Twenty five years ago this year Capcom released a side-scrolling platform game in the arcade - Strider. The game is getting a reboot in 2014 and is being developed by Double Helix Games, for Capcom. Seeing as March this year represents its 25th birthday, now would be a good time to take a look back at the history of this great game.

Back in 1988, Kadokawa Shoten Published a Manga comic called Strider Hiryu, in which Hiryu is the main protagonist. He is an elite-class member of futuristic, hi-tech, Ninja’s known as ‘Striders.’ In 1989, Hiryu appeared in his first videogame called ‘Strider,’ and it became a big hit in the arcade. It was also in 1989 that it found its way on to the home computers thanks to US Gold, which includes Commodore 64, Zx Spectum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari St and DOS.

In 1990, Strider made its move from the home computers to the consoles with a release by Sega on the Mega Drive/Genesis. This version of the game contained a different ending to the arcade, as the final stage destruction is shown and the protagonist makes his escape. Other versions were released in the 90’s, more notably being the Sega Master System in 1992, which was a conversion of the Amiga Classic. By the 2000’s the game was still going strong, as it was included on a Classic Capcom Collection Vol 2, which was released for the Playstation 2 , Xbox and PlayStation Portable.

So now we fast forward to 2014 and Strider is being rebooted on February 18 on all major platforms, including PC via Steam. I have been a big fan of Strider Hiryu since first playing the original arcade game and cannot wait to get my hands on this version. Let us know below whether you have played a Strider game before, or if this will be your first time as the Ninja.