Reading from the Xbox Store page and it appears that Cybertrash STATYX is a tactical 2D action platformer. I have no issue with the majority of that description, but I must say, I’ve not seen a great deal of tactical action.Â
Coming from Uncle Frost Team and Sometimes You, what this appears to be is a retro looking platformer, and while there isn’t a noticeable shortage of those on the ol’ Xbox, there is always room for another if it is well done and brings something new to the table. So which camp does Cybertrash STATYX fall into?
We’ll begin at the beginning with a narrative. Why are we going to be running and jumping all over the place? What is our motivation? Well, it appears that Cybertrash STATYX is set in the distant future, and as we’ve come to expect, the industrial part of the world has taken over and nature has been crushed, squashed by the power of corporations. Of course, it wouldn’t be suitably dystopian without robots being added into the mix, and these devices are used to control the remaining population.
But this isn’t the end of the bad news for the few remaining survivors – no, plans are afoot to turn them all into cyborgs, seeing people abducted and changed against their wills. New cyborgs have their memories erased and end up in secure facilities, and it is in one of these that we find and take control of our heroine, Jenet; left to try to escape the corporation and remember who we are. Can we uncover the conspiracy against humanity and bring an end to it?
So, with the reason for our action nailed on, let’s have a look at the presentation. And here the news is also pretty good, with an appealing retro style to the action on display. The levels follow the standard ‘start at the left and exit on the right’ kind of template, but there is a good deal of verticality built into the levels as well, with things to find and pick up as we go. The stages all look much as you’d expect them to look, with various design elements based on a theme of futuristic dystopia. Jen is well designed, in a retro kind of way, and the various robots we meet are also well constructed. All in all, it looks okay.
The story is explained through text windows, and it appears that they have been run through Google Translate before being pasted on to the screen, as the English is really, really bad. You can get the gist of what is being said, but it really can be a struggle sometimes. Accompanying is the sound – again, okay, with music that is inoffensive and sound effects in battle that work pretty well. There is nothing here that will set the world on fire, but it works well enough.
What about the gameplay then? Well, Cybertrash STATYX is, at heart, a run and gun platformer with some of the weirdest control choices I have ever seen. You see, we can jump, run, slide and so on, but quite often we will come across a jump that is just too high for our regular jump. No problem, we can do a high jump, but the odd thing is we can only do it when we are sliding. In order to pull off that high jump, we need to action a slide (down and A), followed by a jump (move the stick in the direction we wish to travel and then press A again). This is unbelievably fiddly to pull off under the best of circumstances, but when we have to slide and then jump while on a narrow platform in mid air, the difficulty and the expletives really ramp up. Honestly, this is one of the worst pieces of control design I’ve ever had the misfortune to use.
The rest of the time, Cybertrash STATYX plays pretty well. As we explore, new weapons emerge, ready to pick up and equip – we can carry a heavy weapon in addition to a light weapon, and always have a trusty infinite ammo pistol to fall back on if needs be. However, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of weapons to find and pick up, so it is not usually a problem. Jumping, shooting robots and all the rest of the things comes pretty easily, and even the bosses that arrive on the scene every now and then aren’t too tricky once you figure out their patterns.
Exploring and defeating enemies means the gaining of currency, but more importantly skill points. These can be spent to upgrade Jenet as we go. There are pods scattered about the levels, and stepping into one will allow the chance to upgrade five different skills – Agility, Weapon Skill, Luck, Hacking and Mining. Yes, Mining, which basically affects how many credits you can pick up as you go. The rest are pretty self explanatory, and being more agile and doing more damage will usually see you right.
Cybertrash STATYX is very much an okay game. The action is pretty good fun, but then you get to a jumping section and feel like throwing your pad out of the window. The bosses are fairly simple, the enemies fairly dumb and the levels, while not a bad size, don’t offer too much of a challenge. What you’re looking at here is middle of the road, jumping bits excepted.
