Cybxus Heart (PlayStation 4 - XBOX One - Switch - PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Cybxus Heart (PlayStation 4 - XBOX One - Switch - PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

Looks like there's more Trash'em Up than meets our eyes.
Cybxus Heart is one of those games that compose this "New" sub-genre of shmups.


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Cyberspace warriors, protecting internet from server crashes.

Cybxus Heart is a vertical scrolling shooter where you are granted the ability of switching between characters who have their respective weapon: Ruby uses the basic spread vulcan which causes average damages, Topaz uses a powerful Homing Missile launcher and finally Amber, who utilizes a Laser that cuts through enemies, but with minimal damage. When a specific character is on the top, it will use its full power, while the others will be "simiplified" as subweapons and you have to switch between characters for the sake of a more strategic-offensive attack.
Since you are using three characters, the game places the hitbox on the center space between the characters. You can reduce its size when it comes to tight spots and cram the support fire for a more narrow frontal fire.



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Genso-whatever, it's boss time.

Boss fights are not the average big ship to shoot down. Instead is a one-on-one character fight in the style of Touhou Project as the boss unleashes a special attack after losing his life bar. There's around 5 modes you'll have to fight, all of them with some fancy bullet patterns on pure ZUN-style.

Let's talk about the negatives of this game. First off is the three character idea. The three share the same hit point, if it goes down, all three will go down exactly like the shared life bar in Strike Witches: Hakugin no Tsubasa, the same goes for the power level, if Amber takes a hit and loses his power, then Ruby and Topaz will level down too. The Infection is also a potential hassle, like the Encroachment in RayCrisis and the In-game Day passing from Thunderbirds, if you either complete the stage or you die and continue, the game will increase the infection level to a 10-15%, so you can't screw up too much. Screw it a lot of times and it will reach 100%, leading to the bad ending/Game Over.



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The overall evaluation based on performance.

After completing a stage, the game will evaulate you based on how many times you've got hit or if you used or not a bomb, together with the difficulty level selected which acts as a multiplier based on how hard the game is.



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The ultimate display of idiotic difficulty. No lives, no continues, no power ups!

There's an ultimate difficulty mode called "Cyberbullying" which is the Arrange Mode of the game as it brings the usual no continues and screen filling bullet patterns. While this is common in games like Ibara and Triggerheart Exelica, Cybxus Heart climbs difficulty to stupid levels as it removes the power ups, and the extra lives, but in a twist of fate, it reduces the health of everyone including bosses. But you wouldn't be able to see beyond the first modes of Garnet since you'll be unable to dodge the bullets or destroy them since you don't have a bomb. This is basically a mode to troll the player like the Impossible difficulty in Earth Defense Force 2.



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CONGLATURATION! YOU COMPLETED A GREAT GAME
AND YOU ARE SPLENDED SPPERRIOUR CONSPCUOUS AND PERSISTENT PLAYER!
LET'S TRY ANYTHING ELSE WITHOUT THE VIDEO GAME!


After a crappy in-game dialogue between the characters where Amber decides to use the kernel and make a better world, the game will send you to the credits with your final score.
They didn't cared to make a decent ending for playing this game.



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Select one mode, get the achievement already.

Extra Mode is the addendum of the game which allows you to play with a single character instead of the three at once, otherwise is virtually identical the original game.

Once you've finished the main game, you'll realize it only served for one thing: Trophy Milker. That's right, another of those done-on the-cheap shmups that only serves to give you 10 or so trophies at expense of your money. In this game's case, it's 12 trophies at the cost of wasting 5 bucks in this game.



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The electronic highway might be the only decent thing of the whole game.

