Strider (Sega Genesis) Review

Strider is one of those games that if you start the sentence with, well back when it was new. Then I can totally understand why Strider was a fantastic game. Leading up to the release of Strider, Genesis owners had games like the last battle to look forward to Yikes! At least there was mystic defender and  The Revenge of Shinobi as a two of three chance to get it right in 1989.

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Considering Strider was a way to show off the genesis hardware way before sonic was brought along. Electronic gaming monthly hailed it as their game of the year in 1990 when it was released.

The controls are extremely basic, one button slashes and one button jumps. You can also do a slide that’s useful getting into doorways or just moving faster.

You can pickup powerups for things like extra lives or health there’s also droids that follow you around shooting lasers at enemies further away.

One sticking point to the gameplay is that there’s only five levels in the entire game and yeah there are some difficult sections especially the last stage of the game. This section here where you’re upside down and have to climb these beams took me the most attempts to get down.

But what Strider lacks in quantity, it delivers in quality. Each of the five stages are incredibly unique from Siberia, The Flying Fortress (called 'Ballog' in the G. I. Booklet), The Amazon and even the Third Moon.

Is it me or does this cover art look a lot like Dave Coulier in a set of purple spandex with some boots and an incredibly tiny sword. When you get the sword powerup, it flashes against half the screen. Who is the guy from full house kidding with his puny looking sword. Come on now cut it out.

I honestly don't know about strider. Every time I have it a go I would always think about the praise it always gotten for being this killer app to always be disappointed with the execution.

Strider feels very slow when tons of enemies are on screen. The bosses flicker like crazy when going up against them. There’s also these odd spots in the game where I feel like Strider makes it to a checkpoint and has to load the next section of the game. This takes away from the fast paced action that Strider indents on delivering to its audience.

The slashing sound does get a bit repetitive since you're constantly mashing the attack button. If you compare strider to other action platformers from the same year, even ones released on last gen consoles like Mega Man 3 on the NES you’ll quickly see that there are better games in this timeframe.

The final stage does feel like a cop out the way you have to go through the main bosses again leading up to the final boss. Lets set this straight, the last boss in the game is a complete pushover. He’ll get one of those infamous laughs in and that’s it, roll to the credits.

Strider is hard to let me rubber stamp it. Maybe if I hopped in a DeLorean at 88 miles per hour back to 1990 but playing it well after the Genesis was extinct makes me think differently about it.