This was a great little action game. I got it for like 5 bucks on the PS3 store out of curiosity and I’m very glad I did. The action here is great, it’s a fun run and slash arcade game. Definitely odd for them to make this in 1999 on extremely outdated arcade hardware for the time and on a series that had been dead for 10 years but. What are you gonna do I guess. This game is worth it for the art alone, oh my god, all of this shit is BEAUTIFUL. Some of the best Capcom art and that’s saying a lot, the style is just off the charts. The release I bought of this game also came with the original which I will definitely be playing. Highly recommend this one.

If you just want to finish this game, you can just rush towards the end without a care in the world, since you have unlimited continues, and just respawn on the spot. The rating system will tell you that you suck though.

This rating system is what makes this game brutal, if you decide that you want to A-rank or, God forbid, Star-rank it, which requires doing it very fast, getting as many points as possible, and not getting hit once.

Super appealing art style too. Very easy game to pick-up-and-play, and it's cool that it's as hard as you want it to be - you can change the strength of Strider's blade to a ridiculous level, just by changing a simple in-game option. Plus, when you finish the game, you unlock Strider Hien, who's incredibly satisfying to use.

The emphasis of Strider 2 is all on the movement. They intentionally truncate and limit your offensive options to melee only, with 1 power-up temporarily granting you some ranged damage, but offer you dozens of ways of avoiding damage and closing distance through double-jumping, sliding, trajectory changes, and wall grappling. The movement is fluid and satisfying. The game is on the easier side you just credit-feed you're way through it like a precocious 8 year old arcade-goer with a pocket full of daddy's money, but like most arcade games, the difficulty of Strider 2 is to be judged by it's 1CC, which is no simple feat.

The presentation is great. I love the 2D pixel art against low-poly 3D backgrounds, an art style that time forgot but that lives on in my heart whenever I play Strider 2 or Dolphin Blue. The music is serviceable, and there are no real salient flaws of the presentation here. The environments are excellent, and even in spite of it's simplistic gameplay, the environments work to incorporate both aesthetic and gameplay variety, with wind resistance and zero-gravity situations both awkwardly thrust upon you.

But there are some flaws: I still feel that weapon variety is too low, that most of the game is still too easy, that the music is nothing special, and that it's overall a little too simplistic. My modernized combat sensibilities cry out for block and parry options. But most everything that is actually in the game is done with excellence.

The first strider game was a fun albeit hard to initially grasp arcade game with really cool ideas and a sizable learning curve both with play control and level memorization. This game basically takes the good parts of strider 1 and "modernizes" them to shine brighter than they did previously. They cracked up the movement speed and gave the game much more fluid controls, which makes it easy to get in a nice flow state of goin fast and kickin ass through the levels. The game constantly references iconic moments in the first game like the gravity changing chambers with the sphere bosses, the bouncy laser chambers, and the multi-segmented dragon bosses, all in new ways that keep the game fresh while still making it feel like strider. The visuals are also super rad, with stylish cutscenes and that kino late-90s capcom pixel art powering the character sprites. My only real gripe with the game is the fact that the PS1 port gives infinite continues which makes it incredibly easy to credit spam and trivialize the entire game in like 20 minutes. There's a rating system that will let you know you suck for doing that, and you can obviously stick to the 1CC code of honor should you choose, but idk I feel like doing what a lot of other arcade console ports do and giving a limited credit pool that builds up over repeated game overs would have done better to potentially get goop-brained gamers like me to engage with the levels and mechanics more. It's definitely one of those games where you have to really be self-motivated to master it if you want, because the game doesn't really offer much incentive and motivation to get cracked at it itself. Regardless, if the rigidity of the original strider game was a bit much for ya, just play this instead.

Was pleasantly surprised when visiting this classic to learn this is an arcade port, since the later venture into metroidvania territory didn't sit so well with me, yet home console arcade gaming also comes with its own set of problems. Arcades weren't really that much of a thing in the place i live in, so i never grew accustomed to its coin-munching difficulty, so when an experience like this gets released on something like the Playstation it inevitably leads to an abuse of infinite continues to the point it trivializes the difficulty, while leaving a sour taste in the mouth when the low scores get plastered onto the menu screen. I get that these ports are a way to preserve these games outside of limited arcade cabinets and relive those older days, yet in my case there are no nostalgic arcade days to relive.

Yet, even with my modern sensibilities turned on, there's some sweet fun to be had here. There's a sort of purity in arcade game design that i'm actually really behind; the swiftness of Hiryu's slashes and his vast mobility feels immediately satisfying, whether you're playing for the 1st time or the 100th, an aspect surely important in a genre where most people wouldn't pay to see through to the end. Playing the Metal Slug series on console has a similar feeling, the gorgeous art style and catchy gameplay win me over rather quick, but taking that experience out of its natural habitat leaves some things lost in translation, to the point the experience, great as it is, becomes rather shallow.

Speaking of art style, there's really no denying the aesthetics in display here. Possibly one of the finest looking games on the PS1, it does its blend of 2D sprites and 3D environments to near perfection, lending a sense of scale to the amazing levels and enemies while enhancing the movement possibilities, masterfully playing around with gravity and space. The comic book style cutscenes are the cherry on top, making those great character designs pop out even more, even if i can't really follow the story.

It's very worthwhile to beat at least once, or even multiple times if you want to 'git gud' and get some juicy higher scores.