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!

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.

Strider 2014 is a hidden gem within the Metroidvania genre. Sure, the character models look disgusting up-close, but dang it if the gameplay isn't incredibly fun. The fact I missed this when it released during the 2D Metroid drought is truly unfortunate, because I think I'd have somehow enjoyed it even more without having experienced MercurySteam's two Metroid games beforehand. I mean, it's a 10 already, but just imagine how it'd break the scale.

Legitimately one of the best 2D platformers I have ever played, full stop.

Strider made a wonderful transition into the Metroidvania genre due to the immensely fun gameplay that has a rhythm to it with the combat which makes slicing up enemies so satisfying and with consistently getting new abilities/upgrades, it never gets old. Cherry on top are the boss fights that aren’t too hard, but still require a lot of attention that further elevates the combat.

My main complaint with this game is the visuals. It looks like an Xbox 360 Arcade title and just a downgrade compared to Strider 2. My other issue is that backtracking gets annoying due to the lack of fast travel options.

Overall, the gameplay carries this game so much to have a blast from start to finish to give it a strong recommendation if you are looking for a Metroidvania experience that makes you feel like a badass at a very low price which does make my complaints not sting as much. It is the best 3 euros that I have spent for sure.

Maybe this was born too late. It’s a beautiful resurrection of a style, sensibility, and approach to design that is apparently destined to be continually forgotten. It is and is not retro. This is like the game we dreamed about after experiencing its ancestors long ago. It’s an earlier ideal of pure action given high def form—faster, stronger, smoother, better than what came before.

A lone swordsman slashing through a dystopia at high speeds. Run fast, slash faster. Jump, double jump, and climb your way to the heart of the empire. And it all feels so good.

You begin the game with the abilities of a hero and then the game gives you more along the way— and expects you to fully master everything it gives you. Jump, slide, and dash at just the right times. Quick swap between those eternally cool plasma swords to dispatch different threats: break enemy shields, reflect incoming lasers, start fires, and freeze enemies. Use specials to summon futuristic animal companions for aid—keeping an eye on timing and positioning and the meter. And you have to be quick about it all to survive. But it all flows naturally once it’s really in your hands.

The existence of a map and the possibility of exploring and backtracking might have set up misleading expectations: “look there’s a mysterious city to be explored however you see fit.” But that’s not quite the spirit here. The game is at its best when you are moving fast. So just follow the arrow for a really good time. Stray a bit from the path if you want to find some upgrades to make the experience a bit easier. But exploration is more or less a diversion from the core experience.

The all-knowing arrow hovering in front of you will unfailingly guide you through everything if you let it. This creates a kind of focused linear simplicity inside an interconnected environment. Fight your way into and through a futuristic citadel, down to the lower depths of the oppressed underworld, up to the top of a panopticonic tower looking over it all, slash through the dystopian leader, and watch the sun set on empire as you reenter the atmosphere on the back of of your defeated foe.

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
And some other afternoon, you can do it all again. But even faster.

While it definitely manages to be fun and enjoyable the whole way through it had a lot of wasted potential.

The story is very clichè and it slows down the pace of the game which is, outside of the instances previously mentioned, incredibly fast in the best way possible.

The gameplay had cool ideas such as the different types of modes to use, which changes the effects of the moves, this is probably the biggest complaint, it's underused and it feels like the game doesn't push you to actually switch between the styles except for the shield enemies.

Boss fights were pretty good, nothing incredible but they all offer different gameplay encounters and require to actually understand them for the most part.

Strider is the most aggressively "pretty good" game out there. Physics feel pretty good, level design is pretty good, flow is pretty good, boss patterns are pretty good, spectacle is pretty good, voice acting is intentionally hilariously hammy with no sense of irony and I appreciate it. Some of the background art is nice to contrast the 2010's-era bland models, everything WORKS, this game would easily get an A in a game design course. The issue is that it really has no idea what it wants to BE.

Occasional moments of exhilerating platforming are often set back by dull segments of mashing the attack button through enemies. Neat movement upgrades like an omnidirectional air dash or a slide kick are never utilized except in specific points to make progress. You get a freezing attack that you use for platforming once in the whole game and then just use to break enemies who have blue shields that are allergic to ice but not explosions. You have a very fast attack that's satisfying to use and homages the old Strider well, but every single enemy has mountains of health that slows the power fantasy of the game to a crawl. There's a really neatly realized map of a futuristic eastern block dystopia that the game never has you explore by telling you exactly where to go at all times, and not in a Zero Mission "go to Ridley now" way, I mean a proximity alert to get to a checkpoint or screen transition. The game seems to realize that enemies can clip you for no reason and ruin your momentum, so there's tons of health pick-ups all around, even in the final boss fight, so you're very rarely in danger of dying. Bosses other than Solo are not reactive to your presence and just damage sponge their way through your attacks while you're only KINDA inclined to dodge theirs as you can probably tank through 80% of their attacks and still win unless it's a rapid-fire shot.

Strider is a game that has moments of fun; Strider inherently has a nice feel to him and jumps good. There are even some stretches that are legitimately nicely designed levels that work with the flow of the game. It is remarkable how a game can do everything so neatly and, through simple game design choices to make everything feel as standardized and fair as it can be, make for a dull, repetitive, forgettable experience for long stretches of its run time. I am not upset, I'm just disappointed.