It’s really evident in Run Saber that the people at Hori Electric were clearly fans of Capcom’s coin-op Strider and were not coy to admit it. That’s not a bad thing because on its own terms this game is a good half-hour of arcade-like fun while it lasts, and is the closest the SNES got to having a Strider-esque experience. Maybe it’s me, but a part of me finds it interesting that Atlus (a company presently and almost exclusively affiliated with RPGs) had their names attached to platformers such as this and Telenet Japan’s Super Valis IV (Super Valis: Akaki Tsuki no Otome’s American version) at one point in time.

It’s certainly more manageable than Strider in regards to its difficulty, regardless which of the three you chose to play, and I liked its slick and smooth controls, its sense of nonstop action and the slew of boss fights you fought up until the end of the stage (The Cutting Room Floor website likened this game to a mix of Strider and Konami’s Contra III: The Alien Wars, and I can see that). There is a grotesquely creepy nature to the genetically altered monster designs (the zombie witch, the Jodvalley endboss, and Bruford come to mind), I like the aesthetic of Tong City the most with the neon signs and terra cotta statues (and how some of them spring to life) and how it basically transitions from sunset to night for it makes it a colorful stage, there is one moment during the final stage where you drop down which I personally found striking because I’m sucker for parallax scrolling of the vertical variety on those rare occasions that it happens. I also found it fascinating how you could alter the color of the character you’re controlling to one of eight palettes simply by pressing the Select button while the game is paused, it does make it stand out from the rest, I like Hikoshi Hashimoto’s music (well, mainly the themes for Tong City, Kurtz’s battle theme, Bruford’s base, and the ending), and what I find amusing is that when you get a life icon it sounds exactly like that one cue from Nintendo’s Pilotwings.

All that said, Run Saber is a very brief and considerably manageable game, it’s not high on challenge, I felt the victory pose to be overdone pretty much any time you defeated a (mini) boss, most of the bosses are pretty easy to take out because they have simple patterns (made more disappointing because they have imposing designs; the zombie witch looks incredible, for one, but she’s defeated far too easily), and the hyper bomb I generally reserve for Kurtz who is provides the most challenge of all the boss battles (I like his battle theme, but I hate that it’s one of those themes that are much longer than the battle itself) who occasionally throws knives at you.

But despite all that I do think it’s solidly handled arcade-like fun while it lasts, and whenever I’m in the mood for arcade action it is good to play once in awhile. It’s no Strider, but Run Saber still works as its own game. =)

To each their own