that it was realistically going to take at least three full runs (100%, 0%, speedrun) to grab the lot, so there’d be plenty of chances to mop up later.
Looking at timestamps, it took me about 45 minutes to get through the second level (kinda embarrassing considering I can now do it in about ten), mostly due to the fact that instant death is only ever one wrong input away there. With limited recovery options early on, one tap from an enemy can send you tumbling into pits, spikes, or acid, and sent unceremoniously back to the last checkpoint. Each of these can be powered up with the currency you find to offer better recovery and even free items, though you need to be careful with the latter as buying the items can sometimes make the boss-specific achievements (notably Focused effort for beating the Chapter 3 mid-boss without destroying its turrets) much harder. Difficulty in general ramps up pretty quickly — damage is high, instant death hazards prevalent, and the learning curve steep. But from the end of Chapter 3 onwards, Cyber Shadow starts throwing amazing tools your way. Airstrike might seem like a simple downwards attack but it’s actually an extremely useful movement tool for adding height and distance to jumps, or recovering from hits. And as a huge Street Fighter III: Third Strike fan, I was delighted to unlock the parry, replete with the exact same input of tapping forward to deflect incoming blows (if only projectiles here). An oh, how I parried. I unlocked the No you achievement for parrying 50 times less than ten minutes after unlocking the ability, but what can I say? I just bloody love parrying.
As the difficulty continued to snowball, I pressed on. A few parts had me wanting to hurl my controller into the sea (the bike section towards the end is rough until you know the enemy and hazard patterns, and a couple of the later bosses worked me over pretty hard), but generally speaking, the satisfaction of eventually overcoming these obstacles made all that hardship worthwhile. As soon as you unlock Charge and pop Overpowered, Cyber Shadow turns into a completely different game. You don’t just run and jump any more — you soar. It’s a little overwhelming to have all of your abilities boosted at once, but once you learn how to chain it all together, it’s stupidly rewarding to just string dash slashes together, ground underfoot or no, and blitz entire sections in seconds. If you thought the game had some cool risk/reward stuff going on when it gave you a parry, just you wait until it breaks out the good stuff later on. One mistake can ruin everything so the stakes are high if you want to go fast, and you will. It’s just that much fun.
Before too long, I found myself at the last boss (read: three bosses, back-to-back). The first is pretty much free as it’s a rematch with a familiar face, but the second and third have some pretty novel mechanics which take a bit of working out. I took a bunch of intentional deaths here to start over when things went south early, but got there in the end. Ten hours and 550 deaths (at least 50 of which were intentional wipes on that last boss rush) after starting the game, I had reached the credits, and stayed up way too long doing so. Before bed, I decided to dive back in on a new file while I was still in the zone, to see how the two achievements related to the first mini-boss — Pacifist, for reaching Smasher without killing anything, and Smashing for beating it without destroying the turrets in the area — were. The answer was ‘absolutely fine,’ as it turns out, and I had both done within 15 minutes. With my first clear done and over a third of the Gamerscore earned in one sitting, it was time to finally hit the sack, dozing off with that banging soundtrack still echoing around in my head. But it was only just beginning. The real Cyber Shadow starts here…
Session two: 363-532G
Sitting down for my second session, my main objective was to round up the collectables I missed first time. I went out of my way during my initial run to jump between checkpoints and grab the few I knew were there once I had the relevant abilities, so that didn’t leave too many. One in particular cost me a lot of time and deaths — the very one guarded by the rude mini-boss in the image above, actually. You’ve likely faced this thing a few times by the time you reach this one, and while the fight itself is basically the same, the arena here means you need to approach it in a much cleaner and safer way unless you enjoy falling to your death. I do not. I really do not. The enemies on the platforms can be removed with dash slashes or charged shots from the checkpoint power-up, but the balls that orbit the boss can be a little erratic and while parrying and reflecting its projectiles is extremely effective, it’s also likely to lead to a death if you fluff the input or get crossed up and end up pressing the wrong direction. Again, got there in the end, leaving just one of each upgrade to find and with both in Chapter 6. These took a while to find, but I did find a bunch of really cool secret areas in the process, one full of chatty robot friends, and another a clear reference to Super Mario Bros.’ warp areas and even discovered in the same way — by running over the top of a section of the visible level — which offered a selection of power-ups for reaching it. I grabbed the Swag Blade (which very much lives up to its name, by the way) and continued my search, eventually managing to find and collect the last two things I was missing within five minutes of one another.
