Journey from Darkness: Stider Returns

[Melf]

Sometimes, a company gets too complacent with its properties, and decides to farm them out. Big mistake. The result is almost never good, as demonstrated by the horrible Journey from Darkness: Strider Returns by U.S. Gold. It took everything the original game did well and buried it up deep, deep in the Earth, and what was released was decidedly un-Strider-like. We spent some time with it to spare you some pain, and our full review (http://www.sega-16.com/2006/04/journey-from-darkness-strider-returns/) will hopefully save the fragile psyches of Strider fans everywhere.

[Joe Redifer]

I agree with this review about 95%. The description of European programmers is perfect. They sure liked things to move really slow and not have much "oomph" over there. I disagree with the review about the voices, though. Although if memory serves correctly there are a few bad sounding voices (mostly the male voices as if the the person speaking into the microphone had a speech impediment), the female voices sound extremely real. The reviewer may have been playing on an emulator and I have yet to hear a Genesis emulator which gets the sound 100% correct. Emulators suck balls. Also once again we have a review that blames the Genesis sound chip for any crappy sounds that are heard. HELLO! Is this the only game you've heard? There are lots of Genesis games out there with extremely well done voice samples. Blame the programmers/designers/those who restrict how much memory can be used, not the chip.

[janus]

I liked this review, but I also like European Amiga games.

[GeckoYamori]

European developers are no worse than their american or japanese counterparts. They all have their share of bad clichés.

[Obviously]

<grammar nazi nitpick> Never end a review in an elipses unless there's more to come since an elipses implies that information is being witheld. I like to blame Squaresoft and other RPG companies for causing people to abuse the poor elipses when a period works just fine. Also lots of em dashes. I love the em dash as much as the next guy but it it makes the article a little confusing in spots and some of them really don't need to be there. They cause the article to go off in tangents where it can be easily organized better. </grammar nazi nitpick> Sorry, I know my writing isn't perfect but it's the editor in me.

Anyway, good review, I really enjoyed reading it.

[Elusive]

Hohoho, wow. European gamers, see, we play like this. You American gamers, you play games like this. Japanese gamers? Those chinky-chong zerg rushers just sit on their arse and play StarCraft and dating sims.

Riiiiight.

The review was mostly breezing through the bare bones of the game - ripped sprites from the original, check, horrible audio, check, limp-wristed bosses, check. OBVIOUSLY THESE ARE ALL BAD AND TERRIBLE AS THIS IS MY OPINION. LET ME TELL YOU HOW BAD THE GAME IS OK.


The rest of the bosses are pretty standard issue (read: generic), and rather boring.

Such great description really gives me an idea of how the game plays. Thanks!


SR has five stages, just like the original - however, these stages seem a lot less imaginative, full of generic European designed Amiga-style robots and soldiers. Also, the name of every stage is printed out in huge, neon letters that look like they were taken out of a children's storybook.

LEVEL INTROS :bang: Again, where's the part where you tell us about the game, rather than how terrible you thought it was?


Journey From Darkness: Strider Returns falls rights in with a lot of other infamous sequels - Blaster Master 2 (Genesis), Contra: Legacy Of War (PSX) and C: The Contra Adventure (PSX), just to name a few. All of these are held in extremely low regard by most serious gamers.

I'M A SERIOUS GAMER DAMNIT sequels suck ok :fit:

Not the best Sega-16 review by a long shot. Please, tell me how the game plays, not your opinion of it. It's that which helps me decide whether a game is worth playing, not how crappy you thought the storyline was or whatever.

(actually, I've noticed this is true of quite a few Genesis/Mega Drive reviews - is there a possibility we can have more than one review per game? Person A: "I liked this game, particularly the cute intro sequence. The game's soundtrack didn't really suit the fast-paced gameplay, though." Person B: "This isn't my favourite game. The gameplay seemed too fast to fit the control scheme. The roster of two playable characters doesn't hold up, even by 1993 standards.", etc. etc.)

[Zebbe]

If the box art was the best "part" of the game, then this must truly suck ass. I mean, he looks like that Ripley woman from Alien 3! (And while we're at it, he looks like Dawson from "Dawson's Creek" on the first box art, which is a little bit better, but not much).

[Melf]

Elusive, is it me, or did you not like the review?

[Zebbe]

He has a point in this quote, it really made me think:

Again, where's the part where you tell us about the game, rather than how terrible you thought it was?

[Genesis Knight]

Weeeeell...if he thinks it's terrible... Hmm. I guess that's his opinion, eh?

But you're right - the ideal review would present the facts in an objective, then give the commentary. He sort of mixed everything up.

[Flash1087]

I noticed a horrible, horrible trend in the early 90's to attempt to incorporate 'slang' into game manuals.

This, and Snake's Revenge on the NES are the two that stand out worst in my mind.

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah, the "slang" sounds like something the writers of Sega Visions would come up with for their Niles Nemo crap.

[janus]

When I'm reading a review I want to know exactly what the reviewer thinks, although obviously they need to back this up. I think two reviews for each game (with the rule that they can't give the exact same score and must cover new ground) is a good idea, unless there are issues with space or whatever.

[Obviously]

Yes looking back at it now there is a whole lot of "what's" are wrong with the game but not a whole lot of "Why's."

About the two review thing though, I think Sega-16 should stay focused on trying to get cover as many Genesis games as possible instead of trying to write reviews for other games. At least for now. If Sega-16 wants to be the most comprehensive Genesis/Mega Drive site on the net it should try to cover as many games as possible, not that I'm advocating quantity over quality or anything.

I also think reviewers should be careful to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of games and give their reasons. I even managed to get some good out of Starfleet Academy and that was like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. I usually try to stick to the layout written in the Contribution section though it's not always as fun to read.

