Strider (2014)

Strider is so wonderfully cartoony and old-fashioned in it's presentation and sensibilities that I keep thinking it's spelled "Stryder". It's an excellent example of "retro" done right at it's purest, with everything you loved and nothing you hated.

 

 

 

 

My only knowledge of Strider going into this game was his role in Project X Zone 2, a game with a lot of talking, so I expected him to be a bit more talkative than he was for the first half of the game. Maybe an odd assumption for a ninja I suppose, but nonetheless the game's opening hour or so does a great job of setting the scene without any real expositional dialogue. Just a cool action setpeice to open and a clear path through the introductory area, then a run through various localles of the Space-Russian city while an Evil Man says various Orwell-themed things, to give you a sense of this place you are clearly here to liberate. Did I mention there were Space Russians? There are Space Russians.

 

At least, I assume everything here is Space-something. It just seems like the sort of game where that's the case. Strider does an excellent job of giving such a vivid sense of it's, ultimately simple, world that I can make that logic stretch and it doesn't feel like a stretch at all, even though it's never specified in the main story. It's something that comes with the Metroidvania genre to an extent, spending a whole game in one place makes you quite familiar with it, but Strider takes that in it's, uh, Stride, with lots of little touches in it's environments, and the running commentary from various villains as you blast through the various levels at a lightning pace.

 

 

Jesus, the pace. The last two Metroidvania games I played were Shadow Complex Remastered and Salt and Sanctuary, and I thought the former moved at a pretty speedy pace. Strider gives you your first major upgrade in less than 10 minutes, and the mini boss you beat to acquire it becomes a regular enemy immediately after you beat them. You acquire new abilities at an incredible rate, and while that slows down when you start having to backtrack through areas, the core movement is still fast enough that it never drops below a pretty high minimum. Your basic attacks don't slow you when used, and have no recovery between them, meaning combat is a case of furiously mashing the attack button while jumping around dodging and reflecting bullets, mixing in heavy attacks to break guards and, by the endgame, using your 4 plasma types that govern weapon properties. And it all works wonderfully alongside the fluid movement system, that lets you climb along basically any surface. It's wonderful in it's simplicity.

 

And that applies to so much of the game. There's nothing to complicate business. Even when the story kicks into gear around 2-3 hours in the villains are all campy super-sentai types with deliciously silly voice acting, no complex motivations or some such bollocks. The game respects your knowledge of it's chose tropes, when the underground resistance movement becomes involved, it doesn't bother explaining what that is. It knows you know about underground resistance movements. You probably guessed there'd be one as soon as you figured out you were in an oppressed city. Any other game would have had a voice in your ear feeding you "everything we've got on the underground resistance movement". Strider gives you "Options", a little robot that points where to go, and sometimes turns into animals. Simple, useful, won't betray you for plot reasons.

 

 

Strider looks amazing too. Bold colours with little in the way of detailed textures, it's environments are all distinctive and full of life nonetheless. It's worth paying attention to the backgrounds to see everything that's packed into them. I like the little people running about. Simple pleasures. The soundtrack is also a delight, a wonderful techno-orchestra to keep you filled with HEROISM and DETERMINATION and all that good stuff a good old-fashioned "liberate the oppressed peeps" story.

 

It says a lot that the worst I have to say about the game are tiny nit-picks. Things not even worth mentioning to be honest. Well, it did have the gall to tell me that I missed something in the final level AFTER having me save my game, preventing me going back and getting it. That wasn't nice. But videogames are all terrible and don't matter anyway, so I guess it all evens out.

 

So yeah, a pretty excellent Metroidvania. Great to play a game that isn't an obscene time investment too, racked up about 6 hours total for ALMOST 100%. well worth a pickup.

 

Next week, E3 will have happened, so I'll likely have a pop at some E3 things like a good games person. Not likely the game of the week though, a few things for that. Could be Civ 5, could be Red Steel 2, which I picked up for 2 quid in GAME not too long ago. Who knows.