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Shit starts to get kinda crazy later on when they start throwing multiple soldiers at you all carrying different plasma shields (you have to charge up Gram and hit them with the corresponding plasma type in order to break their shield... meanwhile, you're getting shot at... a lot) in a confined space with locked doors (you must kill everything to progress).

One aspect of the game that I really don't like is that many of the environmental hazards that are strew about to coral the player in the direction that the designers intended essentially kill you. You don't simply get knocked back, you witness Strider's death animation (that cool light explosion) and are then respawned with some missing health nearby. This was clearly done to try and prevent sequence breaking. There are also far too many invisible walls (why can't I climb up here or on this surface... oh, because the designers don't want me exploring that).

I have the PS4 demo. The analog controls are a bit of a problem for me. Other than that, I kinda like it.

Well, went and finished the game. In-game timer says I spent just a hair over six hours on it, while Steam says I've played the game ten hours. Not sure where such a huge discrepancy comes from, but in any case, it's not a terribly long game. I didn't go for 100% item collection because it's a tad bothersome to go from end of the map to the other. Unlike in most Metroidvanias, there aren't any convenient teleports to help you traverse the map freely.

The map was kind of weird, anyway. A zone might have several exits, but there's no telling where it'll take you, you just have to remember it. Though it's usually safe to assume it takes to the neighbouring zone, but there are still several areas within zones, so it can take a while to get where you want to be. And if somebody does want to go for the 100% item collection rate, be sure to destroy the green item boxes that show up in the map - I didn't realize until very late in the game that they count towards the collection percentage, even though they contain just health and power meter fill-ups that are abundant anyway.

My biggest issue with the game might be graphic design. Every area kind of looks the same, with few expections, and they don't have much personality to them. And then there's the colors. While the characters look alright, it's much too common for the level's walls to be dull, featureless black. When I can't tell the difference between climbing a wall or a rock, something's iffy. The backgrounds tend to look nice, with some nice touches here and there, like civilians trying to take cover, but sometimes what looks to be part of the foreground is actually only in the background. I had to refer to the always on-screen minimap often to make sure I'm not about to fall. And I used it to do a lot of the navigation otherwise as well, sometimes the camera is zoomed in pretty close and you can't see where the next platform is. You can move the camera very slightly around with the right stick, but it's so little it's basically useless.

It's not all bad, though - the Balrog section was fun and visually decent, probably the highlight of the game for me.

The bossfights, of which there are many, were kind of a hit and miss. Some were fun and required a few tries to figure out the attacks, but most of the time it was enough to just slash a whole lot, jump around a bit and throw explosive kunai at the enemy. Worked fine enough for the last four or five bosses, beat them all on my first try. It's a pretty easy game overall, at least on Normal.

Other than playing the game on harder difficulties, the game attempts to provide longevity with the hidden POW icons that unlock stages for the Challenge Mode, either Beacon Runs or Survival Modes. The latter are just fights against waves of enemies, while the former are small sections of the main game where you're supposed to run along, hit checkpoints and reach the goal as quickly as possible. There's leaderboards 'n everything for those, so they could be pretty interesting, really force to you learn how to move the Strider around.

I think fans of arcade platformers and fans of Metroidvanias are both going to be slightly disappointed, but for different reasons. Neither aspect of the game isn't the best, there are better examples of both around. Volgarr from the arcade platformer camp, for example. The new Strider's not a horrible game, but I might recommend waiting for that -50% Steam sale.

I am curious to see if any speedrunners start working on the game, I think it could be pretty cool watching someone really tear through it.

This is embarrassing.

I couldn't get past first boss; died 5 times and got fed up and quit.

Otherwise it felt close enough to original strider - at least much better than the horrible sequels made for 8- and 16-bit home computers.

This new Strider game only XBLA download version on JP X360?

Boxed retail version only PS3 JP version?

Thanks

Japan download = PS3, PS4, 360

Japan disc = PS3 only

Thank you CIT!

So it sounds like quite a few people here picked up the Japanese PS3 disc. Does anybody know if it has an English language option?

It does. If your system is set to English, that's what you will get.

Excellent. I know it's hardly going to be the most text heavy game, but that's good to know. Thanks.

Physical release for PS3 is oddly a 4GB mandatory install.

^that is pretty weird. any idea when the PS4 one comes out? is that one getting a physical release in japan at all?

They're really pushing this digital only crap. I wish people wouldn't buy digital only games.

eh, i appreciate that - and buy physical where i can, still trying to track down PAL Way of the Samurai 4 for example - but if it's the only way im gonna play it, like this on PS4 or say the last Phoenix Wright, i tend to bite the bullet.

i can't seem to access a few bonuses where im at but i really wanna round up all the Striders before tying this one up!

Digital-only distribution is the future simply because it allows people to spend money without piling up their physical backlogs. Inevitably, the more games they can afford, the more they buy and the less they play each. Bitterness lies down this path and digital distribution makes for a workaround.

What happens when they pull online support? You have no way to backup digital purchase games to an external drive through PSN. So if your HDD crashes and they pull a game or PSN support then you have no way to secure your investment. It's not the future. That's why I will never buy digital only again because I already had Sony pull Kyuin from their Japanese servers. Waste of money. Plus some US imports.

If you haven't yet, and are curious to play this, it's on sale for ps4 for $2.99 thru Jan 9. 2021

edit:
I've played almost a half hour, 4% complete, the Red Dragon boss was pretty awesome!
This game seems to be a solid continuation of the Strider lineage. Gameplay is tight and smooth and satisfying along with a good feeling of exploration. Great fitting music and atmosphere, and the graphics are perfect for what it is.

As maybe you can guess from my user name I love Strider, but had to push myself through this game. By the end I did end up liking it better, I finally figured out how it wants to be played. You're not meant to tank the clouds of bullets it pelts you with; it wants you to dart & weave over, under & around them. Once this clicks it's cool and you start to feel very ninja-ey, almost like a metroidvania bullet hell or something. But it's not easy to do and they clearly provided tons of health items knowing most gamers won't do this, or be able to at the beginning. Which probably leads to a lot of people not doing much else throughout the game.

My biggest thing with this game is how sterile the environments are. You can tell the designers were really into the franchise, but that aspect of it let the game down in comparison to the original.

I really hope Strider 2 shows up on Capcom Arcade Stadium. I used to have it on PS1, but sold it when times were tight. It would gain so much from having online leaderboards.

I remember watching my brother play this when it first came out and thinking how generic the sound effect package was, which is the polar opposite of the classic games. I've been meaning to try it ever since, but here we are six or seven years later and I still haven't gotten around to it. Opinions seem to be mixed overall.

I keep wishing we could've just taken all of the assets from Strider 2 and made that into an open-ended game like the one we have now. But being a non-arcade title, I actually do enjoy the experience for being what it is.