Areas designed with the utmost care as a coordinated effort between Capcom USA and Capcom Japan (evidenced by the post-game credits), with every nook and cranny intricately detailed. Lavish halls, stone pillars, marble floors, and executive suites are contrasted with dark subterranean shanty town alleys, worship rooms, experimentation centers, research labs, boiler rooms, and furnace shafts. An Underground Citizen Camp of towering makeshift buildings and homes exists in the deepest bowels of the city under ground. All of it is masterfully-joined in a manner similar to Super Metroid and Castlevania - Symphony of the Night. One could say that it feels like the 8-Bit NES Strider, though, with its labyrinth of unique buildings and structures with unique rooms that all have unique purposes. Some of it even have different gravity, turning the gameplay as upside-down as Socialism.

Hawk and Tiger abilities make for fast travel that seamlessly integrates into the gameplay and lore of the series. Strider's familiar tools have clever new functions. This particular aspect of animal assistance is one of the most impressive things about this 2014 Strider game. Both animals play a much larger role than in previous games, serving an important purpose in fast travel to normally-inaccessible areas and combat assistance to even the odds when things get tough. The attacks have benefits that range from shield breaks to crowd control. Despite how important they are, however, Strider knows how to respect and honor these animal friends without worshipping them. The animal worship being pushed through social media in the present day isn't seen much in Strider (2014)'s fictional future, but it is certainly something that could lead to a similar, non-fictional Godless future in America.

Strider was already amazing upon its initial release in 2014 (on disc for PlayStation 3 in Japan), and its beautiful design and effects were made even prettier for the XBox One (and PlayStation 4). All of the things that Strider did well with its PlayStation 3 release, it does even better for its XBox One release. This XBox One version I refer to in this article essentially expands upon the PlayStation 3 version with obvious graphical enhancements and a few other features while keeping it as close as possible to the original concept.