Cyberbots Review
Review mirrored from my Backloggd.
Cyberbots came out in 1995, somehow. It was effectively drowned out by Capcom's own output, from X-Men: Children of the Atom to Street Fighter Alpha. It offers a simple control scheme that hides an advanced level of play that I don't think has even been fully realized. It's so goddamn cool. And thanks to the Capcom Fighting Collection, people know what it is!
It's also likely this game was only made thanks to a beat-em-up called Powered Gear/Armored Warriors. All the playable robots on Cyberbots are fixed loadouts that are taken from this game. The story is simple, and it's fun to see characters cross paths in the arcade mode, but I'm really about versus play as the thing that makes fighting games good.
Gameplay
Right away you'll notice Cyberbots only has 4 buttons: Light, Heavy, Boost, and Weapon. You can chain a standing Light button into a Heavy button for quick and reliable combos. With few exceptions, this gives everyone a short and purposeful move list, making it way easier to get the move you need compared to something like Street Fighter. Cyberbots also doesn't really have air combos, something that would become standard with games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Guilty Gear. It's... actually kind of nice to not have to figure out where juggles work and against whom.
Weapon is a character-specific option. These range from mobile blasters (think Gundam's iconic "bit") to flamethrowers to homing missiles. There's a weapon bar that depletes the instant you use a weapon, but fills up in a second, adding a small cooldown to what could be annoying keep-away tools.
The Boost button is a dash, which needs to be stressed for a game this old. Before Guilty Gear Strive had convinced everyone that fighting games need to have a dash button (no), we have one here. On the ground, Boost is universally fast, commits you to dash attacks, and can be stopped on a dime. In the air, Boost lends itself to each character's unique playstyle, with 3 different core types of air movement. You have an 8-way airdash on the majority of characters - Blodia and Reptos have 2 per jump, Fordy has 3, and Guldin has 1. Other characters have mid-air jumps, and a few have the freedom to hover while holding Boost.
If you press L+H, you can charge your power meter. You can cancel into power charge, granting new combo and pressure opportunities, but getting hit during a charge will cause you to instantly lose your arm. The Arm Gauge serves as a take on dizzy that allows you to keep fighting with a limited move list - it's still scary to be unarmed! With all this, you'd expect Cyberbots to be full of dumb button-mashing offense. Instead, it's almost just as extremely defensive.
Cyberbots has air blocking, and it's good against grounded opponents too. It also has guard canceling, but the game doesn't call it out. You can Boost out of the later half of your blockstun, but to do options that aren't available during a dash (like throw), you'll have to move fast to cancel it. All this gives Cyberbots a really high skill cap that I firmly feel hasn't been reached, even by loyal fans in Japan.
This is from a game that came before Vampire Savior and Guilty Gear, by the way.
Graphics
Capcom knew how to sell the scale of mecha in this world. You can walk around cities and knock off the sides of buildings, watching everything shake as it crumbles floor by floor. There are beautiful palette-based effects on all sorts of stages, from a colony drop right out of Gundam to a 2-part underwater stage where the seabed collapses and you slide into Atlantean ruins.
If you browse the cast, you'll see recurring pieces like tank-tread legs that lead to different bots sharing special moves, which is a fun through-line. These bots are really cool-looking, and lots of them transform during attacks. Insect-legged bots can put their legs together and swing them like a flail. Riot and Killer Bee's hover base can turn into a full-body drill. Despite the obvious inspirations, it's hard to say that the Cyberbots lineup is directly cribbing from any one series. Also, the life bar and meter display up top changes based on your bot! I love the old-fashioned gas meter Guldin, Vise, and Cyclone share.
Music/Sound
I wouldn't hesitate to call this a top 5 fighting game soundtrack. Every track just plain rocks and fits their respective stage really well. The boss characters all have their own themes (which sadly don't play in versus mode), from the underdog Gaits to the mischievous Super-8. Power Station deserves a special shoutout for flying into a badass guitar riff in seconds as the atmosphere literally heats up.
Not to mention the bombastic announcer (PHASE ONE! PROCEED!!) which even counts out your combo (ELEVEN. HIT. COMBO!), Japan-exclusive character voices on the win screen, or the crisp sounds of metallic destruction, mecha steps, bullet casings being loosed, etc. Some of these are probably stock sounds, but they slot into the game perfectly.
The only thing keeping Cyberbots from being a perfect game to me is that some characters are very good at stalling. If you're playing this casually, it won't be an issue (though the later arcade stages and final boss are kinda cheap). If you're playing in tournament and Helion decides to fly around in the top corner for 30 seconds before landing, well...
You'll just have to stop them from leaving the ground in the first place.