What an irritating game to play. Dreadful soundtrack when it remembers to play. Horrible scan line effect (?) over the screen that you can't turn off. Everything requires way too many hits. Gravity gimmick messes with your controls. Most annoying final boss I've ever played - that includes the one at the end of Axiom Verge. And just way too easy - neither you nor your enemies do anywhere near enough damage so the whole thing is just incredibly sloppy. Thankfully over in less than 4 hours. My wrist is aching from all the rapid pressing of the attack button you have to do.

After 8 long years, I finally have my first playthrough of STRIDER in the books. I bought this at launch, kept picking it up and putting it down over the years, tried starting new files, etc. etc. etc. and just nothing seemed to stick, but I can finally say after all this time that the game does kick more ass than my mind was letting on all this time.

Now I know this sounds a bit like I'm putting the game down at the jump, but it's far from an indictment of this game's ability to entertain; on the contrary, STRIDER wastes basically no time getting you on your feet and the pacing stays pretty much breakneck throughout. My final time clocked in just short of 5 hours, and even that was with some meandering for items and upgrades. Collectibles range from viewable pieces of concept art, world lore, and additional challenge stages to alternate color palette costumes for the titular Strider Hiryu and actual upgrades that help Hiryu more elegantly dispatch enemies en route to the next objective. It's a decent reason to spend time off-roading, so to speak, and the game will always ensure that players collect anything actually required to finish the critical path.

The moment to moment gameplay is a fast and intense affair, fairly balanced on Normal difficulty, though enemies don't vary much beyond a few main archetypes. It can be somewhat demanding on the hands, as it can require a lot of attack button presses, so I'd highly recommend a controller with a turbo setting for casual play (you will also need to charge your attacks from time to time by holding a button down, so keep that in mind) if you have access to one. It's definitely not as bestiary-focused as some of its genre peers and tends to focus on movement tech over actual combat, but there are a fair few encounters including some of the game's massive bosses to provide a challenge. This is further spiced up by a combat incentive that rewards players for not getting hit by bestowing Hiryu with immense power for a limited time. Visually, it holds up pretty well as a game from the PS3/360 era, with reasonably varied environments and some flashy effects. Music is mostly ambient, though there were some high-energy tracks that got me through some of the more grand set pieces toward the end of the game.

As a Metroidvania, unfortunately, STRIDER's a little bit linear -- most of the game's zones either require a key item obtained from the last area's boss or won't let you proceed without one from the current -- I'd like to see what kind of sequence breaking, if any, is possible but there is specific gating that seems to indicate that linear progression is required. It's not a terrible thing, I think Strider would much more strongly lend itself to speedruns than, say, randomizer content (a rabbit hole I'm currently gearing up to head down) but for anyone looking for the more variable content this one might not be for you.

Overall, STRIDER's pretty solid as an action game, and passable as a metroidvania-style game. Hiryu is such a badass character and it's honestly a little criminal Capcom hasn't set aside the time to get the guy in anything outside of MVC in the last near-decade, but this is a pretty solid game to sit on if any would be his last. I recommend it, even more so when it goes on sale on Steam (which it does fairly often). Kinda unbeatable at a price like $5 USD, but I'd say it's even worth it for the 20 or whatever it's usually offered at.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.