There's a lot going on in the Striderverse at the moment. Some of this news is a few months old, but bear with me. I'm going to go ahead and get the older stuff out of the way first, so if you want the freshest news, skip to the bottom of this page.

First off, Capcom Classics Mini Mix is out on the Game Boy Advance. This features the NES adaptation of Strider, not the Famicom game, as I'd hoped. It's a good port, though, being your standard ROM emulated on a PocketNES trimdown or some similar emulator.

On a similar note, rumors are flying around that the original Strider arcade game is finally being ported to the PS2 in the second installment of Capcom Classics Collection for that console. There's nothing confirmed for the release date as of yet, though.

Insertcredit.com conducted an interview with Roy Ozaki, the president of gaming distributor Mitchell Corp. Ozaki answered Chaz Seydoux's questions about various aspects of the gaming industry, most notably questions about Mitchell's relationship with Capcom, the development and distribution of the Osman/Cannon Dancer arcade game, and the relationship between Osman and Strider 2. It's a good read, if you haven't seen it before, especially for the part where Ozaki implies that Isuke was one of "Capcom's misfits".

Here's two bits of news from //cory you, creator of the Pockybot webcomic: Strider 2's Secret File (SF #26, for those of you in the know) finally leaked earlier this month. For those of you unfamilar with Capcom's Secret Files, the Secret Files are 12-page booklets that Capcom used to release with their arcade games, containing exclusive artwork, descriptions of how the game was made, and anything else they wanted, pretty much. As soon as I get a chance, I'll be mirroring this here on the LSCM, but for now, go ahead and look at the scans over at the Arcade Flyer Archive.

(...while you're at it, go ahead and check out SF #18: Marvel vs. Capcom!)

Finally, here's the biggest piece of news this year: Capcom is starting a new classic game series on October 24, the "Capcom Game Books" series. These are going to be standalone releases of classic Capcom games, accompanied with a 43-page booklet. The first two games in this series have been announced to be Strider Hiryu (YEAH!) and Tenchi Wo Kurau II: Sekiheki no Tatakai, both of which are Moto Kikaku-affiliated games. These releases seem to be intended to be the "Gold standard" for their respective games, the ultimate collector's release, complete with info on the making of the game and (I assume) tons of exclusive pictures.

Wow. So not only is Strider getting re-released in CCC, Vol. 2, but it's getting the Special Edition re-release as part of the Capcom Game Books series. I hope they bring the CGB series over to the States. Right now, it just looks like it might be a Japan-only thing.

Whew. Well, that's it for this time. I'll be checking in again as soon as I find out more about the Capcom Game Books, though.

Later.