I loved arcade games growing up but learned to accept that the NES couldn’t recreate most of my favorite titles perfectly. I like Double Dragon II and TMNT II but they both had to make some compromises to be ported. They also had exclusive content that made up for it. The Genesis was truly impressive in this regard right out of the gate with great conversions of Altered Beast and Golden Axe. Now Altered Beast wasn’t a particular favorite of mine but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t amazing to see it on a home console. Sega would up the ante with its port of Capcom’s Strider, creating one of the system’s earliest killer apps. While it isn’t perfect it is still pretty great today.
Strider was a significant release for a number of reasons. It was another sign of the growing relationship between Capcom and Sega, which would lead to the former becoming an official third party years later. If you exclude the exorbitantly expensive Neo Geo games it was the first 8-meg game. More space allowed for a more accurate conversion. But most of all it was just a really good game that helped establish the Genesis as the place for great arcade ports.
The quality of this port is its first notable aspect. Sega has done an excellent job bringing the game home and up until recently this was still the best overall port. Strider is unique due to its setting in Russia. That means the architecture and enemies are highly distinct from most other titles. The Genesis version keeps everything and only suffers in a few areas. The color palette isn’t as vibrant and there is some slowdown and flicker at times. The surprising number of voice samples has also been cut. Otherwise it’s all there, from the epic gravity core to the mechanical dinosaur in the forest. For an early title it was a step above not just other arcade ports but most titles in the system’s library as well.
Controlling Hiryu is incredibly easy as he is very agile. He can climb nearly any surface and even latch onto moving platforms in midair. The arc of his jump can be weird to calculate sometimes but for the most part your grappling hooks will save you. The distinct plasma sword is more than just a cool visual. Its attack radius is incredibly large and becomes larger still with power-ups. That is the one area the game is lacking. There’s an upgrade that makes the sword comically large and helper robots that assist you at the cost of some health but that’s it. Not that the game needs it as it is still awesome.
Strider is a game all about set piece moments. Every one of its five stages has that one special moment that makes it memorable. It could be a specific boss encounter or even segment. Everyone remembers the fight against the mechanical gorilla and the subsequent downhill run down the mountain. But it doesn’t stop there. The battleship Balrog features an antigravity at its core, which makes for one of the most intense boss fights in the game. Even the jungle level, which seems slightly out of place, is pretty cool as you jump from tree to tree and fight the natives. The game is incredibly stylish but only has one problem; it’s short.
Strider’s brevity is owed to its arcade roots. But even then at five levels the game is feels far too brief. Each individual level is a bit long but as a whole Strider could have used a few more stages. I say that cautiously though. The PC Engine CD game had a few exclusive levels but they were absolutely terrible. Once you know what you are doing is even possible to blow through the game in under fifteen minutes. Obtaining the skill to reach that point will take some doing however.
Even though Strider is short it is not an easy game. It was an arcade game originally and we all know they love to eat quarters. Hiryu can only take three hits before death and it comes frequently. Despite the range of your cypher it is easy to get hit by stray bullets that blend into the background. Power-ups aren’t too common and even worse the helper robots require a portion of your health to activate! With its limited continues it will take a few tries to see this to the end but even so it won’t take long.
In Closing
Short length aside Strider is still a solid conversion of a seminal arcade game. While I wish there were more meat on its bones what is here is incredibly memorable. Sega did an excellent job porting Capcom’s classic to the system and it remains a strong title in the system’s library.
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