Cyber Knight II: Chikyū Teikoku no Yabō Overview
Cyber Knight II: Chikyū Teikoku no Yabō is a science fiction role-playing game set in the 24th century. The narrative follows the crew of the starship Swordfish, who become fugitives after Earth's government, now under militaristic control, seizes their vessel and uses recovered alien technology to build an army of self-replicating war machines. Aligning with a resistance movement, the crew operates a new ship, the Galvodirge, to travel between star systems and thwart Earth's conquest.
Gameplay involves navigating planets from a top-down perspective and managing the ship's systems through a first-person interface. Exploration is a key activity, as the crew must converse with inhabitants across various worlds to gather intelligence and complete specific quests for progression. The game does not use a traditional economy; instead, components called NeoParts are collected from defeated foes. These parts are analyzed aboard the ship to permanently upgrade combat mechs, known as modules, with improved capabilities and new weapons.
Combat utilizes a turn-based system on a side-view grid. The crew is divided into a three-pilot combat team and a three-pilot support team. In open areas, the support team can initiate battles with missile strikes, though they are unavailable during interior exploration. During module combat, positioning on the 6x6 grid is strategic, with a variety of unlimited-ammunition weapons and limited-use special attacks called options available. Each module has separate integrity gauges for the machine and its pilot, and the loss of either results in destruction. Healing and resupply of options, repair kits, and first aid kits can only be performed by returning to the Galvodirge, making resource management between engagements a consistent consideration.
While modules are essential for accessing certain areas and combat, they are prohibited in settlements. The modules themselves are specialized, each assigned exclusively to either combat or support roles with unique stats and weapon compatibility. This specialization, combined with the need to manage two health pools and finite healing resources between ship visits, suggests a fair level of strategic planning is required for success.
