Strider
By Jeffrey Couto

The Story

In 1998 many disasters that have been running rampant for several years suddenly came to complete stop. Humans used this opportunity to rebuild their world and their lives, that is, until several previously unknown creatures made a sudden appearance and started destroying all that humanity had rebuilt. Europe fell first, it was then followed by both South and North America.

Meio, who studied life on Earth from a distant place in space was behind these monster attacks. His goal, total world conquest, which he would supervise from his space station high above Earth's atmosphere.

As reports of the planet's destruction were transmitted around the globe, the signals were picked up at the secret training location of the Striders, Moralos Island. The Striders are an elite group of fighters and the planet's only hope for survival. Amongst their rank is one young man known as Hiryu, the youngest person to ever achieve A-class Strider status, who is assigned the task of not only destroying the monsters attacking the world but to defeat the evil Meio.

The Games

The Strider series started out in 1989 as an original arcade game released by Capcom Japan. The game became a huge hit for the company, which then went on to release many different ports to several different systems including the: Amiga, Amstrad, C64, Genesis, Nintendo, PC, PC Engine, and Sega Master System. There was also a planned conversion for the Super Grafx system, but it was ultimately scrapped.

Since the original arcade game and the many conversions that were released to various platforms there has only been one official sequel to the game, which made its debut on the Playstation system in 2000. Strider has also made various appearances in Capcom's fighting series Marvel VS Capcom.

Why so Popular?

Starting with the original Strider Arcade game the series distinguished itself from other platformers by providing the player with not only great level layouts and play mechanics, but also some of the best graphic design and music of its time. In a way it was one of various game that pushed the concept of platform-based games to a new level.

It's interesting to note that even thought the original game was very popular with arcade gamers (it was consistently ranked amongst the top 10 games in a span of two years) Capcom never got around to producing a sequel to it until almost ten years later. Very strange for a company known to produce as many follow-ups for a popular franchise as fans can buy, Rockman and Street Fighter being perfect examples.

Our Hero's Future

The future of Strider is uncertain at this point as there doesn't seem to be any future installments of the series currently being planned by Capcom of Japan. However, with such a popular character it might only be a matter of time until we take on the role of the ultimate ninja in Capcom's universe. Till then we can always look forward to his current and future apperances in the ever popular Marvel VS Campcom games. Who knows maybe we'll be lucky enough to get a port of the original game on the Gameboy Advance.

Jeffrey Couto