While they never managed to achieve the prominence of Capcom, Konami, or Taito, Natsume nevertheless proved to be one of the most competent developers of action games for the NES and Super Nintendo. Throughout the Nineties, they built a small but impressive body of work on these consoles, ranging from solid in the absolute worst instance (their first Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers game) to masterpieces (like The Ninja Warriors Again and Wild Guns) surpassing many of the offerings of their more recognized contemporaries. Shatterhand is one of the earlier games that falls into the latter category.

Released in 1991 for the NES, Shatterhand is a side-view action game in the mold of Akumajou Dracula, Batman, and Ninja Ryuukenden. As such, it involves fighting primarily with short-range attacks (which in this case, are delivered from a pair of advanced, weaponized prosthetic hands) with assistance from various projectile-based weaponry, along with coordinating jumps onto platforms and wire netting that Shatterhand can grab. Progression is constant and linear, with each phase culminating in duels against Metal Command's most powerful cyborg creations.

Shatterhand has an impressive amount of versatility for an NES game, in part due to the repertory of the main character. Shatterhand (himself) has a punching sequence somewhat comparable to the characters in Final Fight. His first three punches are fast jabs, and after those he begins throwing slower, more powerful hooks (unless he's airborne.) It's important to choose whether more power or quicker recovery is desirable in certain situations. Also, you can punch through many enemy projectiles with proper timing.

Talking the place of Akumajou Dracula's sub-weapons are satellites: one of eight small robots that hover above Shatterhand. In addition to their unique attack functions, they can also damage enemies by collision, either by simply hovering into them or by being thrown. Satellites disperse after taking enough hits. In order to acquire a satellite, you first have to collect 3 alpha and beta power-ups. By collecting the same satellite combination twice, while the first is still in operation, the robot will fuse to Shatterhand's body and form an indestructible armor lasting fifteen seconds. In this mode you'll gain extremely powerful punches that shoot fireballs, and getting hit will merely take away from your remaining armor time, rather than your lifebar. Additional power-ups come in the form of upgrades (including health restore, double-power, and life extend,) downloaded from special platforms, as long as you've collected sufficient money from defeated opponents.

As a late-generation game, Natsume had the fortune of utilizing a host of excellent NES action games as reference points, including their own Kage (Shadow of the Ninja) from a year prior. Shatterhand really does play like a perfect amalgamation of the best elements of these games, which is even improved in some cases, like Shatterhand's control. He is more agile and responsive than Simon Belmondo and Sunsoft's Batman. His punch is more immediate and has a more generous contact area than Ryu Hayabusa's sword. Its short range isn't much of an issue, even when deflecting bullets, because of this. It also helps that there are no insidiously placed birds trying to dunk you into every chasm. In fact, there are no chasms either, just pits, so missing a platform is treated the same way as getting hit by an enemy. This to me always seemed like the fairest way to handle platform jumping.

Stages and enemy designs use every trick in the NES action game book to create challenging and diverse layouts that require a great deal of dexterity to overcome. Each stage has some type of structural gimmick of its own. Area B you has jumping across molten metal pits on conveyor belts and chain netting while taking on flying robots that swerve like the Medusa heads in Akumajou Dracula. In Area D, you'll have to make some precisely tuned jumps in reduced gravity in a mine and rotor blade-infested pool, also containing soldiers in underwater suits resembling something out of Maschinen Kreiger (look it up if you're a fan of hard sci-fi). Area E even has reversed gravity chambers à la Strider Hiryu where you'll switch from floor to ceiling by holding in the jump button, avoiding flames, homing mines, and fire from turrets that shoot in alternating spread patterns. The winner however, is Area F's elevator sequence wherein Shatterhand must constantly dodge harpoons coming from the bottom, and oncoming gears, bombs, missile-equipped airbikes, and fire debris from the top. Brilliant as ever.

In terms of aesthetics, Shatterhand is also a contender for the best looking NES game, with Batman, Ninja Ryukenden II, and Street Fighter 2010 as its only competition. Graphics are detailed but well-defined for their small scale. The NES color palette is managed expertly, especially the effective use of the color black as a fourth shade value instead of just as outline. This is a trick all the best looking NES games used which gave them an inked comic book quality that I still find appealing to this day. The anthemic and tense soundtrack from Iku Mizutani, is also among the finest to appear on the 8-bit console.

With 7 stages and no password feature, Shatterhand is clearly designed as an arcade-style gauntlet to be beat in a single sitting with a single continue, when the player's skill eventually permits it. After beating the game, it can be extremely fun to go back and experiment with different strategies; seeing how fast you can go, how far you can get strictly as a pugilist without health recharges, or taking risks with the satellites by deliberately crashing them into enemies, and so on. An outstanding achievement, unfettered by age.

SHOCK VALUE: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★