Strider

Strider, Sega Genesis, Sega, 1990

And here is another one of those classic, early Sega Genesis games that sounds incredible, looks great, and is almost completely impossible. Strider is Sega's port of Capcom's arcade game of the same name, a 2D side-scroller featuring the ninja, Strider Hiryu. Strider can run, jump, flip in the air, pull himself up ledges, slide into enemies, and most importantly, slash with his sword. Level design varies from good to unbelievably good, going in so many unexpected directions, it's better to expect the unexpected. For instance, start out on a snowy plain fighting wolves, slide under a shutting metal door, fight a giant, mechanized gorilla, climb up a cave wall to some vertical conveyor belts, fight through a system of electrical conduits, spring off of floating platforms, and climb aboard an airship bossed by a trio of evil acrobats. This describes what is probably Strider's most conventional level.

Why don't you point that thing someplace else?

While the level design is great, holy cow, do these levels, enemies, and Strider himself look incredible. People were amazed by these graphics in the early 90's, and compared to some of the lazily made indie 2D games of today, they still look absolutely revelatory. Strider is a huge, well-detailed and animated sprite, enemies are huge, and backgrounds look great, detailed, bold, and colorful. You know what's better than the colors, though?
The soundtrack, composed of phenomenal, complex, classically influenced tunes. makes perfect use of the Genesis' unique bassy tones. It's a classic. The best part is that each piece is dynamic, changing as Strider progresses through each new segment of a level. This all comes together to create a truly unique musical experience. The sound effects, though, are tinny and minimal. Of particular note is the fact that Strider's sword only makes a sound if it hits an enemy...otherwise, he swings it in silence.

"He Swings It In Silence" was also the moniker for my failed beat poet career.

I wish the silent sword was my only complaint, but unfortunately, the gameplay poses a far bigger problem. There are times where Strider is incredibly fun, exploding foes with Strider's sword, slashing through the game's ridiculously imaginative bosses. However, the overall experience features a considerable lack of polish. Enemies come from all directions, and their attacks are often unavoidable. The player often has to tap the attack button non-stop to take out incoming foes, and still, it's impossible to stop all of their attacks. The controls are also a bit imprecise: jumping accurately is often not an option. Of course, like most of those early Genesis games, a playthrough of the entire game only takes about 20-minutes, so to make up for it, the game has to be impossibly hard. A personal story to really drive this point home: Strider features a swap trick wherein the player can put a copy of Altered Beast into their Genesis, then quickly switch it out for Strider, and get infinite lives. A buddy of mine tried this trick with me, and it worked. The two of us have played through many games successfully over the last few decades. With an infinite amount of lives, we still could not beat Strider. It is that damned hard.

You see a thing of such grace and beauty as this mechanical gorilla, and your first instinct is to chop it in half?!

Still, Strider is so pretty, sounds so good, and features such insane, off-the-wall level and boss design, these factors almost overcome the fact that playing it can, at moments, be control-shattering-level infuriating. Maybe, I'll play it again right now.

Graphics: 9.0/10.0
Sound: 9.0/10.0
Gameplay: 7.0/10.0
Lasting Value: 6.5/10.0
Overall (Not an Average): 7.5/10.0