The Legend of Cyber Cowboy | PS5 Review

January 1, 2025 Zack Parkerson

Sometimes you just need to shoot some stuff. The Legend of Cyber Cowboy is as simple as that. As a cybernetic gunslinger with a slick hat, it’s up to you to shoot them fools down. If you’re looking for a simple arcade shooter, this could be for you.

Bang Bang

I really do mean simple. The Legend of Cyber Cowboy is a top-down twin-stick shooter and is as classically retro as they come. No upgrades, no progression, now growing arsenal of weapons. In fact, it’s such a throwback that it must be beaten in a single sitting. If you die, you can restart the current level, but leave at any point and it’s back to the very beginning for you when you return.

While not my preferred style of game in those regards, that’s not what ended up frustrating me. Some of the things you would expect from an old-school title, little tricks to help the player, are absent here. If you take damage, you don’t get those flickering frames that grant you brief invincibility to reset with, as was common in most NES games. There’s also a dash, but as it doesn’t allow you to dash through bullets, I’m not entirely sure of its purpose. I never found it helpful. This means enemies, particularly bosses, can ravage your health bar for even the tiniest of mistakes. I enjoy difficult games, as our readers and listeners know, but this felt mean.

He Shot Me Down

Once per level, you can find one weapon shop and one health/ammo recharge. The weapons are nice and provide a fun boost, but their ammo is so miniscule it hinders your ability to use them. When you run out of ammo, the weapon is discarded and lost to you. There are so many enemies you’ll be out of ammo in a flash, making it difficult to justify using unless you’re about to enter a boss room. You do get that one ammo recharge, but it never felt incentivizing enough to risk using the weapon outside of the bosses.

The music is exactly what you’d want, though, putting you right in the mood to shoot down some outlaws. I also really liked the environmental variety in The Legend of Cyber Cowboy. There are five levels, and each looks quite distinctive. They also have their own suite of enemies, and the characters stand out with some adorably excellent pixel art.

I Hit the Ground

I wish I could have liked The Legend of Cyber Cowboy more. Honestly, if the flicker window was implemented and the dodge was useful, this would be a really great weekend game throwing back to a simpler time. As it stands, it can be fun when things are lining up well, but all too often it frustrates me instead. I’m confident anyone reading this will claim “skill issue” and maybe it is, but I can only speak to my experience. If you were to straight shot the five levels, it would probably be less than an hour long, but that seems perfectly fair for the low asking price. I hope you enjoy the game more than I do, and I really hope maybe a patch comes along to make the game a little less mean-spirited.

To hear me talk more about The Legend of Cyber Cowboy, be sure to listen to the January 10, 2025 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy of The Legend of Cyber Cowboy provided by EastAsiaSoft for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.