Strider Reviews

“Double Helix turns in the best playing Strider ever made, but its game lacks the vital visual panache of its predecessors.”

Strider's back for his first adventure in more than a dozen years. As Capcom reboots go, this is one of the best. Double Helix has managed to capture what made the original game so much fun, while fleshing out the story in some very wacky ways. Unfortunately, too much of the game is spent indoors and there's a little too much backtracking, but Strider is a great start to what will hopefully be an ongoing series.

Strider is an excellent revival of a classic franchise that will appeal to old fans and create new ones. If you like excellent combat and the Metroidvania style of design, you should definitely check it out.

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Match this with the Californian outfit’s reimagining of Killer Instinct last year, and it would appear they know what they’re doing when reinterpreting the classics. By adopting a Metroidvania-guise here, rather, gear-gating, Double Helix shows that it can in fact teach an old dog new tricks.

I always enjoy checking out remakes of games that were originally released back in the more formative years of my gaming life, in this case the 1980’s. Strider has seen various releases on various consoles over the years but this reimagining of the original game marks the first time Strider has hit the current (XB1/PS4) or previous generation (PS3/360) consoles.

Strider's not really the kind of game the cognoscenti get excited about. It won't be winning any awards or the subject of a load of thinkpieces, and that's because it's nothing more than a simple design executed near-flawlessly. It's limited in the same sense that a cat is limited by not being a dog. Strider is a great game and it gets me totally pumped; it looks incredible, sounds amazing, and is tonnes of fun. If I ruled the world this would be on billboards, and they would say very simply: STRIDER'S BACK.

Strider is the best game to come out in 2014 so far. Do yourself a favor and purchase it.

As a complete package, Strider offers engaging but basic gameplay, a crisp clean art style, and boss battles that fit perfectly into the Metroidvania genre. It would have been nice if the game added something new to the genre, but as it stands Strider is an excellent entry all the same. In other words, fans of Metroid, Castlevania, Shadow Complex, or any games of that ilk should seek this one out immediately. It has its flaws, but they are easy to overlook because the game is just plain, unadulterated fun. In fact, the only thing that would make the game more enjoyable is playing in an actual arcade setting.

Strider is a game that's all about the gameplay and while that is great in many ways, it has its downsides too.

Strider makes a great first impression, but really shows its true colors as the short title wears on. Little variety in the environments, a lack of challenge in combat, and a little too much handholding at times, outweigh the flashy presentation of this reboot.

Strider is an enjoyable game but it’s not one that particularly stands out against others of its type. It is cleverly designed, as this style of game must be, but not so much that it earns the right to sit alongside the genre’s ageing greats like Symphony of the Night and it’s not quite up to the complex replayability of modern classics like Shadow Complex. It’s a decent game that generally looks very nice and will while away a few hours, but you won’t be rushing to tell your friends about it and you might not want to return after completing it.

I’m old enough to remember Strider when it first hit consoles in 1989. The SEGA Mega Drive version blew my mind. It had a stunning futuristic aesthetic, a pumping techno soundtrack and an acrobatic ninja hero, making it a world away from the cutesy platformers of the time. I loved it.

This reimagining of the original Strider establishes developer Double Helix’s firm grasp on the essence of the joy of movement that makes Strider Hiryu such a great character. It lacks environmental variety and a sense of fairness when it comes to some of the boss battles, but it shows great potential for a revitalized series.

Double Helix has really come into its own. Strider reminds me of a Shadow Complex with a much better combat system and a scaled-down exploration element. And that’s perfectly okay with me.

Keeping in stride.

Had this game been released a decade or two ago, it might have been seen as a classic of its type, alongside Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. But today, at the tail end of a wave of Metroidvania-style games, Strider fails to stand out. It's a competent, workable game that draws inspiration from the right places, but which is rarely anything more than a cover version of the greats.

With its gorgeous visuals, excellent music and surprisingly stern challenge, Strider’s magic hasn’t diminished one jot, despite the passage of over two decades. It’s a feast for the eyes, and the responsive and acrobatic main character controls with amazing grace and fluidity — only the unofficial sequel, Cannon Dancer, comes anywhere close to attaining the same balletic brilliance. Although many will argue that the availability of the arcade edition on collections for the PS2 and PSP renders the port redundant, this is one of those rare cases where a conversion actually adds something to the original. SEGA’s talent is evident from the moment the title screen appears, and this effortlessly ranks as one of the Japanese veteran’s finest conversion jobs — ironic, when you consider that it’s another company’s game.