In 1989, Strider continued his career within the arcade. The storyline bared little resemblance to the original manga, excluding the protagonist. Hiryu is the youngest Strider to ever reach class-A ranking, and is selected to save the world against a violent, evil and oppressive army. Like most games from the mid-to-late 80s, the game relied less on story and more on action. After inserting a few quarters and jumping in, you are unceremoniously dropped into a battlefield, at which point the game quickly becomes a battle to reach the boss, and save the world. The arcade ran on the Capcom CPS hardware, which is most recognizable by titles like Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Street Figher II and Final Fight. Keeping with the spirit of the these titles, the audio track was superb, featuring catchy tunes that change multiple times over the course of the stages with unobtrusive and appropriate sound effects. The graphics were detailed, large parallax levels with enormous sprites filling the screen. As far as play control goes, the game was top-notch with crisp, responsive controls. The only major complaint about the title was how short it was, having consisting of only five stages. Between each stage was a cut-scene with the major baddy taunting poor Hiryu. The arcade was a massive success, producing 10 direct arcade ports.

One of the ports of Strider, however, stood out a little further than the rest. This port was for the Nintendo Entertainment System. A US only release, the game deviated from the original arcade in almost every aspect except core game play. No longer was Hiryu on a simple quest to reach the right side of the world map. Hiryu now calls the Blue Dragon his home; a large two-headed mechanical dragon space station. This space station serves as the hub for the entire game as it teleports around the world. Each location is large and and far from the linearity of its predecessor. Each location has it's own branching array of chasms, walls to scale, large skyline platforms and maze-like corridors. Often, these locations are revisited, requiring the player to find a new path to bosses, contacts or friends to rescue. Your first mission is to kill or befriend the compatriot Kain.

Strider was notably high quality. The stages are massive and it can take hours to truly explore every one of the levels to completion. It is even more surprising that it takes so long when there are approximately 8 stages in total. All of the graphics are enriched by subtle details and scattered throughout the game. The levels contain rich details: Wires in the backgrounds, decal covered walls, and other nuances which show that, while the NES is not a powerhouse, it can still perform when a talented design team is involved. Several hardware tricks like long corridors also allow for the game to change graphics without the player ever noticing. The talent behind the game is highly apparent in the most innocuous places, like the exterior of the Blue Dragon, only seen when moving to and from stages. The audio track is somewhat of a mixed bag, however. It contains one of the best soundtracks of any NES title to date, and yet the sound effects tend to be rather lack luster, as well as overpowering the music tracks themselves. This is most obvious with the frequent sword "shink" noise that occurs any time Hiryu attacks.

Strider's most obvious fault is, of course, it's physics engine. At specific points in the game, characters are required to perform "wall jumps". Anyone who has played Mega Man X, Super Metroid or one of the new Prince of Persia titles is familiar with this little trick. Jump into wall, press jump to leap off the wall, hit another wall, repeat. This little feat is one of the most common tools in the development of modern platform titles. Unfortunately, it seems that most often Hiryu plummets to the ground after making contact with the wall rather than leaping from it. It could take a frustratingly long time to pull off several consecutive wall jumps to reach the required platform without falling to your doom in a pit of spikes. Further compounding the problem is the use of momentum. Within the first minutes of the game, players are required to perform "leaps of faith" by running down a steep slope to gain enough speed, and leap across a pit of spikes. You miss and you are either dead or stuck trying the jump again. Unfortunately, the margin of error is almost debilitating at times.

Even with the occasionally janky play control, the game is still one of the most entertaining games I can remember playing on my NES. Growing up, the only points that I can really remember disliking were, in fact, the wall jumps, and those were few and far between. For me, the story, detailed artwork and excellent soundtrack all came together and produced a game that is both challenging and extremely memorable.