Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman 3: Ikai no Princess

Overview

Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman 3: Ikai no Princess ("Restructuring Superhuman Shubibinman: Princess of Another World"; Shubibinman is sometimes used instead of Shubibinman) is a PC Engine CD-ROM exclusive and the third game in the Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman series, the first two of which were released on the PC Engine HuCard format. The second game was also localized to the US TurboGrafx-CD as Shockman.

The gameplay of the third Shubibinman game has more in common with the first game of the series than the second; the sword has returned as Tasuke and Kyapiko's basic weapon, and a more Shubibinman 1 style "shubibeam" is featured; it is now somewhat controllable after release, but this is also risky as the potentiality of getting hit his high. In addition Tasuke and Kyapiko are capable of wall-jumping, but this is relevant only at a few points in the game.

Items

• Continue Chip: The player can collect 100 of these for an extra life, allowing them to continue mid-stage without having to restart!
• Hyper Chip: A chip that is flickering rapidly. Worth 5 capsules!
• Battery: Pick this up to restore a point of the player's life.
• Big battery: Completely restores the player's life.
• Light bulb: Completely restores the player's life AND adds an extra point of life to the life bar!

Story

Tasuke and Kyapiko are spending a nice relaxing day at the beach, when suddenly a huge spaceship appears overhead! This can only mean one thing... another invasion! Tasuke and Kyapiko suit up and set out to stop it... or is it all just a gross misunderstanding?

Princess Cleha, Bacchi and Choppin: The goofy "antagonists" of the piece. In reality Princess Cleha is trying to get Shubibinman's help to avert an attack from the underworld, but her intense arrogance and sense of entitlement make her go about it in an extremely questionable manner.

Stages

Because of the game's almost continuous nature, some of these stage breakdowns are a bit arbitrary.

• Stage 1: In pursuit of the ship! Tasuke and Kyapiko give chase as the ship flies over the city. Soldiers and robots from the ship rain down to stand in their way. Eventually the team battle a robot called the "hojihoji"; upon defeat they can ride in it for a boost in their pursuit efforts.

• Stage 2: Mysterious Spaceship! Finally our heroes catch up and board the ship. The ship's defenses are out in full force, but our heroes easily battle their way to the engine room and destroy the power crystal. Upon doing so they are confronted by Bacchi, the first of Princess Cleha's two goons. He's actually a cyborg, just like our heroes!
• Stage 3: En route to the castle! After a rough escape from the space ship, our heroes touch down in a snowfield populated by snowmen controlled by robotic cores. They continue on through a mine an end up on the back of a train... however, THIS train generates shapeshifters, which turn in to copies of our heroes! The robotic conductor strongly disapproves of our heroes riding for free, but he puts up little resistance.

• Stage 4: Arrival at Cleha's castle! Entering the castle, our heroes are swarmed by face-hugger like insects. Choppin appears near the beginning of the stage to attack our heroes, but after his defeat he makes a quick escape via rockets in his cape as lava begins to fill the shaft! Kyapiko and Tasuke must race to the top to avoid a fiery doom. Hordes of life-stealing ghosts await at the top of the shaft, and after them... Cleha herself!
• Stage 5: In a fury, Choppin opens the portal to the underworld and our heroes are hurled in! Unfortunately the demons of the underworld are well aware of this, and the unnamed demon Captain planning an attack our world deploys his "Dragon force" to take out Kyapiko and Tasuke! After a short welcoming to Hell via a trio of masks, our heroes must right strange larva-like creatures through a barrage of meteor-like objects... only to end up being pursued by a dragon!

• Stage 6: Arrival at the demon Captain's castle! Of course it's heavily defended by demonic soldiers, including a giant knight and crystalline spider-women. The demon captain appears to make the Shubibinmen battle a large spider-demon as a mid-boss. As the heroes continue deeper in to his castle, the terrain becomes more grotesque; throbbing tissue grows beneath the ground and influences the movement of the castle's floors, and hungry insectoid mouths growing in the floors and ceilings are just itching to take a bite out of anything that strays too close. Waiting at the end is the demon captain himself, preparing a devastating weapon built from a Demon God's body!

• Final Boss: Stop the demon god missile before it reaches our reality! As it turns out, the whole adventure was a dream of Kyapiko's as she napped on the beach... or WAS it?