I have to say, I tried the demo on the ps4 yesterday before the quicklook went up. Boy, did I have terrible framerate issues. It had serious slowdown issues at nearly ten second intervals, essentially. When it ran smoothly, it was pretty okay. Probably something I'd pick up on steam, but not until it's on sale.

after the quick look, i definitely want to play it but ill wait for a deal...

I've had one or two framerate/slowdown issues. More like a quick hiccup. Otherwise its been running great. The speed at which you get new upgrades is really fast and keeps the pace up nicely. Only real problem I have is the platforming can be a little touchy especially with the wall and ceiling grappling. Gives you a feeling much like Assassin's Creed where a lot of the time the character is doing something you don't want them to do but the context sensitive decisions by the game can't really be helped much of the time. But like Assassin's you get used to it and it doesn't detract too much from the enjoyment of the game.

I haven't finished it yet, only played for an hour and a half or so... And it is kinda boring.

Really? That's really weird. I'm a framerate whore myself, and during the 3 hours I've played, it was smooth as a silver-tongued corrupted lawyer.

@klei: yeah, what confused me even more was that, I believe, they did a quicklook with the ps4 and they had no issues at all. Maybe it was just an issue with the demo?

I bought the game after playing a good chunk of the demo, and it was super smooth. Were you doing something in the background while playing?

@klei: Hrm... not 100% sure I was, but there's a distinct possibility that could be the case

@earlessshrimp: Yeah, I've been playing the full game on PS4, and it's been as smooth as silk. Must've just been a weird specific case issue.

As for the game itself, having a good time so far. Too early for me to say much though. But it's actually a lot more old school in how it presents things(no tutorial, no exposition, no EXP or leveling system) than I expected, which is interesting. A lot more arcadey than I figured it would be, so a nice surprise.

Adoring it. I can't get enough of the attack speed. The way Strider slashes just about as fast as you can input button presses is so good. Imparts that same feeling of skill that Symphony of the Night did. Really cool design choice. I've only beaten three bosses so far but I'm getting a huge kick out of it on hard. Definitely worth the $14.99 seriously looking forward to unlocking all those suits too.

I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm enjoying it. I can see how people would complain that the combat is straightforward or whatever, but it's really satisfying to me. The way that he'll swing his sword as fast as you can mash the attack button feels amazing, and all of the hit effects, sparks, and sound effects create a really satisfying hack-and-slash experience. The gameplay strikes a pretty decent balance between straightforward action-platforming and Metroid-style exploration. It's definitely not a Metroid-style game (or Shadow Complex, or whatever) if that's what you were hoping to get out of this, but it has some elements of that style of game here and there, mixed with the aforementioned hack-and-slash platforming. As long as you know what type of game it actually is and you're not expecting it to be full-on Shadow Complex: Strider Edition, you should have some fun with it.

Most of the stuff that Jeff expressed dissatisfaction with on the QL is either not an issue to me, or something that I actively like. I could see the action getting a little stale after a while, but that's why it's a good fit for a reasonably-short downloadable game. The music's pretty rad too.

Not GOTY-level or anything like that, but a pretty damn solid 4-star downloadable game in my book.

Man the hard difficulty is no joke! had to reset it back to normal, wasn't fun being that difficult.

I played it for an hour last night and loved every single minute of it. It controls beautifully and is an absolute joy to play. No framerate issues at all. The game moves at an insane clip, and the combat matches that. I love that you can attack as fast as you can press the button. The boss fights are pretty great so far, too. I'm playing on normal but I can certainly see myself replaying on hard just for the sake of it. I think it looks pretty nice, as well. The art style isn't outstanding or anything but I like the general design of the world and characters. I also really like the look of the dust cloud that kicks up when you're running.

I'm a little disappointed so far. Only playing the demo now to be fair.

• feels like I'm forced to take hits in places which is just a weird mental thing to get over
• all the jump clouds and explosions look great
• hard to read the environment to know when you can go up or down
• very smooth and fun slashing
• jumping animation is awesome and so is being able to move backwards mid-jump

I'm considering buying it but I could wait a while at this point, maybe get it on a PS+ sale.

As a pretty big Strider fan I like it, it has really good controls and a nice amount of secrets and upgrades.

I love the remixed music from the start of the first game when you start the game/enter an area/ get an upgrade, and I really like a lot of the remixes of old tracks.

It totally makes sense why the older games are very short now. It actually started to feel exhausting going through yet another room of bullet spam and annoying mini helicopter drones. It's lacking a bit of personality also. Where are all the goofy enemies like cyber mammoths, penguins, amazonian women or knights on horseback? It lacks a lot of the silliness from the older games. Endless robots and military bases are pretty boring. I do like all of the references to the earlier games, but doesn't really have the charm despite being the best playing Strider game ever.

