Strider 2
The sequel to one of the best games ever made is now in our hands, and on our playstation. The original Strider took the gaming world by storm around 10 years ago, at the arcades. The perfect blend of super fast paced action, in combination with great control, and highly addictive game play won people over in both the arcade and home versions. Finally we have our much-desired strider back in full force, not only bringing a new sequel with it, but the original version of the game as well (for all those who missed it, I don't know how, the first time around). All the action of the first is here, however with better visuals, new levels, and minimal errors making this game a must have for all!
Everyone should give Capcom big huge "Thank You," for finally recognizing this series as one of its greatest games, and giving us a new and improved updated version. While other games like Mega Man, and Castlevania have seen the likes of our new polygonal realm, Strider was left in the bottom of the pile, being overlooked at every glance. Of course making an appearance in the new Marvel vs. Capcom games, someone finally remembered our long forgotten hero, and said "Hey, this game was great and people loved it, Lets do another!" So began the quest to bring our hero back to life. Strider being the epitome of arcade action, won many gamers over, and believe me this sequel should do the same.
Strider 2 gives you the exact feeling the first game had (save difficulty). The fast paced action of a side scrolling "hack 'em up," paying tribute to the days of the past. This genre being long gone is now revisited in this new version, where your character, has but only a few moves to save the world. However, this time around, our lead roll has a few new tricks up his sleeve. In addition to Striders; slash, slide, jump, and wall climb, this new strider comes equipped with a new double jump and few new attacks using power-ups, making the highly tuned play mechanics of the original even better. These ultra responsive controls will have you back in this game in no time at all.
Striders level designs are a little different from the norm; all of the levels are split into several different "mini-levels." Once you start a mission, you will be taken through a short debriefing, showing you the different sections in which you will travel, to an ultimate goal of defeating a huge boss at the end of each level. This being the case, it has loading times between each section, being quite short, they still make you a little antsy, for all you want to do is keep playing once the game is started. This is not where the problem lies however, all of the levels/sections and boss are quite easily defeated, mainly because of a particularly nasty feature called unlimited continues, which almost ruins the whole experience of this game, when compared to the first. A game with no challenge in it, yields a great weakness, and always leaves something to be desired. I fear that Capcom took there arcade port a little too perfectly, including the continue option, with no recourse (such as having to put in more money). This little oversight costs this game a great amount of pleasure making it boring (challenge-wise). This also makes the game seem much shorter than the first, even though this new strider is a bit longer than the first, the unlimited continues makes the game go much quicker. Beating this game in less than an hour has its strong and weak points. It provides it long enough for you to get your typical fix, it doesn't drag anything out longer than it has to be, and it also makes the replay value greater, allowing you to play through it numerous times without having to continue on long quests. At the same time however, this feature also stops the game from being the true classic it should be, I hope this is only a glance at whets to come. I, as we all, would love to see a much longer and harder Strider on our next-generation systems.
Striders 2's graphical engine combines the elements of both 2d and 3d worlds to bring you very inventive level designs. While Strider himself, and the rest of the enemies are 2d-Sprites, the background consists of a 3d style Klonoa type look in which you operate, providing and odd feeling during play. There are a few problems with this engine, the game has a little slow down at times of graphical stress, the character animations for Strider are about the same as the previous version, it would have been nice to see a Strider with as beautiful animations as Alucard in SOTN. The graphics engine serves its purpose, its provides is play with some good looking scenes, but when compared to something of a SOTN, it doesn't hold up. Once again, this is a game where everything seems to fit correctly. The sound in this game is perfectly paced; it provides a level of high intensity. The sound track and the sound effects are exactly what you would expect from an action based plat former, possibly a little repetitive at times, but that's all to be expected.
As a whole Strider 2 is a fairly strong game, the fun level ranks among the highest I have ever played (a perfect in my book). This is the true purpose of an arcade game, a short, but very, very fun game. This task is easily accomplished by this game bringing a whole new definition to the word. This games is very good, while having some weak points, the overall feel is something to be admired. Also, the inclusion of the original strider from the genesis, only sweetens the pot, making both arcade perfect ports a strider fest that every PS consumer should own. An ode to the past, and a great game, pick this one up!