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改造町人シュビビンマン
©1989 NCS
Release : 1989-03-18 (¥5200)
HuCard (2 Mbits) NCS89004
Action game
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Kaizō Chōnin Shubibinman is a side scrolling action game by
Masaya and published by NCS. A crazy, yet genius professor
named "Doc" sends two of his brand new and most skilled cyborgs (a boy called
Tasuke and a red haired girl named Kuapiko) against an army of
evil machines that have taken over the city. With the help of their special
suits and powerful energy-swords, they fight waves of enemies of increasing
strength, as well as bigger and badder bosses until they eventually reach the
lair of their furious leader - the evil Dark Skull. Unlike other games
of its kind, the action starts in the professor's laboratory and players are
free to choose the path the characters take until they
finally reach their final destination - the Dark Skull's castle. The game
is really flexible on that aspect of the gameplay - a map shows the locations
of the various areas to visit and players can always go back and take a different
path if they wish to. Although stages can be optionally skipped, some of
them give players a chance to collect unique power-up items. Enemies drop all kind of items when
killed - power-cells, invulnerability, super-jump,
smart-bombs and so forth. They also drop gold bars and the accumulated
treasure can be later used to purchase new upgrades from Doc's laboratory.
Finally, a two player simultaneous mode is available where players can execute
combination combos and attacks.
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The Shubibinman series started in 1989 with the release in Japan of
Kaizō Chōnin Shubibinman for the PC Engine system
(version tested here). The game already featured all the elements that made up
the series : a couple of
young androids (Tasuke and Kyapiko) and a crazy professor.
Kaizō Chōnin Shubibinman 2 Aratanaru Teki came out
two years later, in 1991, and was a major improvement over the first episode.
Power swords were gone, but the game had a much better structure, sharper
graphics and featured an interestingly mix of platform and shooting action. As
a side note, Shubibinman 2 was the only Shubibinman title
introduced to the American TurboGrafx-16 market. The game was renamed
"Shockman" for the occasion (probably in an attempt to compete with
Capcom's impressive Rockman (aka Megaman) franchise)
and silence was made on the first episode. As a side note, the two androids were also renamed
Arnold and Sonya. Kaizou Choujin Schbibinman 3: Ikai no Princess
was released a year later, in 1992, and it is probably the most accomplished game
of the series. Finally, and curiously, another episode came out in 1994. BS
Kaizō Chōnin Shubibinman Zero was not released for the PC Engine system,
but for Nintendo's Super Famicom (picture on the left). However, it was only available as
a download from the broadcast Satellaview network and no cartridge version
of the game was ever released. Interestingly, the game featured two different
androids named Raita and Azuki. Finally, Hudson Soft
recently released a version of Kaizō Chōnin Shubibinman for mobile
phones (Japan only).
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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Invincibility :
During the game, Pause and enter the following code :
up, up, select, down, II, select
and run. This code has to be entered again after each stage.
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
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I've never been a huge fan of this first installment from the Shubibinman series...
frankly, the game was released early in the PC Engine life cycle and it definitively
shows its age (even if it looks better than other games of the time). However,
Shubibinman is broken in a multitude of ways. Graphics are correct but sprites
are tiny and the animation cycles are stripped down to the bare minimum necessary.
The level backgrounds are also often cluttered and messy. But, worst of all, controls
are atrociously slow and the poor heroes just keep sliding all of the place for no
justifiable reasons. The other games in the series are much better (namely
Shubibinman 2 and Shubibinman 3). All in all, the game does partially
redeem itself with its excellent soundtrack and sound effects - but they just don't
save the day in the end.
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