With the Sword of Ages, travel to the future and fight long enough to brag about it. Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior is an old school 2D side scroller where you fight as a warrior from the past with a sword going into the future for bragging rights against future enemies and bosses.
General Gameplay
At its core, Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior is an old school side scroller hack-and-slash game. The game has levels where you fight different types of enemies, while working towards a boss fight at the end. Throughout the level there are vending machines where you can purchase hearts to replenish your health. The game persists of 4 levels with boss battles at the end. When you defeat a boss, your character obtains a new ability to use right away. Again, this is a throwback of the 16bit era style of 2D side scroller hack-and-slash. The Game Visuals for Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior are in a pixeled 16bit style with pixels for the character, enemies and backgrounds. The colors are muddy like a 16bit era game but colorful enough to see the details of everything in the game. The game itself is easy to see on both a large and smaller screen. Even though the graphics are pixels. They are still able to be seen. The game does not support a colorblind mode, and honestly, we did not have any issues with gamers that have a hard time seeing red/blue colors on the screen. In our playtesting, we did not encounter any issues with the game graphics, as the game is rated E10, we did not see anything violent in the game that would not be suitable for gamers under the age of 8. Audio for Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior is what you would expect from a 16-bit style game, lots of midi music, and sound effects from a game like this. The background music fits the levels with midi rifts that you would expect from an action/platformer as well sword hits, laser blast and other weapons fire and hits. The game does a great job in the audio department recreating the sound feel of a 16-bit era game. The game does not contain any spoken dialog, so there is no risk of any foul language in the audio. Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior is presented in both 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo sound. Both audio modes work well for the game. In our playtesting, we did not encounter anything that would be offensive or not family friendly for any gamers. Controls in Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior are very simple to use and get used to. As there is a button to swing your sword, and a jump button. The left thumb stick moves the character and as you obtain new abilities in the game, the other buttons will have their purpose to help you in the game in later levels. Surprising enough as the game is 16bit based, we found that using the Directional Pad (D-Pad) was easier to control the character. Again, this is more of a personal preference for gamers playing the game. In our playtesting, none of our gamers, old or younger had a hard time playing the game with a controller.
“If you are a fan of 16bit style action/platformers, the Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior is a must have game for your digital library”
Family Friendly
First off when it comes to side scrollers games that are hack and slash they can be really hit or miss. Most games have either bad mechanics for their controls or such jacked up AI where the game is either to hard or easy. Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior gets all this right by having balanced gameplay, easy controls that are tight for a game of this type of nature as well a pleasing art style that can be appreciated by any gamer. Now I will admit, you will not fly through this game in one sitting. The boss battles can be challenging by its own nature, but when you figure out their patters and how they attack and defend, then it is a matter of timing on how to defeat them. I will say that this is a fun game for both hack-and-slash fans and non-fans. The game is easy to get into, follow and just have fun with. .Now some parents/guardians will feel that the turn off of the game having a E10 rating means that the game is not family friendly, this is not the case as in our playtesting, outside of defeated enemies, there was nothing to make the game feel that it should have received this rating and if anything it should have been rated E – For Everyone. Again parents/guardians please watch videos of the game play to see for yourself. In our special needs game testing, we did not have any issues with the game graphics, audio or even controls. Again, some gamers in our testing preferred using the thumb stick where others used the directional pad. Overall the game is a fun game for action/platformers and non-fans.
Closing
Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior is a fun, fast paced game for anyone that is a side scroller fan and even non-fans will love the game, graphics and audio style from the 16bit era. A must have for your digital library.
