In Strider, however, it is not used quite as elegantly as, say, Super Metroid. The overall structure works out pretty well, as proven by the success of all the other games that have employed it over the years. If you’ve played Metroid, new-age Castlevania, or the Arkham games, you know the drill. It’s quite reminiscent of Strider on the NES, which shows the extent to which the new Strider is the orgy-child of the previous iterations (like, Strider even has his launcher from Marvel Vs. This is not a typical level-based game though: all areas of the game share the same overarching, interconnected map complete with healing stations, warp points, and obstacles that are inaccessible until the corresponding power-up has been claimed. The side-scrolling action is fluid and fast, and, being a reboot/remake, the game bears a resemblance to the Strider games that have come before it (namely the original arcade Strider and Strider 2). Yet to simply lump Strider into the “arcadey” category would be a disservice to its structure, which hails from the action-exploration platformer school of design (Metroidvania, although we seriously need a new name for that genre). Strider revels in all the adrenaline-fuelled action evocative of the early arcade days, when videogames were lightning fast and utterly detached from any semblance of realism the game seems to know exactly what it is, and despite the occasional stumble, delivers well on its promise to be a fulfilling arcade-style romp. You do this for story reasons that are literally irrelevant. You leave the Earth’s orbit for a climatic final boss battle with a massive, screen-filling space dragon. You blaze through cyber-Soviet basses, slicing heavily armed guards in half as if they were nothing. You deflect robots’ bullets with your knife. Strider is your stereotypical idea of a videogame, through and through: you play as a futuristic ninja.
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