Strider Genesis Review

Strider Console-Sega Genesis Year-1990 Developer-Sega Genre-Action Strider, being the Genesis first true "Killer App" is a prime example of how very different games can be when they are ported to other systems. Strider is notorious for being god awful on the NES; while its true that the NES version is horrifying, the Genesis game isn't exactly the best thing ever created, as people make it out to be. This game does "own", but it's just not as polished as it could have been. The story... well it's confusing as hell and the cutscenes are more confusing. So lets leave it as the main character, Strider Hiryu, needs to defeat the ultimate badguy who is ruining the Earth. Yeah it's not so deep, but it is an action game and all. Not all games can have compelling storylines like Gears of War.....wait... GAMEPLAY Strider is your typical action game... ON CRACK! Technical blotches aside, this game is just plain kickass. You can jump around with ridiculous acrobatics while swinging a sword bigger than your own character, thats so awesomely awesome its fun in itself just jumping and slashing the air. There are a number of powerups you can get to help you on your journey: helpful robotic creatures that run around with you attacking baddies, powerups to increase your health, powerups to increase your sword length(yeah, lots of viagara jokes) and powerups for invincibility. It's always fun to have a sword that takes up 1/4th of the whole screen when used. So you slash through 5 levels, the last of which makes up for only being 5 levels long (sort of-more later). The levels are varying enough and interesting not to be repetative, which is expected having only 5 levels. Strider is fairly easy to pick up and play-jumping and slashing and all- but takes a few plays to get the full hang of, especially learning the jumping mechanics and learning where you'll land with them. Theres not too much infuriating gameplay until level 5, where things get a bit silly. You need some very perfectly timed and precision jumps here to a point where it will take you 50+ tries to get it down. I might be exagurating but it feels like it sometimes. The game can be a bit unfair sometimes, as it can seem random when your lucky enough to get through some parts. Also in level 5 it pits you again against all the bosses from the other levels, which i absolutely hate in games, but it's common for the times. This brings us to the technical side of the game. Strider is a port of the arcade game of the same name, and it looks like they tried to get it the same as possible, which for the most part it is. The problem is, it seems the Genesis wasn't fully able to handle the whole port and seems to "slip"a bit at the seems. It's way too often where the game stutters for just a second while seemingly loading the next section, and it can be enough to get you killed if near enemies. This is infuriating when it happens in the midst of action. Slow-down is another huge issue with the game, and it happens a lot. It just seems a bit too much for the poor ol' Genesis to handle at times. A few bits of tweaking and this game would of been on the amazing side, but I guess they wanted the game 100% to the original as possible, to boast off the Genesis' capabilities. When it's compared to the NES version however....well it's not a comparison at all really. The controls are fairly tight, slashing is instant and very amusing to just smash the attack button the whole time. It's very temping to just jump constantly but you soon learn the jumping can be a bit finicky at times and get you hurt. It's not really a control issue however, more so how the game is made..so... I can't really say much about that. Though one very nasty issue is the sliding when you try to stop after running. It will very often put you over an edge, especially on levels like the last one. GRAPHICS I'm happily enough to say that the Genesis version is almost exactly like its arcade counterpart. Other than some background scrolling and resolution changes, it definately lives up to the arcade in terms of graphics. Although I think your sword is bigger in the Genesis version, which makes it even awesome-r! The game looks great for its time, vibrant colours, detailed sprites and fluid animation. Theres not much to complain about in this department. Each level is very different and looks pretty nice. It doesn't really stand out, but for an early game in the library it sure looked amazing. Especially since its hard to tell the difference between it and the arcade. And again, comparing to the NES version.... well, Genesis does what Nintendon't! SOUND This game is pure failure for sound. Really. The sounds are annoying and break half the time. While playing this game you really would want to turn the sound off. This is an accurate representation of the game's sound in typing form: Shing shing shing krrrrrshhhh cracckkkk pssshh shing shing shhhhh fffkkrrrrrtt ding ding shing shing krash kkrrrrr. Really, try it for yourself. Theres one saving grace in the game, one song in particular: the second song-just before the boss- in level 4. It makes me just stop for a while to listen to the song while riding dinosaurs. It's awesome. Other than that, I'd rather put pencils in my ears than listen to the sounds of this game. CLOSING WORDS Strider is an enigma of a game for sure. On one hand it's a great example of the Genesis' capabilities of the time, having nearly a perfect port of an arcade game. Yet the imperfections are a killer. It was a huge game in the rise of the Genesis early on, and is still a really awesome fun game to play. It just could of been a LOT more polished. It's hard to do on a review that is technically horrid and also amazingly fun to play. On the other hand, I did find hilariously horrible bugs in the arcade version, so the Genesis version isn't all that bad. Remember, this is only my opinion, check the game out for yourself and judge!