Honestly, this was a better effort than I was expecting. The manic pace, rapid fire slashing and cartwheeling acrobatics are all intact from the arcade original. References to that game abound, and I couldn't help but smile to see a nod to the strange NES version many of us without access to a Genesis endured. Boss fights are plentiful and well-designed, relying on classic pattern memorization skills to get through.

That being said, Strider has a few issues. Instead of a linear action game, we're instead greeted by a lite Metroidvania affair. This is fine, but unfortunately many of the "rooms" are massive and sparesely populated with enemies, making it extremely easy to blast through them with little effort from the player. The music is also weirdly subdued and sounds as though composer Michael Mollo was trying to remix the original soundtrack in a similar way to Simon Viklund's work on Bionic Commando Rearmed. What little I could hear of it under the chaos of battle failed to evoke a similar response; a real shame considering the original game's strange and bombastic score.

A solid effort from Double Helix. I wish Hiryu would pop in more often.

Honestly, this was a better effort than I was expecting. The manic pace, rapid fire slashing and cartwheeling acrobatics are all intact from the arcade original. References to that game abound, and I couldn't help but smile to see a nod to the strange NES version many of us without access to a Genesis endured. Boss fights are plentiful and well-designed, relying on classic pattern memorization skills to get through. That being said, Strider has a few issues. Instead of a linear action game, we're instead greeted by a lite Metroidvania affair. This is fine, but unfortunately many of the "rooms" are massive and sparesely populated with enemies, making it extremely easy to blast through them with little effort from the player. The music is also weirdly subdued and sounds as though composer Michael Mollo was trying to remix the original soundtrack in a similar way to Simon Viklund's work on Bionic Commando Rearmed. What little I could hear of it under the chaos of battle failed to evoke a similar response; a real shame considering the original game's strange and bombastic score. A solid effort from Double Helix. I wish Hiryu would pop in more often.