Cybertrash STATYX – A Competent Wreck

No, I don’t know what the title means. Yes, that is the real cover art. Yes, the game is cheap. No, it’s still not worth it.

Bland Yet Competent

In Cybertrash STATYX, you play as Jen, a child who was kidnapped and now serves as an enforcer for a group of objectively evil people. *flips through pages* And, uh… she rebels and attempts to escape to the non-cyberpunk infested countryside.

It’s as generic as a futuristic cyberpunk game can get. But, boring story and gratuitous character art aside, is the actual game any good?

Well, the game is split into about 5 levels. In each of these levels, you have to shoot the enemy robots and use your slide, jump, and slide-jump in order to dodge projectiles and make your way to the boss.

Every enemy you kill gives you credits; these can also be collected from destroyed boxes. Credits can be spent at stations throughout the levels to either refill your current weapons ammo, level up, or refill your health. Each station does something different, so it’s actually an interesting choice whether your want to blow all of your credits now on some levels, or if you want to hold out for an ammo or health refill. It’s sort of interesting.

With each enemy kill, you also gain experience towards your next level. This is how you level up naturally. Each level gives you a skill point which you can then spend at a level up station. These upgrades include things like increasing your jump height, tightening your weapon spray, and increasing the level of crate which you can hack.

Hacking crates is the main way you obtain new weapons. You always have an infinite ammo pistol, but you can unlock different tiers of light and heavy weapons from the crates. Again, an interesting idea.

Oh, That’s It.

The bosses in the game are also surprisingly fun. None of them are amazing, but as the big baddie at the end of each level, they work well enough. Their moves are well telegraphed and their health pools seem fair.

So, with all of that lukewarm praise, is the game actually good? Kind of. But also not at all.

This game has 3 difficulties. These difficulties only affect enemy health and xp gained from enemies. There is also no level select or mission replay. If you try to continue your game after finishing it, you will just reappear at the final checkpoint. If you want to replay anything, you have to start a new game.

Okay, so the game wants to be an arcade shooter that you dip in and out of, right? Well, no, because you also have to sit through all of the story sections again. Also, the game is only 45 minutes long, and about half of that time is just sitting through the story or trying to run through the walking sections.

There’s no New Game+, no character respec, no unlockables, no mission replay, no boss replay. Cybertrash STATYX is quite devoid of replayability.

What Is The Point?

In case you’re wondering, the platinum also took 45 minutes.

While the game is only $7.99, it’s just ANOTHER side-scrolling, indie, pixel art shooter. And I can’t really blame them for this. If I ever made a game, I’d probably do this too. But it just feels so cynical. The actual pixel art is clean, the designs are fine, and the gameplay is at least competent, but there’s absolutely nothing here beyond the first playthrough.

Is it awful? No. Should it be punished for being short even if it’s cheap? I don’t know. Should you buy it? NO! Unless you have cash to burn on a platinum you can get before dinner, then no. Even if you do, just buy something else. There are actual good games with easy platinums you know.