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Unless you're a target of mine, you will never see me. If you see me, then it's already too late.
Strider Hiryu
Strider Hiryu (also spelt as Hiryuu) is a character from the arcade game Strider. Strider Hiryu made his debut appearance in the Marvel vs. Capcom series in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes and with the exception of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, has appeared in every subsequent installment in the series.
Backstory
Hiryu is a special agent known as a Strider. Striders are an elite team of ninja mercenaries, and one of the world's most influential secret maneuvering groups, having existed since the feudal era of Japan. Striders are a secret organization specializing in kidnapping, assassination, demolition, and other types of missions that they have performed throughout history in service of the greater good.
Hiryu is one of the most skilled Striders, obtaining the high rank of Special A-Class at a young age. Little is known about him besides the fact he is the Striders' best assassin.
In the year 2042, an evil alien super-genius by the name of Grandmaster Meio appeared and, in five years time, had taken over the nations of Earth, and exerts control over the human race with an iron fist and powerful militia. Having uncovered the secrets of life in the Amazon, Meio plans to construct his super city, the Third Moon, and cause a mass extinction event on Earth, seeing it as nothing more than his own plaything, and creating his own lifeforms to populate his new world.
In 2048, A resistance force comes to the Striders to stop Meio's diabolical plans. Hiryu is tasked to take down Meio and his machinations.
Appearance
Hiryu wears a Strider's traditional uniform. He has a long, red scarf wrapped around his mouth and extending to his back, almost looking like a cape. He wears a purple, sleeveless suit, with the shirt and pants separated by a large red sash and a loose-fitting metallic belt with several pouches. His ankles and wrists are wrapped in white cloth and he wears purple tabi shoes.
Powers and Abilities
Strider Hiryu's skills are varied, but powerful:
- Possesses tonfa-sword of plasma energy, called "Cypher" (making him an expert at sword fighting, and unarmed fighting as well)
- Acrobatic skills (superhuman agility and speed, as well a climb sickle, which allows him to climb almost any type of wall)
- Teleportation
- Ability to duplicate himself
- Summoning of robotic animals
Personality
Strider Hiryu is silent and stoic. He rarely speaks, unless he has to, adding to his mysterious personality. Of course, Hiryu speaks more often in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 to allow for Special Conversations. Hiryu's main goal is to serve the Striders in protecting the world and seems to have few interests outside of that.
Trivia
- Hiryu's ending in the original Marvel vs. Capcom is almost a straight copy of his ending in the original Strider.
- One of Hiryu's win poses in Marvel vs. Capcom 1 has him suddenly flying upwards and standing on the top of the stage, a reference to the altered-gravity rooms found on the first Strider.
- He has alternate color schemes based off Kenji from Red Earth, Strider Hien (his rival, from Strider 2), Ibuki, and Guy. His Ultimate pre-order DLC costume is his lavender/scarf-less appearance from the arcade Strider.
- His character theme is a remix of "Raid!", the Stage 1 theme in the original Strider.
- Hiryu's "Gram" and wall cling are both references to his arcade game, the former being an item power-up and the latter one of the series' main gimmicks (cling through any surface).
- Hiryu was one of the first four characters to be confirmed for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, alongside Ghost Rider, Firebrand, and Hawkeye.
- Hiryu is the only one of the twelve new fighters introduced to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 to have appeared as a playable character in a previous entry of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
- Strider was originally said to have been kept out of the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 due to legal troubles with his manga company, despite the massive fan demand for him. Nitsuma said that because of the fan demand, they decided to work something out with his manga company.
- Hiryu is the only character that has two Level 3 Hyper Combos.
- A classic version of Strider Hiryu has been added as an alternate costume in the pre-order Amazon version of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, as part of the "New Age of Heroes" costume pack.
- Strider Hiryu's rival is Hawkeye, as both are highly acrobatic warriors with an array of weapons. Hiryu has mechanical animals and ninja weapons that he uses in combat, and Hawkeye has a large amount of different arrows that affect the enemy in numerous ways. Furthermore, both had already mastered their basic fighting style at a young age, with Hiryu being the youngest Strider to reach Special A-Class, and Hawkeye learning his archery skills as a child working at a circus. Also, their personalities contrast greatly: Hiryu is quiet and stoic, while Hawkeye is loud and brash.
- Strider's crouching normals in UMVC3 follow the same scheme as Ryu's, with all of them being previously being allocated to kick buttons.
- Also, Strider's normals in pre-UMVC3 were one of the few sets of normals that followed his motions in consistency in his standing, crouching and jumping states. His LP and LK were just chops and kicks, MP was always an inward slash (Gram uses the same animation), MK an outward flicking slash, HP an inward motioned cut of some sort (including his launcher) and his HK being an outward slash (st.HK being his Arch Cut and Ame-no-Murakumo animations).
- Strider Hiryu's ending has him teaming up with Wolverine to take on Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers. Knowing full-well that she does not fight with honor, he summons his Legion of robots as well as a team of X-Men to fight her head-on.
- Strider's death animation is a reference to his own game series, in that he explodes and four energy waves depart from where he once laid. Mega Man, Roll, and Zero also share a similar reference with their death animations.
- Strider's original seiyuu Yuuji Ueda, previously voiced Jin Saotome from MVC1-2 as well as Strider in the same game, before reprising his role in UMVC3.
- There have been many misconceptions of Strider Hiryu. One being that many mistook his name as just simply being "Strider" due to the fact that it is the name of the series he came from, and the other misconception being that despite his appearance and personality, Hiryu is not actually a ninja. Striders may be like ninjas, but are really just mercenaries.
- Originally, Hiryu's Wall Cling special, when used in conjunction with Morrigan's Astral Vision hyper combo, would cause a glitch which could result in Morrigan moving off screen and even a position glitch wherein one team's players would be facing the camera and could walk into it though they would snap back into place when letting go of the D-Pad. The glitch has since been removed.
- Hiryu's moves are named after famous swords/weapons, such as the Ame-no-Murakumo, Gram, Excalibur and Vajra.
- Similarly in another vs. Capcom game, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (Ultimate All-Stars), the character Tekkaman Blade has all of his special moves named after European blades (Baselard, Katzbalger, Shamshir, and Falchion).
- His normal attacks has since been incorporated into his original series, and is a mentioned reference for the title's most recent remake. (Strider)