Anti-Climax Boss: Matic in the NES game. Matic will only parry your slashes, knocking your cypher away to render you defenseless. If you use the Plasma attack, he'll patiently await his chance to parry, only for his own weapon to be deflected for easy pickings.
Adaptation Displacement: Subversion. A common misconception about the Strider Hiryu manga was that it was an original creation by Moto Kikaku that Capcom decided to adapt into a game. In truth, the Strider Hiryu franchise was produced as a three-way collaboration between Moto Kikaku and Capcom. Moto Kikaku artist Tatsumi Wada worked on the manga version, while Capcom worked on two separate games made by different teams: an arcade version and an NES version. The manga and NES game follow the same general storyline, while the arcade version deviates completely from the story outside of a common setting in the form of Kazakh.
Complete Monster: Among the enemies the Striders fight, the following antagonists are definite proof that both humans and aliens can be monsters:
NES/Manga: Vice-Director Matic of the Strider organization seeks to Take Over the World. Having discovered Enterprise's ZAIN Brainwashing Project, Matic uses it to control Hiryu's sister and make her kill Strider trainees, forcing Hiryu to kill her himself. Staging the capture of Hiryu's friend Cain, Matic tries to force Hiryu to kill his friend, threatening to kill innocent civilians if he refuses. Cain's brainwashing is revealed to be part of Matic's scheme to kill Enterprise President Faysus/Faceas Clay and take control of the ZAIN project; Matic intends to keep his grip on the Striders as well so none can challenge his power over the entire planet.
2014 remake: Grandmaster Meio is the tyrannical ruler of the Earth. A Galactic Conqueror from another world, Meio arrived on Earth and took it over in the span of a few years, establishing Kazakh City as his seat of power. However, his lust for power and control was not sated. He viewed the people of Earth as imperfect and longed to create a "perfect race". To that end, he ordered his scientists to develop an anti-gravity device called the Gravitron, under the pretense that it would provide limitless energy to the people of Earth. In reality, Meio planned to use the Gravitron to pull his space station, the Third Moon, into Earth's orbit, which would cause worldwide natural disasters, killing off all of Earth's population and allowing Meio to create his perfect race. Any scientist who learned the truth was hunted down and killed, or, in the case of The Prisoner, tortured into insanity. Meio kills subordinates who fail to meet his expectations, such as Professor Schlange. Eleven Striders before Hiryu tried and failed to kill Meio, one of them being Hien, whom Meio personally murdered. A being of pure evil and relentless ambition, Meio would stop at nothing to achieve his twisted version of perfection.
Cult Classic: The original game (both the arcade and console versions), Strider 2, and Spiritual SuccessorOsman all have this status. Only time will tell if Moon Diver and the 2014 reboot will follow suit.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Solo's popularity as one of Hiryu's most persistent rivals (appearing in all the games as well as the non canon Strider Returns, Namco X Capcom, and Project X Zone 2) is only third to Tong Pooh and Hien.
Fanon: Thanks to DEATH BATTLE!, there are a few misconceptions about him that are becoming this, most notably that he's 2021 years old through the use of advanced medicinenote two facts that have never been mentioned in the official canon, with Hiryu being stated to be around his early 20 in both Strider and Strider 2. and the existence of a teleporting device called "Vajra"note which is merely the name of one of his Marvel vs. Capcom moves, where he uses Flash Step to gave the illusion of teleportation.
I Am Not Shazam: "Strider" is the name of the profession, similar to titling your game "Space Marine"; the Strider you play as is named Hiryu. Even with the existence of other Striders, like Kain and Sheena in the NES game, and Hien in Strider 2, people still make this mistake, at least in the Fighting Gamecommunity. The Japanese version avoids this by using the name Strider Hiryu instead.
Memetic Mutation: The Russian senate turning into a giant hammer-and-sickle-wielding robot dragon in the first game is used as a prime example for just how weird the series is.
Moral Event Horizon: Matic in the manga and its NES game adaptation never hid the fact he was not nice, while secretly in line with the Enterprise and their Zain Mind Control weapon. Then, he reveals to Hiryu that he set him up to kill all the figureheads of Enterprise so he'd have free way to claim their weapon, AND that he'd have the Striders' senile director killed and Hiryu and his friend Cain framed and executed for it. And even then, there's is the fact that he has known of the Zain Project for 3 years, implying that he staged the brainwashing of Hiryu's sister by Enterprise 2 years ago, which lead to her murdering 10 Strider trainees and Hiryu being forced to kill her, prompting his retirement.
Obvious Beta: The NES game is quite obviously a quick rush-job to fix and translate the unreleased Japanese original into English. This is most notable in the wonky controls and the very spotty collision detection (which in turns makes the Triangle Jump very difficult to perform without resorting to Button Mashing to make it trigger since the game checks the way Hiryu is facing before he has an opportunity to change directions, causing the Triangle Jump attempt to fail, and since the player is still likely to be holding the buttons needed to trigger it 1 frame later, the game thinks the player doesn't want to try to trigger it again, as detailed here). When the Japanese prototype was dumped online, it was discovered that, outside of a general code cleanup and some layout changes, the game was pretty much the same.
gets one hell of a remix