[Melf]

About the two review thing though, I think Sega-16 should stay focused on trying to get cover as many Genesis games as possible instead of trying to write reviews for other games. At least for now. If Sega-16 wants to be the most comprehensive Genesis/Mega Drive site on the net it should try to cover as many games as possible, not that I'm advocating quantity over quality or anything.

I've no plans to implement multiple reviews. The only way to really make that credible is to have a staff review along with reader reviews (like HonestGamer, for exapmle). Thing is, we don't have a staff, and all our reviews are essentially reader reviews.

Should we ever get to the point that so many games have been reviewed that what's left is highly unattractive, or should we ever get to the point of needing a staff, than, multiple reviews might be possible. I don't see that happening any time soon though.


I also think reviewers should be careful to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of games and give their reasons. I even managed to get some good out of Starfleet Academy and that was like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. I usually try to stick to the layout written in the Contribution section though it's not always as fun to read.

This what I would really prefer, but this particular case was one of a donated review, so it couldn't really adhere to the guidelines without being completely redone. Whenever a contributor writes a new review specifically for the site, I would really, reallly, really, (did I say really?) prefer that they follow the guidelines. This way, they avoid situations like this one.

[16bitter]

It looks like it has the color palette of an NES game.

[j_factor]

I agree, that wasn't a very colorful review at all.

[Alianger]

The review felt like an excuse to bash european developers as much as possible, which stinks. Not because I'm european, but because there are lots of enjoyable and good looking Amiga games, and I can think of a few great platformers by europeans for the megadrive, like Chuck rock 1-2, Puggsy and Misadventures of Flink. Much better games than bubsy 1-2, cool spot, mr nutz, etc.
Yes, this game is bad, but I wouldn't know the real reasons why just by reading this. I would've probably dismissed it based on the graphics instead.

[ary incorparated]

The game sucks yeah helll,could have done much better,but some games on md do look like ness but still rule like that jap soccer game loved it on nes still do on md.

[Dire 51]

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but as I wrote this review, I decided to throw my .02 in.

First and foremost, I just wanted to point out that this review is incredibly ancient. I wrote it sometime in 1999 or 2000 (those years kind of run together for me now, so I'm not sure exactly which one it was) for the old Classic Review Archive. That was back when I only had a few reviews under my belt. Believe me, the ones I wrote before that were even worse.

I think I've improved since I wrote the review. Your mileage may vary. On a side note, the last videogame review I wrote was in 2005 (Super BTTF Part II for the SFC), and I do not plan to write any more.

Just to address a few specific comments in this thread:


The review felt like an excuse to bash european developers as much as possible, which stinks.
That was not my intention, and I'm sorry if some felt I came off that way.


<grammar nazi nitpick> Never end a review in an elipses unless there's more to come since an elipses implies that information is being witheld. I like to blame Squaresoft and other RPG companies for causing people to abuse the poor elipses when a period works just fine. Also lots of em dashes. I love the em dash as much as the next guy but it it makes the article a little confusing in spots and some of them really don't need to be there. They cause the article to go off in tangents where it can be easily organized better. </grammar nazi nitpick>
All true. I've learned a lot since then, mostly through writing stories. If this review were rewritten today, all of that would be gone.


I disagree with the review about the voices, though. Although if memory serves correctly there are a few bad sounding voices (mostly the male voices as if the the person speaking into the microphone had a speech impediment), the female voices sound extremely real. The reviewer may have been playing on an emulator and I have yet to hear a Genesis emulator which gets the sound 100% correct. Emulators suck balls. Also once again we have a review that blames the Genesis sound chip for any crappy sounds that are heard. HELLO! Is this the only game you've heard? There are lots of Genesis games out there with extremely well done voice samples. Blame the programmers/designers/those who restrict how much memory can be used, not the chip.
Nope, I wasn't using any kind of emulator at all when I wrote this review. Of course, there's no way you could have known that. I swear on a stack of bibles, the way I described the voices is exactly the way they sounded when coming out of the actual cart itself. Actually, when playing the voices in the sound test on KEGA Fusion, the voices sound much, much better than they did coming out of the cart.

In retrospect, I could have been much fairer to the sound chip than I was. I have heard some great voice samples in several Genesis games, as well as some fantastic music, so I have to agree that bad voices are nine times out of ten due to memory restrictions.


The review was mostly breezing through the bare bones of the game - ripped sprites from the original, check, horrible audio, check, limp-wristed bosses, check. OBVIOUSLY THESE ARE ALL BAD AND TERRIBLE AS THIS IS MY OPINION. LET ME TELL YOU HOW BAD THE GAME IS OK.

Such great description really gives me an idea of how the game plays. Thanks!

LEVEL INTROS :bang: Again, where's the part where you tell us about the game, rather than how terrible you thought it was?

I'M A SERIOUS GAMER DAMNIT sequels suck ok :fit:
My only response to this is a shrug. I've already addressed the age of the review, plus my lack of experience when writing it. Of course, there's no way any of you could have known any of that either, until now.

So I've said my piece. Thanks for reading it and the review, whether you liked it or not.

[JUNKER]

Oh man, this game really sucked! Capcom had NOTHING to do with it at all. Good thing they made a real sequel (Strider 2) in 1999!

[Dire 51]

*bump*

I hate the original review so much that I rewrote the whole thing and resubmitted it to Melf. It may not be the best thing I've ever written, but at least it's better than it was and I can now read it without cringing.

Now to resubmit it to Kurt Kalata...

Much better than that crap I wrote back in 2000 or so. (http://sega-16.com/review_page.php?id=826&title=Journey%20from%20Darkness:%20Strider%20Retur ns)

[Joe Redifer]

Link in the first post isn't working.