Meant to play this back last year but never got the chance to. I wasn’t a big fan of Strider when I first tried it on the Mega Drive. Not that it’s a bad game but I just couldn’t get into it no matter how hard I tried. It’s probably a skill issue but I still can’t say much positive about my experiences. So obviously the best idea is to try the whole series out and some clones and well only this game I got to, expecting to find it mediocre at best but I ended up really liking it!
This game is short and not too challenging, I played on the normal difficulty. The gameplay isn’t perfect but I loved the variety of moves in here. Once I found out about the slide, I reset the game just to try it with the slide and it’s not the best slide out there but it works. My favorite move was the one where you hold up and press jump. Makes fighting air enemies such a non issue or even enemies above you in general. You can even run in this game though it took me a while to realize and I was not gonna reset again I’m sorry. You also have this screen clear move and it’s okay but not a fan of how they reset to 2 if you die. Also I really wish you didn’t start with 3 hit points instead of your max but I get it because if it didn’t then it would be very easy.
The bosses are kind of cool but have issues. I wish you could have more uses for all of your moves because it’s too risky to do without weaving around. They aren’t too challenging but it’s very easy to screw up and die. There also was a boss late into the game that had a blind spot making it a joke which might sound nice but I never like when devs miss stuff like that. Thankfully death does not start you back to a checkpoint, neither does using a continue. Also some of them don’t really give the most satisfying feedback when hitting them which is a shame but damn does it start so cool with that first main boss fight where you’re on a plane!
The graphics are pretty plain and the music isn’t too special but the game can just be a blast. You can even play this with a 2nd player if you’re able to. Really the game is just so much fun for me. When I was curious to see the game over screen, I started playing stage 1 again because it’s just ahhh so much fun!! I had to mentally tell myself “Arle don’t do this, you just beat the game.” This game won’t be for everyone but I will gladly come back to this every now and then because this was a really engaging game from beginning to end.
One fact I have to give is this was supposed to come out on the Super Famicom but was for some reason canceled. There doesn’t seem to be a reason either that I could find. Here’s an image for the Japanese release with art not seen here. Makes me wonder how many people there are even aware of this game. Oh also while looking this up, found out you can change the color palette of your character’s sprite by pausing and pressing select. That’s pretty cool.
This game is short and not too challenging, I played on the normal difficulty. The gameplay isn’t perfect but I loved the variety of moves in here. Once I found out about the slide, I reset the game just to try it with the slide and it’s not the best slide out there but it works. My favorite move was the one where you hold up and press jump. Makes fighting air enemies such a non issue or even enemies above you in general. You can even run in this game though it took me a while to realize and I was not gonna reset again I’m sorry. You also have this screen clear move and it’s okay but not a fan of how they reset to 2 if you die. Also I really wish you didn’t start with 3 hit points instead of your max but I get it because if it didn’t then it would be very easy.
The bosses are kind of cool but have issues. I wish you could have more uses for all of your moves because it’s too risky to do without weaving around. They aren’t too challenging but it’s very easy to screw up and die. There also was a boss late into the game that had a blind spot making it a joke which might sound nice but I never like when devs miss stuff like that. Thankfully death does not start you back to a checkpoint, neither does using a continue. Also some of them don’t really give the most satisfying feedback when hitting them which is a shame but damn does it start so cool with that first main boss fight where you’re on a plane!
The graphics are pretty plain and the music isn’t too special but the game can just be a blast. You can even play this with a 2nd player if you’re able to. Really the game is just so much fun for me. When I was curious to see the game over screen, I started playing stage 1 again because it’s just ahhh so much fun!! I had to mentally tell myself “Arle don’t do this, you just beat the game.” This game won’t be for everyone but I will gladly come back to this every now and then because this was a really engaging game from beginning to end.
One fact I have to give is this was supposed to come out on the Super Famicom but was for some reason canceled. There doesn’t seem to be a reason either that I could find. Here’s an image for the Japanese release with art not seen here. Makes me wonder how many people there are even aware of this game. Oh also while looking this up, found out you can change the color palette of your character’s sprite by pausing and pressing select. That’s pretty cool.