My thoughts on Strider

[Ayce]

After a long arduous journey of trying to get my hands on Strider for the PC Engine has all paid off. I was leery about purchasing this after playing Golden Axe, but I'm so glad that I did. Right away from the beginning of this game when inputting the options I was very happy to see that you could skip the extra stage that was added to this game (though I thought the desert stage fit in quite nice). Once the game started the music was familiar, yet still had a new feel to it. It was not like some of the other games that have been ported where the sound track was horribly messed up... this actually fit!

There was a lot more flicker than in the Genesis port and I got hit by an enemy that I couldn't see because of the flicker. I was not too happy about that, but once I played into the game a little more I found a modified way of playing the game to compensate for that issue. The added boss dialog was a welcomed addition as well as the cutscenes (even if I don't understand a lick of Japanese). The game seems to be on par with the Genesis as far as the difficulty level goes, but there is an option to make the game easier or harder which I've not yet tried doing.

If you have the Arcade Card and have not tried this game out yet I suggest that you pick it up. If you are fan of the original you too will not be disappointed.  Seeing as though I got this game for $53 I could not complain a bit, and I will end up playing this game quite a bit in the years to come.

[lukester]

Still a good game. Disappointing port. Managed to 1CC it also.

My least favorite parts are the lack of Uroboro's theme, and the pea green background for stage 4.

At least Hiryu yells when he attacks.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Yeah, it's missing some tunes, & definitely could've looked & played better, but I think it gets a worse rap than it deserves.  And for the record, I love the new level, always have, including the music.

[Ayce]

Yeah but I thought the mid is on the desert level was harder than the actual boss of the stage. Not knowing what I was getting into the tank was ultra simple.

[Joe Redifer]

The first thing that always put me off about the game is that the music doesn't change mid-stage multiple times. I guess because of the CD seek time they didn't want the music stopping for 2 or 3 seconds while the next track was found. Too bad.

[EvilEvoIX]

There was a lot more flicker than in the Genesis port and I got hit by an enemy that I couldn't see because of the flicker. I was not too happy about that, but once I played into the game a little more I found a modified way of playing the game to compensate for that issue.

Genesis Does.

[MrFulci]

What PC Engine Don't?


PC Engine CD doesn't have blast processing. I think the Turbo Grafx, does.

[Bonknuts]

There was a lot more flicker than in the Genesis port and I got hit by an enemy that I couldn't see because of the flicker. I was not too happy about that

 Strider is seriously unoptimized when it comes to using sprites; it layers them like an arcade system (which home consoles don't have near the same amount of sprite bandwidth for doing that effectively).

Have a look:
http://pcedev.net/sprite_management/strider/enemy1_comparison.png
http://pcedev.net/sprite_management/strider/sword_swing_comparison.png
http://pcedev.net/sprite_management/strider/sword_swing_crouch_comparison.png

 The PCE can only show 256 pixels of sprite data on a scanline. In those pics, I show the original (how the home port handles it) and how it could have easily and quickly been fixed. The game uploads the character frames on the fly, so it's not even like they are all just sitting in vram (if you don't understand where I'm going with that point).

[wildfruit]

I never got into strider. Largely because I'm rubbish at it. Took me ages to beat the flying communist dragon thing. When I did finally progress to the next stage I couldn't beat the robot monkey thing. I have it on a psp Capcom collection and I tried it years ago on mega drive.

[BigusSchmuck]

There was a lot more flicker than in the Genesis port and I got hit by an enemy that I couldn't see because of the flicker. I was not too happy about that

 Strider is seriously unoptimized when it comes to using sprites; it layers them like an arcade system (which home consoles don't have near the same amount of sprite bandwidth for doing that effectively).

Have a look:
http://pcedev.net/sprite_management/strider/enemy1_comparison.png
http://pcedev.net/sprite_management/strider/sword_swing_comparison.png
http://pcedev.net/sprite_management/strider/sword_swing_crouch_comparison.png

 The PCE can only show 256 pixels of sprite data on a scanline. In those pics, I show the original (how the home port handles it) and how it could have easily and quickly been fixed. The game uploads the character frames on the fly, so it's not even like they are all just sitting in vram (if you don't understand where I'm going with that point).

Is this another project you are working on?

[Bonknuts]

BigusSchmuck: No. Just something that I looked into, when I was checking out the game's assets and such.

[WoodyXP]

Meh Strider.  That's one game that could have used the Supergrafx treatment.

[MrFulci]

Meh Strider.  That's one game that could have used the Supergrafx treatment.

I don't think the Supergrafx had, "Blast Processing". Genesis did.

[spenoza]

The entire game smacks of an unfinished project. A little more polish could have gone a long way.

[Ayce]

The entire game smacks of an unfinished project. A little more polish could have gone a long way.

LOL I think the same thing can be said for almost every Turbo title.