Most satisfying action platformer controls I've ever played. Kinda carries the game. I love being able to slash exactly as fast as I can mash the attack button.
Peak platformer that looks good and has great enemy and level design, but admittedly it's a sucky metroidvania with insufficient fast travel for how far back a lot of the upgrades are. It should've stuck with area-based linear progression and limited backtracking to the respective areas in which you acquired the "key to a certain lock" upgrades.
Also don't expect a super deep story. It's commies saying "Fuck you Strider, you won't defeat me" and then getting defeated. And frankly I'm fine with that. It plays like heaven.

this game felt really weird to finally beat, i got it for super cheap in 2015 and was really excited to finally play it on my shitty lame laptop which broke before i could finish it. i ended up going back to it in like 2018 or something, got about halfway through and again just kinda forgot about it and never finished it. this time i finally played it, and kinda just tore through it. took me less than 4 hours to complete! it was a solid time, but really nothing special. not much to say about this one even it's just a pretty generic metroidvania. combat is a bit mindless, controls are solid, movement feels fun, it looks alright, and has some fun bosses! the new powerups are also pretty generic, i wish the new forms of the saber changed up how it felt a bit more. the last one changes it up a bit but the other 3 are almost identical just with some elemental effects. not much else to say, pretty fun but forgettable!

Very mediocre metroidvania. Game's movement is significantly slower than the Strider series history and even slower than some other Metroidvanias. Combat is also very samey with little in the way of meaningful upgrades to ever change up how you're playing the game beyond the first hour. Even Metroid offers alternative weapon options or bosses that require you to figure out weaknesses whereas this game's bosses are designed like the myriad of bosses you could find in any western developed action game of the time. Presentation also sucks massively for what is a game with such a high concept world and for some god forsaken reason the devs thought this game needed recurring dialogue while playing that covers up the entire bottom fourth of the screen. The game is by all accounts competent, but did not have much going for it in 2014 and sure as fuck has even less going for it in 2022.

A cool core combat that is seemingly just made more cluttered and messy for the sake of a metroidvania style progression at odds with itself. "Oh cool I discovered a secret, what do I get?" a piece of concept art...
The combat starts so elegant and ok maybe a bit easy with how deadly you are but still the enemy progression does help to ameliorate this. But then they just keep handing you more and more tools, most of which are either pointless cause in the heat of battle you wont remember you have them or worse, made purposeful only by the game forcing you to use them for certain enemies i.e "can't hit the enemy with the dorito shield unless you have the cool ranch powerup!"

I still genuinely enjoyed this game for most of the runtime, sure the bosses were kind of easy but whatever they were mostly cool. Anyways I didnt finish cause at what I assume is the final level they just suddenly ramp up a relatively easy game to bullshit "lets hit em with 10000 things to deal with" type challenge. This is usually manageable cause you're mobile and deadly and can take out the threats before they overwhelm you, not so much when these are big bullet sponges who spam projectiles that freeze you and you get stunlocked.

And Im sure Ill get a "skill issue" but I genuinely do not care, as I said the game had already far outstayed its welcome and even if I was just about to face the final boss I do not care, he can rule the world for all I care I just need to get this out of my system before I play something better

Stinky af game. Boring and frustrating to play. Controls seemed appealing at first, but with the increasing challenge I found myself getting frustrated with the aiming. For some reason swinging at standing position swings downward. Trying to swing up while on the ground throws out a shitty upward swing with high end lag. In more chaotic sections I constantly got attached to walls and ceilings which would fuck me up. The controls cease to function entirely when gravity changes come into the picture.

It's a metroidvania but the map is extremely bland so I felt no inspiration to explore. You collect no meaningful abilities except MAYBE the ice sword. They are otherwise exclusively a color to match to certain doors. You play the same way the whole game, just with enemies that get increasingly frustrating to fight.

Everything about this game screams "budget." From the uninspired 2.5d visuals, to the stiff cutscenes and PS2 era loading screens. Idk if all Strider games are like this but not a good start.

Also the game crashed on me twice when entering a save room. Nice.

The best thing about Strider's 2014 reboot is that it retains and builds on the excellent way Strider controlled in Strider 2. Whether it's slashing, sliding or climbing, it all feels smooth here and the new additions to Striders kit like being able to dash, slash in 8 directions and charge your blade are all welcome additions. The bosses are also a high point of the game, with the best ones really encouraging the player to get to grips with Strider's moveset. Majority of the bosses are easier than I'd like them to be though.

Strider being so enjoyable to use makes traversing the environments extremely fun, even if the environments themselves are very bland. They're all gray and look identical, this would make backtracking a nightmare considering this game is a Metroidvania, but the game sports an excellent map feature so you never get lost.

On the topic of being a Metroidvania, the game doesn't do a good job at being one since it doesn't encourage exploration. That's because whenever you go out of your way to explore, all you usually get is concept art, story intel or the occasional alternate costume (which is just a palette swap).

If you play this like a sidescroller, then I think there's a lot of fun to be had here. If you play this like a Metroidvania, then the game feels pretty shallow, but even with that said, I had a good time with it.

Strider: 7.3/10 - Good

I was about to give this a bigger score but the ending really made me angry.
The last boss has a second phase with the gravity orbs that make strider a nightmare to control and if you quit the game sends you to the last checkpoint before the last area, something that is just a middle finger to the player.

I still enjoyed my time overall with it since the combat is fun and I enjoyed the way the animations make controlling strider fun but the two issues above knock this game down.

Pretty decent reboot which is saying a lot in the era of Capcom it spawned from. Too bad they didn't care about the steam port which crashes constantly on my machine™ and I had to download linux related dlls to fix.

It's a metroidvania which to be honest, I straight up forgot til nearing the game's end. Just played it like any old Strider.

Not much to upgrades. Making it exploration based in general I felt didn't fit.

But overall, it's alright.