STRIDER (MULTI) BY; CAPCOM
EVER since Sean Connery donned the most offensive Japanese disguise ever in You Only Live Twice (complete with fake slanted eyebrows) the West's obsession with Asian warrior culture grew until a late 80s peak, by which time teachers' drawers (furniture, not underwear) were stuffed with confiscated throwing stars. Videogames were ground zero for the craze, and none did it better than Capcom's Strider, which ruled coin-ops with an iron fist back when Street Fighter was just an urge in the company's digital loins.
The arcade hit was ported to every format going, including a blistering Megadrive effort that quickly became one of the console's first killer apps. And if the game's influence needed any higher praise, it was responsible for the chosen moniker of teen-friendly hopper of hip, Tinchy Stryder.
Sequels and offshoots never quite reached the giddy high of the original, and recent years have been quiet for Strider, who's spent most of the noughties on his backside. But, like the best badass ninjas, fans knew he was stoically biding his time, waiting to pounce.
When news first emerged of a Strider reboot, fans feared its star would lose a deathmatch with dignity, so it's with great joy I can report that the end result is everything that the series faithful could want.
With a plot that apes the original, Strider Hiryu is sent to the city of Kazakh to assassinate its evil dictator, Grandmaster Meio. Cue an acrobatic mix of running, sliding and slicing with our purple-clad hero through a futuristic factory overrun with commie cyborgs.
The pitch-perfect combat whisks players back to 1989 and their favourite urine-soaked arcade, though the game has been given a veneer of sophistication with Metroidvania-style exploration. Strider starts off weak as a kitten but his powers slowly grow as the game progresses, unlocking previously unreachable areas. The inevitable exploration and backtracking, so memorable in titles such as Super Metroid, is made somewhat redundant, however, by an insistence on telling you exactly where to go next.
It's also a rather drab affair. Industrial facilities aren't the sexiest of backdrops and each cookie-cutter location is barely distinguishable from the last. But if the levels are a bland mix, at least everything bombs along faster than Mr Miyagi can catch a fly, while the swordplay is fit-for-purpose with buttery controls and an acrobatic skill-set.
Strider can scale almost any surface and call upon a range of weapons and robot helpers to aid him on his way to some blistering boss battles.
Strider was famed for its massive end-of-level brawls and the reboot doesn't disappoint, with fights that are rife with references to the original, not least their sadistic difficulty.
Strider's original creator, Kouichi Yotsui, was not involved but said he prayed for the developers. And intervention was