Above: Thousands of luxury apartments, yet even Strider can’t afford the rent.
Image Credit: Capcom/Double Helix
Marking the end of the first major area is the series’ iconic robot dragon boss battle. As the beast flies into the clouds, banking and weaving in an attempt to throw me off, I climb up its back while dodging electrical spikes. Once I finally reach its head, I mash the attack button like a mad man trying to inflict as much damage as possible. Eventually, I am thrown into the second stage of the battle, with the dragon picking up significant speed, sliding me back toward its tail. This time I work my way back toward the head among an onslaught of helicopter robots. Again, I spam the back of his head until he flings me back for the third and final round of the fight: heat-seeking missiles.
As is the Strider norm, a boss battle of some sort bookends every significant area. The thing is, it isn’t all as epic and over-the-top as the series’ robot dragon. Some boss battles involve a group of bounty hunters known as The Four Winds, which play a lot more like a Mega Man boss fight. They are enemies that are much more Strider Hiryu’s size, and although they come down to the same pattern memorization and recognition gameplay, the conflicts are a bit more intimate — they’re almost like a fighting game.
This contrast also makes an appearance in the level design. The main cityscape can have a sense of massive scale. Although the fighting is mostly horizontal, exploration can be incredibly vertical in nature, with Strider Hiryu often hanging high off the side of a lumbering antenna or a gigantic skyscraper. In some cases, the camera dollies back the higher we climb, giving the sense of a vast world with huge heights. Then, when I find an opening to sneak into, suddenly I’m in a cramped alleyway of air vents and sewage pipes, with the camera zoomed in to give a sense of enclosure and claustrophobia. These elements keep the game visually interesting, but they also enhance the feeling that this world has a lot to discover. As if among the massive towers of this future dystopia, tiny cubby holes are hidden from the world filled with items and obstacles worth searching for.
I’m in trouble
I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a Strider purist (I haven’t met one), but if they do exist and are worried about the exploration aspect of this new chapter, you should hold off on writing that Facebook rant. Yeah, the Metroid homage is an old trick for stretching out a classic side-scrolling design, but it brings with it a fantastic structure for pacing, which Double Helix is managing pretty well so far. It took me about two hours to finish my first play through of 20 percent of the game, which was with a lot of that time spent hanging off a lot of ceilings looking for secret areas and items. I’ve gone back through a couple more times, just double checking that I haven’t missed any secrets. I just restarted for a third time on the hardest mode available, which is a positive sign for Strider, but my therapist is frowning in disapproval.
Someday, I’ll defeat my obsessive disease, perhaps through aroma therapy or medication, but it won’t be with Capcom’s or Double Helix’s support.
Capcom’s Strider is releasing on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC in 2014. Capcom and Double Helix provided a preview build of the PlayStation 4 version of the game, which Stephen is still playing and has nicknamed “Strideroid”.
My regime is not that bad.
Hey, wanna see a cool trick? KAKAW! Yeah. Flame eagle.
Look, Earl and Joe. You guys, please, try not to shoot me in the back this time. OK, here he comes!
Someone set the pitching machine to “kill” again.
Are you a Colon Classification or Dewey Decimal man, civilian? Answer wisely.
Oh, thank gawd! When they told me your name was Pooh, I thought I was meeting someone much different.
Wait. There are two Poohs? There’s a joke here, but it’s not materializing. …
Strider, my man, there are easier ways to get to 16th and Mission.
