Strider (Genesis) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
275A playthrough of Sega's 1990 arcade-action game for the Sega Genesis, Strider.
Played through on the normal difficulty level.
Strider, a Sega-programmed port of Capcom's 1989 arcade hit, was one of the earliest *really* cool games on the Sega Genesis when it came out in late 1990.
Sega made a big deal out of Strider being the first eight megabit game released on the Genesis, and people heard the message. Even if you had no idea what a megabit was, you only had to look at the game in action for a few seconds to understand that bigger was better.
The Genesis had some impressive titles in its first year in America: Batman, Phatasy Star II, Moonwalker, The Revenge of Shinobi, and several others continued to pushed games further and further beyond what could be done on the still popular 8-bit consoles.
But even among the glut of early classic Genesis titles, Strider stood out. It looked and sounded very close to the arcade game that had only been released on Capcom's still fresh (and hugely poweful) CPS1 arcade hardware platform the year before, and the extra memory in the cartridge allowed for more detail, more fluid animation, and digitized sound than was possible on the 4-6 megabit carts that Genesis games had previously been limited to.
Of course it wasn't quite arcade-perfect, but it Sega did an outstanding job. The port job was far more faithful than anyone could have expected out of a $180 console - the similarities you see when you compare the two side-by-side can be pretty startling.
Of course the gameplay is just as fluid and fun as the arcade version was, and the Cypher sword has to be one of the coolest, most iconic weapons of its era. Even that irritating high-pitch shwing sound it makes when you swing it is always so satisfying! The controls feel just like they did on the coin-op, and though the overall difficulty has been lessened a bit, the game maintains its stupidly fun flow for the entirety of its twenty minute duration.
The brevity of the game is really the only fault I can find with it, but I far prefer twenty densely-packed minutes of big set pieces and creative level design over an hour-long slog padded with barren hallways and bullet-sponge bosses.
It's one of those rare games that you want to play over and over. And over. Just like Turtles in Time, it's short, but it makes quite an impact.
Strider was such an excellent pick for the Genesis Classic Mini. It still stands as one of the most classic among the classic Sega Genesis games.
If you'd like to see some of the other versions, here are a few links:
The Playstation version: https://youtu.be/eZPrb5Xry_w
The NES version: https://youtu.be/8FwjSJ-ECOI
Strider 2, PS1 version: https://youtu.be/jVkzWRHCjX0
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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