Strider 2014 review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my review on Strider 2014. Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden and Strider,Augmented ninjas seem to be a theme in the first quarter of 2014,there’s no shortage of cyber assassins who favor the direct approach over stealth.These are also two games that represent the recent trend of development collaborations with Western studios on Japanese game properties. It’s been a hit-or-miss as with most gaming trends: for every remarkable Metroid Prime you have a forgettable Front Mission Evolved. In fact, the latter was developed by Double Helix, the same studio that’s collaborating with Capcom on Strider. So naturally, my reaction to the game’s announcement was met with skepticism. This made playing the final version all the more satisfying since, as it turns out, this reimagining of Strider is the second best installment in the series, behind the seminal 1989 arcade co-op game.

Game link: http://www.doublehelixgames.com/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/235210/



First impressions paint Double Helix's new Strider with a decidedly arcade-styled brush. Main character Hiryu practically gallops across the world, climbing walls and ceilings. His jumps can be shifted mid-air, with the series' trademark cartwheel in place. There's an action-oriented bent toward the controls.

But this new Strider isn't linear. Instead, Hiryu's new adventure takes place across a massive world of interconnected zones, similarly to the series' NES debut. At first, that world seems seductively open. Strider begins with considerably more player agency and ability than other exploration-based games, and the speed and finesse on display made it a joy to just ... sort of ... run around.

Before long, however, you’ll find power-ups that deepen the combat in satisfying ways: a slide kick for avoiding foes, a charge strike for smashing through enemy shields, kunai for ranged attacks, robotic-animal assault drones, four types of plasma energy to augment your blows (including one that deflects enemy shots), and more. The frantic combat evolves into a stylish display of chaotic fun that succeeds in large part due to the responsive controls.

Additionally, each new power-up works like a key that lets you access new areas of the map, and Strider’s dystopian world simply begs to be explored. As you journey from the outskirts of Kazakh City to deep underground and high into the sky, you’ll often encounter creative (yet familiar) environments and bosses. You’ll climb ornate Russian architecture, fight a giant mechanical gorilla, battle it out in reverse gravity, and invade the enormous flying battleship Balrog, often to catchy remixes of classic Strider tunes. (Too bad the all-new music is fairly forgettable.) There are even some intense platforming sections that combine deadly obstacles, tricky aerial maneuvering, and creative use of Hiryu's abilities to bring back old-school levels of challenge.

Despite the initial reports of Strider’s ‘Metroidvania’ inspired design, the game doesn’t get quite that ambitious. Yes, it has its share of backtracking and incentives to explore, but you can’t help but feel that the overall map could have benefitted from a couple more rounds of revisions. Some of the areas are especially—and impressively—expansive. If you break a grate with a downward attack, don’t be surprised if you break through multiple floors.

 Even when you focus on the objective marker, many levels tease you with alternate paths and locked doors, so make sure to make a mental note to check those areas out later. Sometimes, the next platform you should jump to is off-screen, forcing you to make a leap of faith in the hopes that you land on something, anything. And these levels can be quite large as well. The second area alone takes longer to clear than the original arcade game.

Strider forced me to constantly re-evaluate my combat strategy. Upon entering a new area, you might find enemies who are functionally immune to your current arsenal, necessitating flight instead of engagement. In this way, enemies can be as gated as sections of the map — making it all the sweeter when I came back more than ready to smash everyone who stood in my way.

This creates an overlapping set of incentives to revisit and explore old areas. With new tools, you're less fragile, and have more access. And as you explore, you can find additional enhancements to new abilities in addition to the health and energy power-ups that I found so vital to my survival later on. There are even alternate costumes to find, each of which tells the story of a fallen Strider comrade.

Unfortunately, as enjoyable as navigating the world generally is, it can get confusing at times, especially near the end if you’re trying to find missed collectibles. A few other problems — an abundance of dark foregrounds that detract from the graphics, and the inexcusable decision to use only a single save slot — also prevent the game from being as good as it could be. These are minor complaints, however, about a predominantly excellent title that’s a worthy successor to the Strider name. I would give this game a score 8 out of 10.Believe me you will have a lot of fun with this game.