Quite different from the arcade game in many ways, the NES version of Strider introduces a completely different storyline, new characters and a new style of play, switching from the side-scrolling action of the arcade game to more of an adventure style. Hiryu learns quite a few new tricks in this new quest: the wall-bouncing Triangular Jump, the long distance Acceleration Jump, and a slew of new Power Tricks up his sleeve.

The story starts out with Hiryu being called out of retirement by the acting Vice President of the Striders, Matic, to hunt down a captured Strider and kill him. Hiryu learns that the captured Strider is none other that his best friend Kain, and sets off to rescue him, unknowing of Matic's future plans...

Through the use of some creative glitching, this run beats architorture's wip (http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/2972/strider.fcm) by a staggering 18 1/2 minutes. Though the game allows you to go to locations (more or less) in any order you want, you're generally stuck to a linear progression due to the need for certain items, spells or keys. This run only collects two disks (2 and 5), one key (1) and skips all boots.

Through the use of the wall glitch, I manage to skip straight to the demon tree (matic machine?) in Kazakh right after getting disk 2. Since the game doesn't check what level you're already at, whenever you level up in the game, it assumes you should be at a certain point and increases you accordingly. After this, I go straight to Australia. There are two possible door glitches, but I used enemy damage to get through Door 5 to showcase a different glitch (the alternate door glitch may be slightly faster, but this was chosen for entertainment value).

After Australia, it's straight to the Red Dragon. This means that 2 (possibly 3) additional trips to Kazakh, 2 trips to China, Japan, San Francisco and Africa are all skipped. In the Red Dragon, I choose the left route after the lasers to avoid a message interruption and also to set up another wall glitch. Glitching the right wall down to the door allows me to skip the fight with the spinning purple guy (anyone who's played this game knows this guy's irritating and time consuming).

Another door glitch allows me to get through a door that normally doesn't unlock until you destroy two computers (difficult since I don't have magnet boots at this point =P). After killing a couple guys, I can kill Matic without the plasma shot since a spark knocks the cipher out of his hand (props to architorture for figuring this out).

Enjoy, and have a happy new year :)