Oh, and it has broken a handful of times with doors not opening, one area I just couldn't get out of with the upgrades I had at the time and I have had a couple of instances of everything just going in slo-mo. (PS4) They were all fixed by restarting, but it was a little annoying.

Currently, I'm unable to play the steam version in fullscreen at 1080. Looks like it's a known bug and they're working on a fix, but it's still disappointing.

I can't play the demo on PS3! As soon as I load into the first level, the console hard locks. Anyone else having issues with the PS3 demo?

Why isn't there a PC demo :(

@earlessshrimp: I didn't have any issues like that with the demo, but that basketball game demo on the store is unplayable. The frame rate and stuttering is so bad. I guess our PS4's are messed up and don't like certain games for some really strange reason.

On topic: It seems.....okay? I dunno, it just feels extremely bare bones or something. I still wanna play the full game for some reason though. :|

It's fun but I am slicing through it like butter, it's pretty damn easy so far, I just beat Solo.

I'm having a pretty good time with it. I'm also happy with it being pretty straightforward as that's the kind of game I want to play right now.

It's not as amazing as I had expected, but still pretty great! Very satisfying to play and runs like a dream, which adds quite a lot of enjoyment to the experience. Some of them platforming parts have been a bit annyoing and unskippable boss intros and sometimes odd checkpointing has been a bit frustrating, but nothing else comes to mind besides those. I almost feel ashamed for being such a sucker for some of the music, especially during boss battles. All of 'em have been really simple so far and nothing spectacular in terms of mechanics, but that music alone causes a huge grin on my face and I have to crank up the volume to 11.

I'm getting close to the end and all I got to is the game is aswome. Its been fun and the boss fights are cool. Though if you don't play the game on hard it will probably be too easy.

Loving it. :D

I really like this kind of genre and the movement looks pretty fun. The bosses and art-style really turn me off though. Makes it look weirdly flat and uninteresting. Might buy it on sale.

Just finished it and gotta say I really enjoyed it. It's not a hard game like people say but that's totally fine, in fact being able to relax and just have a romp while playing it is one of the reasons I enjoyed it as much as I did. It's a nice chill game that can make you feel like a bad ass. I also liked it's responsive controls and snappy animations, makes you nimble. It was also fun finding out better tactics to use against certain enemy types, using various weapons and abilities.

The textures can be a bit of a bummer when the game does closeups on characters and the whole checkpoint before unskipable boss cut scenes thing really needs to jump of a cliff, how is something like this still a thing in games, sigh.

Would definitely recommend.

Agreed.

I haven't finished it yet, although I think I'm closing in on getting the last of the plasmas, and so far the game has been a ton of fun. The fast and nimble movement makes hunting down upgrades fun and interesting. Fighting isn't really a huge challenge most of the time as mentioned, and I don't really mind. I suppose they could have given you less health, fewer enemies and made each sword strike a lot more meaningful, but then the game would lose out on a lot of momentum and the current level design would feel empty.

A lot of people consider the art design drab but I actually enjoy it. The game has a consistent architectural style that uses lighting effects to great effect. When I started unlocking abilities that allowed for further acrobatic maneuvers the areas certainly started looking a lot more interesting as the game kicked it's platforming elements into higher gear.

Strider is a lot less methodical than Shadow Complex but I think I really like that about it. You just run, or stride if you will, and don't think too hard about it - sometimes thats all you need. The one big downside for me is that for a game of this type, some of the textures really could have been spruced up a bit, considering that apart from some cool lighting effects there really isn't a whole lot happening on the screen.

I started enjoying it even more when I got the Plasma Cypher and be able to reflect projectiles with the right slash timing. I also play with the X button always held down and then maneuver myself to be able to strike and take out a group of enemies if possible with one slash before going ham with the slides and the aerial down strike. Playing it in that manner for me is a lot for fun.

The favorite thing I like to do is running at a group of enemies and then at the right moment letting go of the charged Cypher to:
A. Slash the enemies ahead of me who are within the extended range and...
B. Reflect the incoming projectiles back at distant enemies all in one strike.

Then I'd proceed to stride towards the next line of enemies with the Cypher charge already held down and at the moment the slide ends, the guards would still be doing their turn animation and the charge would already be full and then I'd proceed to kill them with one slash again and whoever is left I proceed to pop them up and then do the down strike just for style points. :D

Also THE BLACK MARKETEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhh.

I tried it on PC, using the Keyboard. This game does NOT offer the user a way to Configure the Keyboard.

For 95% of the games that I play with keyboard, They uses the W,S,D,A keys for Movements, Usually the Primary and Secondary Attack modes are done with the mouse left and right buttons if keyboard it usually F or E.

