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Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken (SNES/PS2) reminiscing thread of giant 2D mechs!

V

Verger

Banned
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Anyone remember this game from Konami? I played it back in the day on the SNES and was surprised to hear that it was ported to the PS2 (although from what I hear, the port was one of the most godawful ones ever).

What I remember most about this game was how it was a total "fuck shit up" kind of thing where you pretty much had reign to trash almost everything you saw in a level. I also liked how you were up against an entire army and lots of cool looking mechs.

I especially enjoyed the scenarios that were presented of battling in outer space or trying to enter the atmosphere. It also had a pretty kickass soundtrack too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQkeg6udUh0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqogIDA4g4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-6uD9uFMnU

Really wish there had been more games like this one. Were there ever any others? Or even games somewhat close to it?
cybernator-05.png

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Thanks to the generous posters below. Here are some similar games that were mentioned in the same vein of Cybernator:

SNES Games:
Metal Warriors
Front Mission: Gun Hazard

Tain said:
OP, check out:

Assault Suits Leynos (Megadrive)
Assault Suits Leynos 2 (Saturn)
Gigantic Army (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/278930/)
Gunhound EX (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/273240/)

There is a nice-looking upcoming remake of Leynos for the PS4 by the Gunhound developers coming out in the future.

And I haven't played it yet myself, but Night Slave for the NEC PC-98 is apparently a worthwhile game in this style. It has graphic sex scenes, though, as a warning.
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OP, check out:

Assault Suits Leynos (Megadrive)
Assault Suits Leynos 2 (Saturn)
Gigantic Army (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/278930/)
Gunhound EX (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/273240/)

There is a nice-looking upcoming remake of Leynos for the PS4 by the Gunhound developers coming out in the future.

And I haven't played it yet myself, but Night Slave for the NEC PC-98 is apparently a worthwhile game in this style. It has graphic sex scenes, though, as a warning.
 
If anyone is interested, Gunhound EX is available on Steam and from what I heard plays similar to this series.

There's also Wolf Fang on US PSN (Vita compatible) which I think was part of this series or some of the people from the original ASV games worked on it?
 
I don't like Metal Warriors very much. Super unfocused compared to Valken and even Leynos.

Also, to clarify, Cybernator/Valken wasn't a Konami game. It was only released in the US by them.

Seriously though, anybody that loves this game should check out Gigantic Army and Gunhound EX. There's little reason to miss games like this when two of them came out in the past four years and another is coming out shortly!
 
Red Rudolph said:
xaGcl2V.jpg


You forgot the king.

... wow, these two Konami mech SNES games are really same-ish looking
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Ok, I am going to apologize profusely because I did not know of the existence of Metal Warriors.

Well, on the bright side (for me), I'll be going in to Metal Warriors completely fresh! :D
Tain said:
OP, check out:

Assault Suits Leynos (Megadrive)
Assault Suits Leynos 2 (Saturn)
Gigantic Army (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/278930/)
Gunhound EX (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/273240/)

There is a nice-looking upcoming remake of Leynos for the PS4 by the Gunhound developers coming out in the future.
Click to expand...
Wow! Ok, those Steam games are definitely going in my cart! Thank you so much for pointing them out! They do look exactly like visual updates to Cybernator. :O
Tain said:
Also, to clarify, Cybernator/Valken wasn't a Konami game. It was only released in the US by them.

Seriously though, anybody that loves this game should check out Gigantic Army and Gunhound EX. There's little reason to miss games like this when two of them came out in the past four years and another is coming out shortly!
Click to expand...
Interesting point. Cybernator was developed by NCS Corp and published by Konami. Where as Metal Warriors was supposedly developed by LucasArts, yet the two look so similar visually. I have to wonder if LA took their inspiration from Cybernator?

And thanks again for pointing those games out. I will be checking them out on Steam for sure! :D
 
I remember freaking out when I got the bad ending for the first time. I had beaten the game dozens of times and one day I was bored and just carting around and failed a bunch of missions.

Bricks were shat.
 
There's a cool developer interview for Assault Suits Valken here: http://gosokkyu.com/post/79857838404/assault-suits-valken-staff-round-table

Tizoc said:
There's also Wolf Fang on US PSN (Vita compatible) which I think was part of this series or some of the people from the original ASV games worked on it?
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Nope, it's a Data East game and a spiritual successor to Chelnov/Atomic Runner.

