Following the release of the first game this past May, Ratalaika and Shinyuden are re-releasing the 1992 Turbografx game Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman 2 as Cyber Citizen Shockman 2: A New Menace. This new release is out on September 22.
While most of the Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman 2 remained exclusive to the Japanese PC-Engine, we got Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman 2 here in the West as simply Shockman. It would later become available on Nintendo’s Virtual Console service and PS3. Interestingly, the press release implies that it was also Japan-exclusive, and doesn’t mention its previous releases. This made me fact-check initially and then re-fact-check to make sure that, yes, Kaizō Chōjin Shubibinman 2 was Shockman. Then, after that, I fact-checked a third time to make sure we were talking about the same game. I’m pretty certain this is the same game as Shockman.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, Cyber Citizen Shockman 2: A New Menace makes some tweaks to the previous game by making it a lot more like Mega Man. This is even down to the bosses being fan submissions. The melee combat of the first game was left behind, but in a lot of ways, that resulted in a better game.
While previous re-releases were strict ports of the Turbografx version, this new version promises new modes and will most likely have save states and rewinding. Whether or not it has been (or needed to be) re-translated isn’t mentioned.
Cyber Citizen Shockman 2: A New Menace arrives on Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 22, 2023. It will cost you a very reasonable $5.99 USD
