Strider (1989)

Preliminary: Wow I'm just a bit into this and wow. It has that later-arcade feel. Such full and vibrant graphics. But most excitingly, it's full of nice gameplay touches. Like, I can grip to the edge of platforms, climb up walls, slice at almost any point whether climbing or jumping etc, the slice reminds me of the Castlevania whip where I already am loving learning its exact distance, all of this I'm learning intuitively without having to consult anything, figuring out how to climb or hang from something or jump up. And your character actually moves logically with all the dips and dives. Exciting that this came out in Jan 1989, seems 1989 will be a good year for games! Oh, I am playing the original arcade game, of course. Oh and forgot to mention--it's gory too! Seems the gory vibes are increasing in games in the late 80s.

Day 1

Just very pleasantly surprised by this. Surprised I hadn't heard of it.

I love the cold setting/vibe of the second stage, reflected even in its music. For the most part, I love the controls but as it's getting more and more late-80s hard into the later stages, I am noticing some negatives with its jump, namely that if you jump pressing a direction, you're committed to that cool little cartwheel jump he does, but it's not so cool that you can't mid-jump control for that heh (you can mid-jump control in other situations tho, fortunately). Ok yea the 80s hard crap is piling up making it un-fun. Why were the late 80s so obsessed with the idea harder=more replayability.

Bahahah the screams of the people in the Amazon level. (As funny as the vocal sound effect is, the implication of a lot of this game is a bit questionable...) Oh and now we have dinosaurs. Then mecha-dinosaurs. Okay.

Well, that last level was just plain ridiculous. It became lazy at the end, just swarming enemies. And the things I found cool at the beginning, like clinging to the walls, became such a frustration, e.g. when I was trying to escape after defeating the last Gravity Ball thingie and fire is spreading but I kept clinging to the platform edge rather than dropping down the narrow wall and because there's no mid-jump movement when going a direction/cartwheeling, I just had to over-abuse savestates to find the exact right spot to cartwheel from (not to mention, once I dropped below, I fell to my death unless at a very specific spot)

With mid-jump controls, this would be an outright great game, even with the clinging frustration. As it is, it's a potentially great game, bogged down by the late-80s love of brutal difficulty and some clunky control decisions. Chaotic last level then a very simple ending... oh wait now I'm riding a whale

Look: 8/10 Many great backgrounds. This potentially could be an 8.5 if I had a chance to enjoy the graphics, but it's so intense and chaotic and the usual tacky time limit factor platformers love.

Sound: 8/10 Great vocal parts between levels and all around a good tune and never sought to turn it down.

Play: 7.5/10 So much potential and intuitive controls, bogged down by the super high difficulty even as soon as Stage 2, but especially Stages 4 and 5. Also bogged down by some cool ideas that become a bit frustrating in those later stages.

Feel: 7.5/10 Great Look and Sound mixed with an addictive gameplay make for a great Feel. Too bad the difficulty spike prevents this from being an 8 or higher.

Attachment: 7.5/10 Good game, good influence on other games, unlikely to return to tho. At first I kept thinking how I was excited to show my brothers how advanced it was for Jan 1989 and by the end of it, I had no urge to do so ha.

Overall: 7.7/10

Completion: Main Story

Playtime: ~45 mins

Strider is one of those games that wasn't meant to be on a system where you needed to stay alive. It's filled with gotchas, obstacles and enemies that might just always hit you once no matter once, and cheap shots (who else got launched off an airship?). It's fun though, enough to make up for it.

Set in 2048, where some evil Russian-looking guy rules the world, a ninja by the name of Strider Hiryu, fights through a whole bunch of mechanical beasties, soldiers, dinosaurs, and whatnot to assassinate this leader. With his mighty rapid fire slashy sword, a couple of robot helpers as powerups (including a robo tiger and a robo hawk!), and hanging on ceilings, Strider makes his way through five stages. Dying is prevalent, but checkpoints are merciful and grant Strider full health, so a trip up every now and then isn't deadly.