According to Steam you have to manually modify the "binds_pc.cfg" file located in the games install folder. The current default keyboard configuration for game uses the arrow keys for movements and the 'S' and 'D' keys as the primary and secondary attack modes.

I right handed and usually use my left hand for movements this game forces me to use my left hand for movements which sucks. The only way to play this with keyboard for me is have my hands crossed so my left hand is used for movements which again sucks. (Until you finally figure out that its the keyboard section of the binds_pc.cfg file you have to edit manually instead of on-screen like normally)

Current Default User Keyboard Configuration is:

Move ................. Arrow Keys (Up, Down, Left, Right)

Jump ................. Space

Primary Attack ..... S

Secondary Attack .. D

Kunai ................ A / R Ctrl

Plasma Catapult .... L / Shift

Release Grip ........ R

Option Deploy ....... L Ctrl

Plasma Select ....... 1, 2, 3, 4

Pause ................. ESC

Map / Status ........ Backspace

How do you change the Default Keyboard setting for this game so that I can have W, S, D, A as movement keys, left and right mouse buttons OR J and L as primary and secondary attack modes, E as Kunai, and F as Plasma Catapult

This is How:

Current Game binds_pc.cfg for Keyboard Looks like this: (You have to make changes to it to reflect the above requirements ?)

............ Make Changes in this Section .............

addbind 0 COMMAND_FORWARD KEYBOARD 0 KEY_UP 0.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_BACKWARD KEYBOARD 0 KEY_DOWN 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_LEFT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_LEFT 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_RIGHT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_RIGHT 0.0 1.0 1.0

#addbind 0 COMMAND_CAMERA_X MOUSE 0 AXIS_X -1.0 1.0 .15

#addbind 0 COMMAND_CAMERA_Y MOUSE 0 AXIS_Y -1.0 1.0 .15

addbind 0 COMMAND_PUNCH KEYBOARD 0 KEY_S -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_KICK KEYBOARD 0 KEY_D -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_JUMP KEYBOARD 0 KEY_SPACE -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_USE KEYBOARD 0 KEY_A -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_STALK KEYBOARD 0 KEY_LCONTROL -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_BLOCK KEYBOARD 0 KEY_LSHIFT -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_RELOAD KEYBOARD 0 KEY_R -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_INVENTORY KEYBOARD 0 KEY_RCONTROL -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_1 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_1 -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_2 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_3 -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_3 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_4 -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_4 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_2 -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_5 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_A -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_6 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_S -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_EXT_7 KEYBOARD 0 KEY_D -1.0 1.0 1.0

#addbind 0 COMMAND_INVENTORY_PREV KEYBOARD 0 KEY_J -1.0 1.0 1.0

#addbind 0 COMMAND_INVENTORY_NEXT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_L -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_START KEYBOARD 0 KEY_ESCAPE -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_DELETE KEYBOARD 0 KEY_BACK -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_SELECT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_RETURN -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_BACK KEYBOARD 0 KEY_ESCAPE -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_LEFT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_LEFT 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_STICK_LEFT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_NUMPAD4 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RIGHT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_RIGHT 0.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_STICK_RIGHT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_NUMPAD6 0.0 1.0 1.0

#addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_UP KEYBOARD 0 KEY_NUMPAD8 0.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_STICK_UP KEYBOARD 0 KEY_UP 0.0 1.0 1.0

#addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_DOWN KEYBOARD 0 KEY_NUMPAD2 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_STICK_DOWN KEYBOARD 0 KEY_DOWN 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_NEXT -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_LT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_PRIOR -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_TABNEXT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_E -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_TABPREV KEYBOARD 0 KEY_Q -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_Y KEYBOARD 0 KEY_D -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_X KEYBOARD 0 KEY_S -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RSTICK_LEFT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_LBRACKET 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RSTICK_RIGHT KEYBOARD 0 KEY_RBRACKET 0.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RSTICK_UP KEYBOARD 0 KEY_LBRACKET 0.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RSTICK_DOWN KEYBOARD 0 KEY_RBRACKET 0.0 1.0 -1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_STICKDOWN KEYBOARD 0 KEY_HOME -1.0 1.0 1.0

#addbind 0 COMMAND_UI_RSTICKDOWN KEYBOARD 0 BUTTON_11 -1.0 1.0 1.0

addbind 0 COMMAND_SKIP_CUTSCENE KEYBOARD 0 KEY_ESCAPE -1.0 1.0 1.0

After Jeff's luke warm review and quicklook I didn't think I was going to play it but with the game drought in full effect I decided to give it a shot and I'm liking it so far. Much better than I thought it would be based on Jeff's review.

it's got problems, but I love the realized Cyber Russia and the game does feel more like an NES game. Biggest complaint, I wish they did a better job changing up enemies for when back tracking, the world is pretty dull without a challenge as your improving in a metroidvania.