 Hey, thanks to Ralph from my Patreon page for requesting this one. When people think of Strider, they're likely to first think of the Sega Genesis port of the arcade game which is considered one of the best arcade to home console ports ever made. The arcade was originally developed by Capcom, and to this day, it's incredible, and if you ever get a chance to play it on the MAME emulator, you gotta do it. It's fast, chaotic, and exhilarating. Sega took the opportunity to refit the game themselves for the Genesis back in 1990, and the results were spectacular. The game was exactly what the Genesis needed to compete with the NES back then. And not just the NES in general, but the Nintendo version of Strider, which was released the year previous. See, this is where things get weird. The original arcade game was released by Capcom in January 1989. Then a few months later, they released Strider for NES, only it's not a port, it's a completely different game, starring the same characters and featuring similar gameplay mechanics. The original Strider is an action platformer where you hack and slash your way through all sorts of mayhem, but the NES Strider is kind of an action-adventure style game with some RPG elements. The story is different too, and it gets serious right from the get-go with your boss Vice Director Matic telling you that one of your comrades named Cain was captured and your mission isn't to rescue him, but to kill him. Our hero, Hyru, doesn't seem to want to go along with this and wants to know what's really going on, so he rescues Cain instead. Who tells him there's some shady stuff going on. Another Strider named Sheena gets involved to help uncover a conspiracy between the Strider organization and some other unknown faction, while the Striders themselves have been kept in the dark. This is heady stuff for an NES game, and for the most part it's handled well with some great looking cutscenes. However, the translation here is, uh, less than perfect. Okay, it's bad. But you can still get the general idea of what's going on in this game. So yeah, the story here is its own thing, and the gameplay structure is unique to the NES game as well. I guess they figured there was no way there could be a faithful port of the arcade game, so they tried something totally different, and that's cool, because this game is still pretty good from a gameplay standpoint. Like I said earlier, it's more of an action-adventure style game with some RPG elements included like a leveling system. You do still hack and slash your way across huge levels, zipping up and around these transport tubes and finding other characters who provide data discs that help unlock more of the game, whether it's by opening a new area on the world map or by giving Hyru a new ability. What's kind of confusing here is that, for example on the first level, you recover two discs, and then you kind of sit there like, uh, okay, now what do I do? You have to backtrack all the way back to the beginning of the level to get back to your ship so you can analyze the discs. That gets kind of old after a while, especially since the old NES respawn nonsense is here in full force. I mean, geez, do they have an endless supply of these guys? Anyway, you level up by completing missions that consist of retrieving items, destroying machines, and capturing enemies, and everything builds from there. The more you level up, the more new abilities you obtain, which means you can revisit previous levels and discover hidden areas you couldn't reach before. That's the big appeal of Strider, for NES, it's more of a non-linear exploration-based game. The missions and the clue-based structure here kind of remind me of a game like Powerblade, more than anything else. If you're looking for the same kind of crazy, frenetic ninja action you get in the Genesis version of Strider, you won't find it here. Sure, the gameplay is good enough, but it's really glitchy, and that's this game's biggest flaw. Simply jumping from these slanted areas can be a big pain in the ass sometimes, and the wall-jump power-up, once you obtain it, can really be problematic. I should also mention quickly that there is a password system here, but if you die, you're kicked back to the main menu. One major strength the NES version of Strider has, however, is the music. One thing Capcom might have done better than any other developer back in the 80s and 90s is Game Soundtracks, from the Mega Man series, to all the Disney games, to stuff like Gargoyle's Quest 2. Not only does Strider live up to that standard, but the music here doesn't sound like any other NES game. It totally stands out as one of the better NES soundtracks out there. Anyway, it seems like the NES version of Strider has gotten a bad rep over the years, only because it's not the same kind of game as the original arcade game or any of its ports. And yeah, I kind of get that. The visual difference alone is pretty stark, but still, Strider for NES is worth playing today. It's got its problems like the glitchy jumping and the weird wall-jump, and the layout can be kind of confusing at times, but once you're able to get a feel for what's going on and what you're supposed to do, Strider for NES is definitely worth checking out, if nothing else then, for the bad ass soundtrack.