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.