You're probably thinking of Front Mission: Gun Hazard, a Super Famicom mech action-RPG that was directed by the same guy who directed Valken.
 
This and Metal Warriors are two of my favourite SNES games. I remember playing Metal Warriors in VS mode with my friends, and having one player attempt to take down a mech on foot. Proto-Titanfall!
 
@MUWANdo said:
There's a cool developer interview for Assault Suits Valken here: http://gosokkyu.com/post/79857838404/assault-suits-valken-staff-round-table



Nope, it's a Data East game and a spiritual successor to Chelnov/Atomic Runner.

You're probably thinking of Front Mission: Gun Hazard, a Super Famicom mech action-RPG that was directed by the same guy who directed Valken.
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That is a really cool interview thank you for sharing. It really is amazing in retrospect how much work these guys put into these "simple" 2D games (or at least, nowadays we consider them simple). I think that goes to show just why their quality still holds true even 20 years later.

And thanks for adding yet another game to check out in Front Mission: Gun Hazard. :)
 
Are Masaya and NCS. Corp the same thing? The Japanese version has the Masaya logo upon boot-up.

Speaking of which, there is a translation patch for the Japanese version since the western release removed the character portraits, changed some names and removed a certain scene near the end. The translation itself is also better than the original localization.
 
CentroXer said:
It has a bad ending and a good ending. Both of them are incredibly emotional. One of the most underrated games ever and the OST is godly.

In Despair
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I forgot about that. Yeah, I think the first time I beat it I was like "huh? why?" when I got the ending because it was bad, and then I remembered I had intentionally let the Arc Nova smash into the Earth which was probably not a good thing (I just wanted to see it go boom :( )
Occam said:
And look what is coming to PS4:
4be41c05.jpg

Assault Suit Leynos remake.
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:| :) :D :O XP
 
Well I am certainly happy to see there has been many games similar to Cybernator/Valken that have been released.

I do wonder though if there has ever been any game that has managed to translate this type of gameplay into 3D? It definitely seems like something that would be very difficult to pull off well.
 
Some of the hardest games ever... but damn does Leynos 2 for Saturn have some great 2D graphics.
 
I bought both Cybernator and SUper Metroid for my Birthday. I thought it would be Cybernator that would be my preferred title so played it first but I got stuck on level 2, and then I discovered how GOAT Super Metroid was. Never went back :(
 
jonno394 said:
I bought both Cybernator and SUper Metroid for my Birthday. I thought it would be Cybernator that would be my preferred title so played it first but I got stuck on level 2, and then I discovered how GOAT Super Metroid was. Never went back :(
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Yeah....that's a no brainer there. I love Cybernator but to pit it up against something like Super Metroid would be a bloodbath.

What I loved about the game the most was all the minute details they put into things. From the noted shell casings ejecting out of the mech while firing to the environment props which had proper destroyed states as well as many of the walls and floors which could be torn up by your firepower.

It is not a long game though and is to be completed in one sitting, but it is certainly challenging, especially the later levels.
 
Cybernator was the SHIT. I knew about the Napalm weapon trick but there was a tip in Gamepro for the final boss that said Vulcan (machine gun) was the best weapon for it so I always switched to it and never beat the boss. I realize now that of course they weren't going to mention the secret weapon.
 
UpperCaseN said:
Cybernator was the SHIT. I knew about the Napalm weapon trick but there was a tip in Gamepro for the final boss that said Vulcan (machine gun) was the best weapon for it so I always switched to it and never beat the boss. I realize now that of course they weren't going to mention the secret weapon.
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Huh, well that is news to me that there was a secret weapon. The final boss was hard as hell too. I never used Vulcan gun again after getting the lasers.
 
I was playing this a while ago. Always thought it was a great looking game. Took a photo ages ago for the scanline thread

IMG_5538.jpg
 
Bancho said:
I was playing this a while ago. Always thought it was a great looking game. Took a photo ages ago for the scanline thread

IMG_5538.jpg
Click to expand...

Beautiful!

I love these kinds of games. Just stocked up on mech goodness from Steam, next year is going to start with a bang.
 
Verger said:
Huh, well that is news to me that there was a secret weapon. The final boss was hard as hell too. I never used Vulcan gun again after getting the lasers.
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I'm sure you can look it up now but you had to go through the first level without shooting anything but the boss and I think item boxes were OK. The weapon was crazy powerful. I think this leads you to a bad ending though
 
Green Wiggly said:
Beautiful!

