Strider (1989 NES video game)

Strider is a 1989 action-adventure game developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System. While the development of the NES version of Strider was produced in tandem with the arcade version, the Japanese version for the Famicom was never released. The NES version of Strider is included in the 2006 Game Boy Advance compilation Capcom Classics Mini-Mix.

Plot

Set in a dystopian future during the year 2048, the game centers around a secret organization of hi-tech ninja-like operatives known as the "Striders", who specialize in various kinds of wetworks such as smuggling, kidnapping, demolitions, and disruption. The player takes control of Hiryu, the youngest ever elite-class Strider in the organization. Hiryu is summoned by the organization's second-in-command, Vice Director Matic, to assassinate his friend Kain, who has been captured by hostile forces and has become a liability to the Striders. Instead of killing him, Hiryu decides to rescue Kain from his captors; he is successful, and also recovers a recording from Kain concerning a suspected criminal plot. With the help of his fellow Strider Sheena, Hiryu uncovers a conspiracy between a certain faction of the Strider organization and an unknown organization known simply as the "Enterprise" (headed by a man named Faceas Clay) which involves the development of a mind-control weapon codenamed "Zain". In the course of finding and destroying these Zain units, Hiryu learns that the faction of conspirators is headed by Vice Director Matic himself. Hiryu eventually tracks Matic to an orbiting space station where the two Striders face off; after a brief battle Hiryu bests Matic and kills him.