Controls are ok - he can slide underneath obstacles, cling on walls and climb up on surfaces, and jump a-la Castlevania (you can't control your landing but you can make quite the flip!). It feels a little loose and slow, which doesn't fit well with ninja-style combat. It does get the job done, though.

Visuals look pretty great for a 1989 game, with delicious looking graphics and a few cool enemies, including a large robot gorilla and a gravity sphere that flings Strider around the stage. The sound is the real winner here though - the sound effects rumble and feel super satisfying, and the voice acting is impressively done in four languages.

Strider is a short game but a lot of fun, with loose controls and set pieces to make up for it. Throw your quarters (or MAME credits) in and spam that sword!

About the Game:

Strider is one of those games that I remember fairly well from my childhood, but can't remember actually playing. I've always had an interest in the series, and actually really enjoyed the PS4 version when I got it as a PS+ freebie. As an early Capcom platformer, and as what was considered to be the best port of the arcade game at the time, I was really excited to jump in to this one!

Gameplay:

I'll cut to the chase: Strider is disappointing.

I wanted, so badly, to love this game. The gameplay footage looked fun, I have faith in Capcom, it's a game about a ninja... everything should have been great, but it just wasn't. The controls are straightforward, with A and C as the jump buttons and B to attack. Down + A/C caused Strider to slide across the ground and attack enemies... usually... except it only worked about 75% of the time. Your jumps could only be aimed straight up or directly forward, with no midair control meaning absolutely no precision jumping. Jumping into the ceiling or wall would cause Strider to latch on, unless it didn't, and there was always a bit of unresponsiveness to your jumnps, often leading you to walk right off ledges!

The one thing the game got right was the slashing mechanic, as Strider could attack forward and backwards, in mid-jump, and as fast as you could mash the B button. Of course, this itself led to some minor problems, as any strong enemy could be quickly dispatched by mashing quickly enough. It's also unfortunate that you can't aim your attacks up or down, leading to some awkward positioning to hit certain enemies. That particular problem was exacerbated by the extremely inconsistent slide mechanics...

Also present are what I can only assume are either bugs or terrible game design. The beginning of Stage 2 (pictured above) has a door that comes down to block your path which you must quickly slide under. Failure to slide fast enough, and your only option is to die and restart the stage, because that door will not re-open... You'll often die for what seems to be absolutely no reason, though this could just as easily be blamed on the game's very questionable hit detection. Throw in some glitchy instances of clipping through platforms, vanishing power-ups and framerate issues and you have, well, this game!

Take everything above and what you have is a fast paced ninja action game with a lot of good ideas and a couple flashes of brilliance that should be a blast to play, but ends up being too frustrating and difficult (for the wrong reasons) to actually be enjoyable.

Presentation, Music and Sound:

For such an early game the graphics are fairly decent, as far as sprites and effects go. The presentation issues are more technically related with the aforementioned lag, as well as plenty of flicker and clipping. Unfortunately, when you take all those technical issues and apply them to a game that's already inherently difficult, it can cause some major issues. Bullets can turn invisible, you'll walk into enemies you think you're attacking, and often you'll die having no idea what onscreen object actually dealt the killing blow!

Music isn't even worth mentioning aside from "it's there". It's boring and quiet and ultimately adds nothing to the atmosphere. Sound effects, on the other hand, actually do enough to DETRACT from gameplay! There is absolutely no audible notification for item pickups, taking damage, dealing damage, or any other important mechanic. This would lead to confusion, and I'd often wonder if I had just picked up a drone power-up, or if I'm now being chased by a drone! I could have been playing Strider on mute and not have lost anything in the experience...

Fun & Relevance:

Like I said earlier, when Strider for the Genesis hit the scene it was the absolute best way to experience the game outside of the arcade, acting much like Golden Axe II at the time. That's all well and good back in 1989, but going back and playing this game for what it is today is just a huge letdown. I tried really hard to enjoy this one, even going back and turning down the difficulty just so I could see more of it, but ultimately it just fell flat for me.

It's another example of me feeling like I'm fighting against the engine more than the enemies...

Review:

Playthrough: