Play Strider Hiryuu Online

Summary

Strider Hiryuu on the TurboGrafx‑CD is essentially a faithful lift‑off of the arcade classic, but its backstory is anything but simple. Originally teased in 1990 as a HuCard for the SuperGrafx, the project shuffled through several formats before finally landing as a CD‑ROM² title that required the Arcade Card add‑on in late 1994. That drawn‑out development paid off with a handful of upgrades: fully animated cut‑scenes, a Red‑Book‑quality soundtrack, and a brand‑new desert bonus mission sandwiched between the first two stages. Those wire‑frame intro maps even hinted at the visual style later borrowed by Strider 2. Gameplay still hinges on the tight eight‑way joystick and two‑button scheme that lets you swing Hiryu’s plasma “Cypher” sword, cartwheel‑jump, slide, and latch onto walls with his metallic hook. Power‑ups range from attack‑range extensions to health boosts marked by the kanji of his name, while summonable “options” – mushroom bots, a robo‑tiger, and a hawk – add a quirky layer of firepower. The stage roster stays true to the original, trekking from a Soviet‑styled city to Siberian wilderness, an aerial battleship, an Amazonian jungle, and finally the Grand Master’s moon‑base, all under a three‑point health gauge that can be expanded to five.

Storyline

Strider Hiryuu is set in a bleak 2048 where a shadowy ruler called the Grandmaster dominates the world. The Grandmaster’s iron grip has turned the planet into a dystopian nightmare.

Hiryu, the youngest ever Super A‑ranked member of the high‑tech ninja agency known as the Striders, is given a lone, deadly task: assassinate the Grandmaster. He starts by infiltrating the Grandmaster’s capital in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, a federation in Eastern Europe that has become the Imperial Capital of the Russian Empire by 2048.