Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Release: 2000 Genre: Action
For a character who had only starred in three games Strider Hiryu’s popularity over the years is incredible. I guess that is the power of excellent character design. Speaking of design, Capcom would dust off the character and give him a beyond awesome redesign in 1998 for Marvel vs. Capcom. The popularity of that game would inspire them to create a true sequel to the original arcade game with Strider 2. And unfortunately it would never leave Japan. Luckily the PlayStation received an excellent port that would release worldwide and finally give the fans what they wanted all these years.
2000 years after his initial defeat the Grandmaster returns to conquer the world once again. But the Strider organization is a shell of former self and lacks the manpower to fight him. Instead they create a clone of Strider Hiryu to fight the Grandmaster once again. The year 2000 was the last truly great year for the PlayStation before it would descend in to $10 bargain bin hell. Strider 2 is one of many last big hurrahs and comes with a few extra to offset its brevity.
Strider 2 carries over his move set from the vs. fighting games creating a nimble action game protagonist in the process. Hiryu can dash, double jump, and still slide as in the first game. While climbing walls and ceilings he can vault from wall to wall and attack as well. The cipher is still incredibly quick on the draw and you can perform multi-hit combos while airborne too. The only new addition to his arsenal is the boost attack. While you have at least one boost unleashing it will unleash long range homing slashes while the meter lasts. Other than that the super sword is your only other power-up.
By this point most action games were fully 3d. Strider 2 is essentially 2.5D like Klonoa. The world is polygonal but the sprites are 2d. This allows for a level of precision in the action and platforming that rivals the greats while still looking modern. The first four missions can be tackled in any order before the trip to the moon to battle the grandmaster. Each mission is a bundle of cool action set pieces, one right after the other and the adrenaline never lets up. From leaping from hover cars in the first mission to attacking the Battleship Balrog again, Capcom have done an excellent job mixing the old with the new. There are a lot of callbacks to the original such as returning bosses (which is odd as this is 2000 years later) but the game does not rely completely on nostalgia to hook you.
In many ways Strider 2 has the pacing of a Treasure game. Each mission has multiple smaller sections. Some of these are short platform segments while others are action heavy. There are frequent boss battles and is the game’s true star. Their patterns are simple but execution still matters and what will separate good players from the bad. To be fair this is similar to the original but it is more pronounced here. The only fly in the ointment is the game’s unrelenting difficulty.
Strider 2 is an arcade game through and through and that means there are many cheap tactics designed to kill you quickly. Life restoring power-ups are not common and your life bar is short (although can be adjusted in the menu). There are many leaps of faith due to the perspective shifting and often attack in massive numbers meaning you can and will die without knowing what happened. For the home release you have infinite continues which breaks the game. In the arcade this would make sense since you are feeding it quarters. But at home the only penalty for death is a lower grade at the end of the level which most will not care about. Had they adjusted the gameplay and had limited continues that force you to master the mechanics this would be an even better experience.
Possibly the only flaw with the game is its length. At most this is an hour long experience. If you truly suck and mash the continue button it is probably even shorter. To make up for it Capcom include an arcade perfect port of the first game as a second disc. To entice players in to completing both games a number of extras unlock for doing so. A sixth waterfall stage becomes available and is better than the entire game! Finishing this mission unlocks Strider Hien as a playable character. His default attack throws out homing cyphers which makes the game significantly easier. It is a nice bonus but not something to look forward to by the time he unlocks.
In Closing
It took a few years but we finally got the sequel wanted. Strider 2 is a great game that only suffers from its brevity. But you will have a hell of a time while it lasts.
