Strider Hiryu
Strider Hiryū ( Japanese ス ト ラ イ ダ ー 飛 竜 , Sutoraidā Hiryū ) is a fictional character from the arcade game series Strider by the Capcom company . Although the character's name is often abbreviated as Strider , in the series' plot it is just a title. The Striders are an organization of highly technical, very futuristic ninjas . Hiryū ("flying dragon") is its most prominent and most capable member and the figure who appears most frequently in other games.
Emergence
Hiryu first appeared in the Kadokawa Shoten manga in 1988 . The series was produced by a group of artists (initially called "Motomiya-kikaku", later abbreviated to Moto Kikaku), under the direction of Hiroshi Motomiya. Video game producer Capcom became interested in the series and suggested developing a game based on the title character and got involved in the production of the manga. The copyrights to the Strider Hiryu character are still owned by Moto Kikaku, while Capcom has distribution rights to the character.
Plot of the manga
Itchi Mikashi is a man who works as an accountant in a city company and always has problems with his boss. One day while working, he falls out of a window on the 15th floor and dies. In a world between life and death, he meets the warrior Strider Hiryu, who claims to be his own self from the past. Strider merges with Itchi, giving him the responsiveness and reflexes of a ninja and the sword skills and willpower of a samurai. Suddenly he wakes up in a hospital and thinks everything that has happened is a dream.
A few days later, his workplace is raided by a gang boss named Gatuin. His girlfriend, who works for the police, tries to prevent the robbery and is shot. Itchi has to see it. Out of anger and desperation, he turns into Strider Hiryu and pursues the criminal.
Manga
The manga was first published in 1988. In 1989 it was also published as an anthology (ス ト ラ イ ダ ー 飛 竜, Kadokawa Shoten COMP COMICS, ISBN 4-04-713009-5 ), which, however, lacks the thirty-page prologue that was included in the original monthly edition.
Arcade game
OT: Japanese. ス ト ラ イ ダ ー 飛 竜 , Sutoraidā Hiryū . Apart from the main character of the same name, the video game has little in common with the comic series.
The arcade game Strider was successfully published in 1989, followed by a port for Sega Mega Drive as well as a playfully modified NES version , which, however, was less popular than the arcade machine and the Sega version. Portings for home computers like Atari ST , Commodore 64 or Commodore Amiga were more successful ; in particular the Amiga and ST versions were praised by the press.
After the NES game failed, Hiryu disappeared from the scene for a while, only making guest appearances in games like Capcom World 2 , SNK's Card Fighter's Clash, and Marvel vs. Capcom . In particular, he did not star in Strider Returns: Journey From Darkness , possibly the darkest hour in Strider Hiryu's life. (This game features a strider named Hinjo , an invention of publisher US Gold.)
Hiryu's appearance in Marvel vs. Capcom was so successful that in 1999 Capcom released Strider 2 , a true sequel to the original video game, which effectively excluded Strider Returns from the storyline. While this game is generally considered to be better than both Strider Returns and the NES version of the game, it still failed to meet the expectations of the gaming community.
A third game in the series, which is simply called "Strider", was released in late 2012 on both Xbox Live and Playstation Network and completes the storyline started in Strider 2.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Labiner: Strider . In: Amiga Joker . December 1989, p. 44.