Shatterhand is a scrolling action game in which you play a young police officer – called Steve Hermann – who has lost his arms and has had them replaced with enhanced, cybernetic limbs, and is in pursuit of a group of military renegades called “Metal Command“.

Shatterhand was developed by Natsume and originally published for the Nintendo Famicom by Angel under the title of “Tokkyū Shirei Soruburein” in 1991. That version of the game is based on the Japanese TV series “Super Rescue Solbrain“. The US and European versions, published by Jaleco, removed the licensed elements, changed the backstory, and re-titled the game as “Shatterhand” for Western audiences. One level was also completely changed – from a carnival level in the Japanese version, to a submarine level in the American version. The gameplay in both versions is identical, though.

The aim of the game is to fight your way through seven different stages (called ‘Areas’), punching enemies and barriers as you go, and to defeat a boss at the end of each. The first stage is always the same and is introductory; the subsequent five stages can be played in any order; and the final stage only becomes accessible once you’ve completed the previous six.

As you progress you’ll come across item boxes that can be punched to reveal what’s inside them. These boxes can contain either Greek alpha or beta letter icons, gold coins, or even grenade booby traps.

The letter icons, when collected, populate three boxes at the top of the screen, and can be configured a number of ways. When you’ve collected three letter icons and have filled all three empty boxes at the top of the screen a floating satellite robot will appear and help you destroy enemies, protect yourself, or even allow you to fly directly upwards if you hold onto them. There are eight different robotic satellites, each with its own style of attack, and what you get depends on the combination of letters collected. These satellites can take a limited amount of damage before being destroyed.

Collecting gold coins gives you resources to buy power-ups which are attained by crouching down on special platforms that either replenish your health, increase your attack power, or award extra lives, for a cost that is displayed on the side of them.

The gameplay in Shatterhand appears well thought-out and does have a number of small features that make it feel somewhat unique, like being able to punch enemy bullets that are fired at you. You can also hang from background fences by pushing up when you want to grab one.

The best thing about the game, though, is the excellent presentation. The background graphics and sprite animation are superb (if slightly lacking colour), and graphical tearing is minimal due to the developers’ conservative use of sprites.

Overall, Shatterhand is a very good game. It’s a relatively obscure NES game that is still well worth a play now. Something of a ‘hidden gem’, in fact.

More: Shatterhand on Wikipedia