I love these kinds of games. Just stocked up on mech goodness from Steam, next year is going to start with a bang.
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Same here, got the three games I saw that looked like similar shooting titles (Gunhound, Gigantic and AsterBreed).

Again, it was the care in the detail that they put into the sprite-work that was pretty amazing, especially for a relatively early SNES game.
UpperCaseN said:
I'm sure you can look it up now but you had to go through the first level without shooting anything but the boss and I think item boxes were OK. The weapon was crazy powerful. I think this leads you to a bad ending though
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That's pretty cool. Well I guess that's what I'll roll for my next playthrough.
 
Verger said:
Same here, got the three games I saw that looked like similar shooting titles (Gunhound, Gigantic and AsterBreed).

Again, it was the care in the detail that they put into the sprite-work that was pretty amazing, especially for a relatively early SNES game.

That's pretty cool. Well I guess that's what I'll roll for my next playthrough.
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Already had Gigantic Army (still unplayed) so I got Strike Suit Infinity instead. Started Astebreed this morning, it's been...interesting so far.
 
Tain said:
OP, check out:

Assault Suits Leynos (Megadrive)
Assault Suits Leynos 2 (Saturn)
Gigantic Army (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/278930/)
Gunhound EX (PC, cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/273240/)
Click to expand...

I already had Gigantic Army, but didn't even know about Gunhound EX, which is actually more up my alley visually (more colorful / animeish / SNES-like). Imagine my delight upon seeing it's 80% off right now! Thanks a lot!

Also, perhaps the OP should include Front Mission: Gun Hazard? It's a SNES spinoff of Front Mission that plays exactly like a Cybernator game, with light RPG elements, different suits you can pilot, and the ability to step out of them at any time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcgsEd1hfvo
It was only released in Japan (I actually own an import cart from back then) but a translation patch was released a few years ago for the ROM).
 
This was the first game one of my brothers got when we received our SNES for Christmas. I never did beat it, though I think I got relatively far in it, all things considered.
 
Red Rudolph said:
xaGcl2V.jpg


You forgot the king.

... wow, these two Konami mech SNES games are really same-ish looking
Click to expand...
I remember thinking Metal Warriors was a sequel to Cybernator, but was very surprised to find out they didn't have the same developer.

Lucasarts did a fantastic job with Metal Warriors in the mechanical designs (you could see the influence from Macross and Gundam) to the core gameplay which was definitely Valken inspired. The versus mode was the freaking best though, especially when you hop out of your mech and try to survive the oncoming madness from your opponent. My cousins and I spent way too many hours rocking that mode.
 
Weltall Zero said:
I already had Gigantic Army, but didn't even know about Gunhound EX, which is actually more up my alley visually (more colorful / animeish / SNES-like). Imagine my delight upon seeing it's 80% off right now! Thanks a lot!

Also, perhaps the OP should include Front Mission: Gun Hazard? It's a SNES spinoff of Front Mission that plays exactly like a Cybernator game, with light RPG elements, different suits you can pilot, and the ability to step out of them at any time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcgsEd1hfvo
It was only released in Japan (I actually own an import cart from back then) but a translation patch was released a few years ago for the ROM).
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads up. I updated the OP with the games that have been mentioned. The timing definitely was perfect given the Steam sale currently going on. I also bought Strike Force Zero DC and Infinity even though those are 3D games, but they looked interesting.

I will definitely be taking a close look at Front Mission GH given that it was developed by the Cybernator/Valken team and definitely has the look nailed down.
 
This reminds me of Metal Storm. I vividly remember the Nintendo Power cover issue it had.

latest


But as far as mech games go, Front Mission was my favorite.
 
Cybernator, Metal Warriors, RANGER-X (a Genesis joint), goddamn mech games were the shit!

And...

Verger said:
...I remembered I had intentionally let the Arc Nova smash into the Earth which was...
Click to expand...

...when I become an intergalactic supervillain I am totally going to name my first battle station Arc Nova. Because that name is cool as fuck aaaaaaaahhhh!!! [/nostalgia]
 
Valken and Leynos are both classics.

Here's hoping the remake of Leynos is solid. Gunbound Ex is a good throwback, so I have faith in Dracue.
 
Thanks a crapload for bumping this. Was completely unaware of the Steam games in the OP, both look awesome as hell.

Is Cybernator on the original Wii? Or Wii U only?
 
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