As some of you probably know, a new Strider game is on the way. While I have a handful of reservations about it—it’s coming from developer Double Helix (Silent Hill: Homecoming), which doesn’t exactly have the best track record—I think I’d be happy with a mediocre game so long as it retained the series’ insane music.


I played Strider on Sega Genesis so much as a kid that its tunes just became another matter-of-fact aspect of life that slowly crept into the background. Is music supposed to sound like this? Well, it does now, kid.
Beyond the relatively straightforward and safe opening track were bonkers jams like this:
And who could forget this absolutely mental ditty from the Amazon stage?
The music in the NES game is definitely more in line with Capcom’s offerings of the time, but I’ll never forget the cacophony of madness blasting from that rowdy Genesis sound chip. Here’s the full arcade version for good measure. Let’s all agree that, whatever Double Helix ends up delivering, it won’t be acceptable unless the soundtrack makes us question reality itself.
For the curious, the latest trailer for the 2014 Strider: