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Friday Flashback: Shatterhand

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World hits theaters today, and to celebrate a game with an endless stream of video game references this week's Flashback is going to look at the game behind one of the most obscure references: Shatterhand. In the comics, Scott's band was originally called Sex Bob-Omb, but changed its name to Shatter Band, after the NES game Shatterhand.

While it never became particularly popular, Shatterhand was awesome from the moment it hit American stores, from its ridiculous box art of a chubby biker punching the logo with his cyborg hand to its Ninja Gaiden-meets-Bionic Commando graphics. The game was developed by Natsume, which also produced the NES non-classic-but-still-great Shadow of the Ninja, which itself played like Ninja Gaiden meets Bionic Commando.

It's pretty standard side-scrolling hack/slash/punch gameplay, not unlike Ninja Gaiden's core combat. Run, usually from left to right, punching everything you see with your badass cyborg hand. You can stick to the walls like in the first Ninja Gaiden, but it's not really necessary in most parts of the game. You can collect coins, but instead of giving you points or extra lives they fuel machines that can power up your punch or restore your life.

Besides the coins and power-up machines, robot-summoning Greek letters add a nice bit of variety to the game. By stringing together three alpha or beta symbols (or any combination thereof), you can summon a robot drone to follow you around and help you out. The pattern of symbols you put together determines how the robot acts and what weapons it uses. Alpha-beta-beta summons a robot that fires bouncing balls of electricity, while beta-beta-alpha summons a kamikaze flamethrower robot. If you repeat the same string twice in a row, you can join with your drone to get even more power.

After you beat the first level, you can choose the order in which you tackle the next 5. They all look like they belong in Sunsoft's Batman games, but since it was a good look to begin with that's not a bad thing. There's the weird sewer-lab, the factory with conveyor belts, and so on. Typical NES video game levels, but fun and relatively varied.

Shatterhand wasn't the most amazing NES game, but it was a solid side-scroller in the vein of Ninja Gaiden and Batman, and that's always a fun romp. Sadly, it's not available on the Virtual Console, so you'll have to dust off your NES and find a cart if you want to play it.