Assault Suits Valken (重装機兵ヴァルケン Jūsō Kihei Varuken), (also known as Cybernator) is a 2D mecha game developed by Masaya released in 1992 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.[1] The second entry in the Assault Suits series, it is a prequel to the first game, Target Earth[/Assault Suit Leynos]. The game was localized and published overseas by Konami.

Cybernator is a side scrolling mech combat game and platform game. The player controls Jake as he moves his assault suit left and right on the battlefield. The assault suit can jump and use a jetpack for a short time to increase altitude. The assault suit begins with a Shot machine gun weapon that spreads out fire in front, and a Punch weapon for close melee. Additional weapons can be found during the course of the game and existing weapons improved by the gathering of "P" power-ups left by defeated enemies.

Each level contains a variety of enemies and an end boss which must be destroyed to reach the next level. Some levels take place as horizontally scrolling shooters, in which the Assault suit can move up, down, left and right on the screen, but is constantly advancing towards new threats.

Development
Toshiro Tsuchida served as producer for the game. Afterwards, he joined G-Craft and worked on the game Front Mission.

The soundtrack was composed by Masanao Akahori, and was later rearranged on a ROMpler synthesizer (the same synthesizer used to provide the SNES samples played back on the SPC700) and released as a CD in Japan.

The original Japanese releases featured artwork done by Satoshi Urushihara.

Designer Satoshi Nakai was insistent on the game including destructive environments.

Censorship
Cybernator was the subject of censorship during its localization. The Japanese version featured written dialog accompanied by a portrait of the speaker, but these portraits were removed during localization. There is also a scene absent in which the president of the enemy forces, whose banner is that of the European Union, after realizing that his nation has been defeated, commits suicide. Also some written dialog is taken out, which shows the soldier rescued in the fourth level being in the robot fought before the final boss. However the few human enemies in the game remain (that are minuscule in scale vs machines throughout the game) with no censorship when they are killed.

Inaccuracies
The instruction manual of the English version is also filled with inconsistent information. For example, the sixth mission takes place in the Alps, where Versis tries to fly over the mountains to reach the Allied front lines, but according to the manual, the player's aim is to raid the enemy commander's mountain retreat. Another example of inaccurate information would be concerning the laser weapon, the strongest the player would receive in the game minus the cheat weapon the Napalm Flamethrower. It stated the laser takes a long time to recharge yet it actually recharges at least as fast as the Vulcan's reload, and unlike the Vulcan the laser recharges to a full load automatically without needing to expend its power/ammo first if they stop firing it.

The instruction manual also stated the suit to be a colossal 5 stories tall and 5 tons (which is seriously underweight for a machine that tall), contrary to promo material stating it to be 4 stories tall.

Releases
The game received a port to the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2004 in Europe, Australia and Japan, under the title Assault Suits Valken.

The PlayStation 2 version is not a straight port or emulation of the original SNES game. It has altered visuals and balance tweaks, as well as a brief new stage at the beginning.

Cybernator was released on the Virtual Console in PAL regions on December 7, 2007, and in North America on December 17, 2007, both for the Wii and in North America on August 7, 2014 and in PAL regions on February 26, 2015, both for the Wii U.

In 2014, the game was re-released in Japan through the game distribution service EGG.