Just getting 100% collection rate isn’t enough, though. The game specifically demands a 100% completion for the 100% achievement, so I’d need to go and say hello to that trio of bosses one more time. Okay, a few more times. Things can go wrong very easily in the second and third phases. On my way back, I noticed something interesting to return to once the bosses had been dealt with, so a few runs later when I was 91G better off from my 100% clear, I did just that. There’s a room just before the final fight where a couple of respawning enemies appear with staggered timing, perfect for preventing their tracking projectiles and bouncing between them to earn the Airtime achievement for staying off the ground for 30 seconds. I messed around with this for a bit and eventually got it down to a science (I can defy gravity there endlessly now, should the need ever arise), and after getting the achievement, I noticed this one didn’t have a guide on TA yet so I decided to call it a day there, take a few pics, and throw together a quick guide to inform others of this fantastic risk-free spot. Only four achievements down, but I came away with a much better feel for game mechanics, and with one of the big ones ticked off, so I’ll take it.
Session three: 532-691G
I am no master strategist, and my third time loading into the game ended up being split across my original save and three new files: a new ‘normal’ run to get the boss achievements while learning the game some more, a 0% file in which I wouldn’t be able to fall back on health and SP boosts, and a burner file for attempting the deathless run. After grabbing two relatively easy achievements I’d missed on my main save, the boss run took priority, as learning the early game would be essential for the other two runs. One by one, I beat those bosses again while meeting the achievement conditions, and I was able to make it as far as Chapter 4 mid-boss Mekadragon pretty easily. Dry socks, unlocked by beating this boss without ever touching the water, tripped me up hard (I struggled with this guy’s unpredictability even casually), so I took this as my cue to start up my 0% run. Which, actually, went a lot smoother than I expected. Experience in the early game really paid off, and I managed to make it to the end of Chapter 3 with only two deaths, both to the tank mini-boss. Inspired by this, I tapped out when I reached Mekadragon (seriously, screw that jerk) and decided to go for the deathless run.
This doesn’t need to be a full completion, rather you just have to reach the dojo shortly after the end of Chapter 3 without taking a death to unlock it. Based on my 0% run, that seemed perfectly doable, so I went for it. Within a few attempts, I was consistently getting deep into Chapter 2 or even 3 before biting the dust and starting over… both stages punish mistakes hard and are rough to go back to when you’re used to having the recovery options of endgame at your disposal. I’m told you can quickly quit out and reload if you see a death coming early enough, but I’m not doing that. I want to earn this legitimately, and I know I can do it. Back-to-back ‘almost’ runs (both of which were entirely on me, like most deaths are in Cyber Shadow) led me to take a quick break and go back to my original save to pick up two of the three remaining achievements there — Don’t touch the paint, for beating that horrible bike section without taking damage, can wait until another run, as getting back to the trigger point is a pain. With those out of the way, I went back to trying Live forever, but with tiredness setting in and leading to sloppy play, it seemed like this should be saved for another time as well. I’ve been so close I could taste it on several occasions now and can beat all six bosses flawlessly, so I just need to hold together a decent run (read: not fall in holes like a chump) and I’ll have this done easily. Next time! Still, nine new achievements was solid progress, so I’m not gonna complain.
Well, that pretty much brings us up to date with my progress with the Cyber Shadow completion so far… 31/40 achievements done, 691/1,000G earned, and a couple more achievements already within spitting distance. The boss run will be a cakewalk as soon as I get Mekadragon down, and that’s five of those checked off right away — six if I can muster the patience to do the bike section one on this run as well, which I probably should. All that will leave is 0%, speedrun, and deathless. Deathless I have on lock, and that’ll come soon, plus that save file will be a great jumping-off point for the speedrun achievement, since I’m consistently getting almost a third of the way through the game in half an hour on my deathless attempts. 0% is the only one that scares me, but checkpoints are generous enough that by the time I hit that one up last, I should be in a good place to give it a proper go. Once I’m closer to my goal and can see myself joining those 13 elite ninjas on TA in earning my Cyber Shadow completion, I’ll be back to tell you more about my failures.
Or maybe not, if you all hate this. It’s something new, so we never know. Let us know in the comments if this was in any way entertaining/helpful/interesting/distracting from the fact that the world is on fire. We like to try out new things but it’s difficult to know how they will land, so your feedback is invaluable. In the meantime, check out Cyber Shadow if you like great games with evil achievement lists. It’s a proper challenge, and I’m loving it…