Strider II [SMD/1992]

System Played: Mega Drive

Year Released: 1992

Year Reviewed: 2020

I’ve never heard anything good said about this western developed sequel from Tiertex and U.S. Gold, originally produced for computers but finding its way to Sega consoles a couple of years later. It is also known as Journey from Darkness: Strider Returns in the US.


On the surface, it looks like Strider, plays like Strider, even sounds a bit like Strider.

He’s had a palette swap on his pajamas (though may technically be a different Strider now, Hinjo?). The mechanics are mostly the same, with big summersault jumps, scaling walls and ceilings. You can even change the cypher animation to ‘original’ if the new sweeping one isn’t to your liking.

I think they’ve added a new rope climbing animation, because it stands out as looking a bit odd...


Cutscenes between stages even reuse the same portrait sprites as the original game, with some new voice samples. Strider II also reuses some of the same enemy sprites.

The first stage boss is that Boba Fett lookalike from the original, recycled and lobotomised. He shows up again later on.

The boss of the second stage is the floating Grandmaster Meio sprite from the end of the first game. The final boss of this game is just the same fight from stage two, again. That’s pretty poor.

Other bosses are a mechanical wasp and a cyborg T-rex. Just spam them and they’re done in a couple of seconds, though I suppose the bosses in the original game weren’t much different. They even managed to copy/paste in that big gravity chamber orb boss from the first game, for the sake of it?

It’s all just incoherent (though I suppose the original game was like that too). The third stage is some alien world. Where does that fit in to whatever the story is supposed to be?!


In terms of new things, they’ve got ninjas stars you can throw. This doesn’t really add anything, as it’s not like the cypher is a particularly short range weapon to begin with.

You collect these ‘orb’ items through the stage which manifest into a spinning shield when you get to the stage boss, providing a bit of extra protection.

It also has a similar assist power-up system to the original, with the orbs flying around you, linked to your health bar (they looked more like little robots in the first game). These orbs are separate to the end boss orbs ...but kind of the same. It didn’t need both.

They’ve also (completely unnecessarily) cranked up the time limit, possibly to deter exploration …?


The game is short at five stages. Yes, the original also had five stages, but they certainly managed to pack a lot more in.

Strider (not this one) had a relentless pace, hitting you with new idea after new idea. Every stage was packed with situational variety (except maybe that awful amazon stage), and it was all very memorable. The same can’t be said of Strider II.

It’s not unplayable by any means, but there is no reason to play it either. It is very much a soulless rehash. As advertised.

5/10