The Shockmaster
Ratalaika Games and Shinyuden have announced that they’re bringing Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman to the West for the first time as Cyber Citizen Shockman. Heck. Yes.
Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman was the first game in the series that started on the PC-Engine in Japan. We received the second game (named Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman 2) in North America on the Turbografx-16, but no other titles. Renamed Shockman, this second title eventually made it to the Virtual Console. I just now realize that I forgot to buy it before the Wii U eShop shut down. Crap.
This is the first time that the first game has been localized. The announcement of Cyber Citizen Shockman hit me out of nowhere. The Shockman games are a series of action platformers with sort of a beat-’em-up slant to them. The Satellaview Shockman title (which was originally released also as Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman) even got a fan translation recently as Shockman Zero.
On top of the base game, Cyber Citizen Shockman will include an image gallery, rewind, save states, a CRT filter, and illustrations by Suu Urabe.
This is one of those games where it absolutely sucks that we never got them in the West. It’s mostly understandable, because the Turbografx-16 was a resounding failure and we never got the Satellaview. But a translation has been a long time coming.
Thankfully, we don’t have to wait much longer. Cyber Citizen Shockman will release on May 19, 2023 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch at a very reasonable $5.99.
