Strider (2014)

A Metroidvania based on an arcade game should instantly ring structural bells, but Strider thankfully opts for an on-rails approach. Strider Hiryu leaps into the Meio Tower to expel its emperor with almost as little fuss as its forebear, and the narrative rarely amounts to more than occasional shady figures giving Hiryu tidbits on how to crush the empire from within. In-game markers drag the player around from area to area with frequent shortcuts cutting down extraneous travel time, and when the player actually has to backtrack, the game spins up new enemy encounters to keep the pace moving. This approach may have been just as much out of necessity as preference, as the game lacks non-combat-related abilities or puzzle potential, and what little exists for hidden items rarely scale past opening an out-of-the-way door with a late-game key.

While the tonfa-slash-mash and bullet-heavy combat didn’t light up review outlets at the time, there are pheromones lingering in this system that gamers looking to buck modern conventions will sniff out. Hiryu’s sole defensive tool – a laser-reflect parry that insta-kills the shooter – is shackled to a weak Cypher mode that players will likely stray from outside of turret-stuffed corridors. Immediately as you get said parry, the game begins introducing non-laser projectiles that can’t be parried regardless, further neutering the technique. Instead, enemies collaboratively assault Hiryu with spread shots, burst fire, homing rockets, and timed grenades, often overlapping to such an extent that Hiryu’s bulky hitbox can’t navigate through cleanly. His only option is to incapacitate as many enemies as possible in the opening seconds of an encounter, limiting the bullet overlap and releasing precious health drops.

By mixing together enemies with different shields, the player must switch between corresponding Cyphers. Here, freezing both inner enemies runs the risk of trapping the player in the middle, leaving them open in the air if they attempt to exit or trapping them in an attack animation to break out. [src]

Although the Reflect Cypher serves as Hiryu’s default attack – making the early game drag until the player builds out their ability set, although its charge projectile gives it a meterless ranged tool that other Cyphers lack until late-game – most will likely gravitate towards the high damage potential of his Explosive Cypher, complete with sticky bomb kunai and an explosive hurtbox during his Plasma Catapult dash. The rest of his weapon selection, including the obligatory Ultra-Cold Cypher and the weak late-game Magnetic Cypher¹, tend to follow his reflect as situational tools; the former freezes enemies as one would expect, but its weak damage output means it struggles to actually break their frozen bodies, strewing giant obstacles all over the battlefield for better or for worse. However, Hiryu’s options from his original arcade outing and Marvel vs. Capcom appearances really open up the damage potential. Options B and C (his panther and eagle, respectively) provide unorthodox attack patterns, where the former runs ahead melting enemies in its path and rebounding on obstacles, while the latter arcs over Hiryu’s head delivering incredible damage on contact. Although many encounters can be negated completely with skillful deployment of these techniques before shots fire, the elevated challenges instead reward nuking as much of the screen as possible on initial contact assuming that Hiryu will get obliterated without thinning the enemy herd. Once he’s got more room to maneuver, his smooth slide attacks, jump arcs, and juggling potential can let him dispatch the stragglers once they’re fully alert.

To force the player to switch their Cypher more frequently, encounters frequently feature color-coded shielded guards that can only be exposed by using a charged attack from the corresponding Cypher. While in most games this would drag the pace down, the relative weakness of the other Cyphers makes switching to them carry a substantial opportunity cost in terms of clearing other enemies in the vicinity (it helps that both the Reflect and Magnetic Cyphers can do this from a distance). This basic interplay serves the game well: heavier enemies block the field and require the player to switch weapons, while more offensively dangerous burst fire, sniper, or homing rocket enemies hide behind them or peer out of alcoves, hoping the player will pass them by. This becomes more apparent when the game introduces mech enemies, which play with more complicated bullet patterns or otherwise, such as one particular mech that can shoot extendable arms to latch onto platforms and close off pathways. Once the enemies get access to similar techniques such as you, the danger of being hit even once begins multiplying; while freezing enemies can become unwieldy without planning, they will eagerly freeze you and zap your remaining health if they’re able to. When the game gets truly sadistic, it will throw enemies into encounters that require Cyphers you haven’t obtained yet, making them virtually unbeatable and subtly telling the player they’re better off scrambling away if they can.

In this fight against Xi Wang Mu, she will cyclically spawn dense patterns of purple gel bullets interspersed with red ones while pushing Hiryu to the sides of the arena with a wind attack. The player must reflect back multiple red bullets before the purple bullets become too dense for him to avoid with his large hitbox. [src]

One of the big benefits of this system is that it opens up ample opportunities to unload on bosses without pause, making these battles DPS-focused instead of purely centering around dodging attacks. This doesn’t always hold true; while the first Ouroboros fight calls back to a similar fight upon a dragon’s back from the original game, the second fight takes place on flat ground, where the player must hide in safe spots to avoid powerful blasts at highly telegraphed times. At their best, the bosses litter the field with persistent traps between attacks, complicating the pure dodge memorization that would usually result from such design. The most ascended bosses, including Xi Wang Mu and the final boss Meio Prime, just overload the field as often as possible with projectiles and then complicate your access to their hitbox entirely, such as the former with her wind state that prevents forward movement and the latter sitting in the middle of multiple planets with their own gravitational pull. When the game doesn’t have these tricks for a particular boss, it can lean on a paradigm that’s just as good: stacking multiple bosses in the arena at once, as it progressively does in each of your fights against The Winds.