Cyborg Justice is a game that I don’t hear about. I didn’t play it until the late 2010s when I started revisiting some of the games I collected over the years. It is one of those games I bought; I made sure it worked and then set it on a shelf.
Playing it for this review has been a fun experience. It has several issues, but it is a fun game. After all, it is a game where giant robots beat each other up. How could it be anything other than awesome?
The game also has one of the best intro scenes I’ve seen in a retro Beat’em Up. The graphics are very good, and the gameplay has some unique twists. While it is a Beat’em Up, the battles are more like a fighting game.
TLDR: Cyborg Justice is a Unique Beat’em Up.
Narrative
Cyborg Justice has a different story from other Beat’em Ups. Instead of trying to save someone, your character has become a Cyborg. The opening cutscene explains how the game starts but doesn’t answer other questions I had.
I assume you play as a human astronaut who crashes on a planet. You could be an alien since the pilot is never shown. Someone or something transfers what is left of your body into a robotic shell.
Whoever is making these Cyborgs tries to wipe your memory but fails to do so. It then alerts the other Cyborgs to your presence and that you’re malfunctioning. You have to fight your way to some unspecified location.
What is going on? Who is making the Cyborgs? Who was the player’s character before he was transformed into a Cyborg? I guess we need to beat the game to find out.
Gameplay
The gameplay is okay. This is one of the games that makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if my controller is broken. The controls are simple but don’t seem to work when needed. However, a series of customizable weapons, legs, and torsos might improve the gameplay.
Let’s go over the different parts of the Cyborg that you can change before the game starts.
Hands (Primary Weapon):
- Normal Hand
- Fire Spray Hand
- Laser Hand
- Launch Hand
- Saw Hand
- Crusher Hand
You can have some special attacks depending on the hand you equip. However, this doesn’t change much, as you’ll mostly have to punch and rip parts off of the enemies,
Body:
- Normal Body
- Quasimodo Body
- Big Booster Body
- Frog Body
- Insect Body
- Lobster Body
I didn’t notice a big difference between the different bodies. I’m guessing they give you different stats, but you don’t see that in the game, so I can’t be sure. It might be in the manual, which I don’t have.
Legs:
- Jogging Legs
- Pneumatic Legs
- Big Foot Legs
- Tank Legs
- Somersault Legs
- Spike Legs
Like the different bodies, I’m unsure what the different legs do. There are some clues in the game, as the enemies can do specific moves depending on their legs. This is most likely explained in the manual.
There are some “brutal” moves that you can occasionally perform. These include ripping off arms, ripping torsos off of legs, and pile-driving your opponents. This seems to happen at random. There has to be a pattern for it, but I couldn’t find it.
You don’t fight more than two enemies at a time. To compensate for this, each enemy has a huge life bar and takes a lot of damage. So, while you only have to face a few enemies at a time, they can take a while to defeat.
The biggest annoyance in the game would have to be the environmental hazards. I don’t have a better term for them. You’ll run into the usual things like spikes, pits, and laser barriers. Then, you’ll have to deal with the magnetic traps and the missiles.
All the hazards hurt the enemies, which is a good thing. However, it is incredibly annoying when you’re trying to jump over one of the pits, and missiles are flying at you. The worst part is that you can see them coming.
You’ll see a little flash on the side of the screen to let you know a missile is coming. This gives you some time to avoid it unless you’re jumping. Then you land, the missile hits you, and you’re knocked back into the pit. It is my least favorite part of the game!
There are a few bosses in the game. They’re just stronger versions of the enemies you fight during each level. This was a little disappointing. The fights are a little more challenging, but not by much.
The stages are pretty short and mostly empty. You won’t find destructible obstacles in this game. That eliminates any power-ups in the game unless your Cyborg gets an arm ripped off and you replace it with one of the enemy arms, which can happen!
Sadly, the best comparison to this is Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Subzero. Aside from Cyborg Justice being a good game, the biggest difference between the two games is that it plays more like a Beat’em Up with fighting game elements instead of a Fighting Game with Metroidvania elements.
The final boss confuses me. It is a giant brain in a jar. It can’t attack you, but two other things make it difficult for the player. There is a laser barrier and a group of blasters. You need to pick your spot and jump in when necessary.
Overall, the gameplay is hit-and-miss. I like most of what you’re doing, but the environmental hazards and how tough the enemies can be make it a frustrating game sometimes. I wanted to like this game a lot more, but I find something about the gameplay too frustrating.
Visuals
The game looks good at first. The character sprites are very large and have a lot of detail. The different customizable parts look cool and make the Cyborgs somewhat unique. Once you start moving through the stages, things fall apart.
The game swaps the pallet on the stages to give you the illusion that you’re somewhere new. Each stage brings you to a new place (i.e. Stage 1-1 is different from Stage 2-1). While disappointing today, this wasn’t a big deal in the early 90s.
This makes the game feel repetitive, as you must go through the same stage a few times. It would’ve been nice if there was some more variety. It does make the game feel longer, as it takes a little over an hour to beat instead of around 40 minutes like other Beat’em Ups from this time.
The combat animations are very cool! Ripping off parts of the enemies shows your character tugging on an arm or pulling the body from the legs. It isn’t graphic, as the characters are basically robots.
Overall, the graphics are fine. If the stages had looked better, I would’ve said they were great. However, having pallet swaps of the same level was a disappointment.
7.5/10. I fun Beat’em Up, which offers the player customizable options for their Cyborg. It takes some time to get a hang of the controls, but it is a lot of fun when you do. The graphics are very good, but the stages are very repetitive.
Pros
- Customizable Characters
- Good Gameplay
- Decent Graphics Overall
Cons
- Boring Stages
- Cheap Deaths
- Missed opportunities with Customizable Weapons
Conclusion
Cyborg Justice has a lot of great ideas. I like the idea of having a customizable character, but it didn’t change the gameplay that much. It would’ve been nice if more was done with this.
The graphics were hit-and-miss for me. The characters looked great, but the stages were rather dull. The developers relied on pallet swaps to give you the illusion of progress in the game. There also wasn’t much going on in those stages.
I like this game, but it has a few problems. It is one of the better Beat’em Ups on the system. It can be a fun game to play, and I wouldn’t mind revisiting it at some point.