Graphics are basically the PlayStation and the Atari Jaguar barfed on your present day console, as we have these 3D scenes that constantly repeats as a driving scene in a 70's cartoon, most of the time you'll be in this boring, single colored void shooting down 2D sprite enemies hoping for the stage to be over. The only exception is Stage 3 where you have these 2.5D roads like a technological highway using a simple sense of depth in the black background which is perhaps the only "nice" looking part of the whole game.
Unlike any other shmup where fantasy, Sci-Fi or modern day military are common themes, Cybxus Heart utilizes the Cyberspace as the main theme for the game. While the scenery is 3D, the characters and enemies are 2D-based sprites. For a Touhou Project clone, this is too much futurism that we should call it a Seihou Project clone. The ingame text is terrible and not to mention the small fonts, they are almost unreadable.
The character design feels like a badly made, pathetic rip-off of a Megaman game, as Ruby looks like the bootleg, idiot cousin of Quickman and Flashman and everyone has a Mega Buster-like arm. The concept of the bosses is the player facing evil copies of the protagonists. I could compare this with Faintear Imitate from Triggerheart Exelica...but gone wrong. Yeah, you can call it the failed execution of the "Faintear Imitate Concept".

The music is also crap, as we have repetitive funk-ambient like paces that try to be electronic, but the only thing that will make you do is to turn the music off. So, there's nothing about this game that worths a long mention or a redeeming factor.


CYBXUS CURIOSITIES
- For a cyberspace-themed game, all the characters have names based on mineral stones.
- This mineral-named character tendendcy is similar to shows like Sailor Moon and Steven Universe.
- Ruby is a gemstone from the Oxide Mineral variety. It's name comes from the Latin word "Ruber", which means "Red".
- Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine. The name comes from the Greek "Topázios" or "Topázion".
- Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Its name comes from the Arabic word "Anbar" via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French "Ambre".
- Garnet is a Nesosilicate, a silicate mineral that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstone and even as an abrasive. Garnet's name comes from the 14th-century Middle English word Gernet, meaning "Dark Red", borrowed from Old French grenate from Latin "Granatus", from "Granum" (Grain/Seed).
- Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral Beryl colored green by trace amounts of Chromium and/or sometimes Vanadium. The name "Emerald" is derived of the Old French "Esmeraude" and Middle English "Emeraude", from Vulgar Latin "Esmaralda/Esmaraldus", a variant of the Latin word "Smaragdus", which was the Ancient Greek word "Smaragdos", which means "Green gem". This word came from a Semitic language.
- Heliodor is a synonym for the Golden Beryl and comes from the greek words "Helios" and "Doron" which means "Sun gift" or "Gift from the Sun".
- The main villian, Beryl is named after the mineral composed of Beryllium Aluminium Cyclosilicate.
- Beryl's pale skin is a reference to the colorless pure Beryl, the red color of his vampire clothes refers to the rarest red tinted Beryl, also known as Bixbite, Red Emerald and Scarlet Emerald.
- The game mispells Beryl as "Berill" twice.
- The trophy name Big Bang is a reference to the event that led to the formation of the universe 13.77 billion years ago.



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Lea hates you.

Cybxus Heart is a laughable attempt to a Touhou/Seihou Project clone with bad Megaman-ripoffs that lack of any fun or reasons to be played. Heck, this game doesn't have a reason to exist except for 12 cheap PlayStation Trophies since the XB1 and Switch versions doesn't support that making it even more worthless. This is what I've meant when I said that present day shmups lack that magic that bring us to the classic ones over and over. Those days when the news about a new shmup triggered excitement and expectations and they were created with quality and dedication instead of these "Junk Food Grade" shmups that are made constantly and without efforts just because they made them on the cheap and for the sake of making a quick buck from any fool who falls for it.

It blows my brain that such a putrid game made its way on the online stores. While in Steam's case, it's common to find trash. But Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft?, ¿Does they don't verify if the game is good or bad?
Fortunately, we're not alone when it's about finding good vertical PS4/XB1/Switch shmups. Better stay with Ikaruga, Ginga Force, Triggerheart Exelica, Rolling Gunner, Caladrius Blaze and Raiden V. There's nothing else to see here.
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STG Wikias: Thunder Force Wiki - Wikiheart Exelica - Ginga Force Wiki
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