"Best Action" and "Best Direction". The game also ranked 22nd in "Best 100 games of the Year", and several characters from the game also placed well in the "Best Characters" category: Hiryu at the lead in 3rd place, followed by Tong Pooh (13th), the Option A robot (21st), Grandmaster Meio (25th), Ouroboros (30th) and Strobaya (39th) In a 1991 Gamest reader poll, Strider was voted the ninth best arcade game of all time; they ranked Strider 9th in the "Top 30 Readers' Choice" from their special issue "The Best Game". In 1990, Your Sinclair included the arcade game in its "Top of the Slots '89" list at third place. In the 1990 Electronic Gaming Monthly awards, the Sega Genesis version of Strider received the awards for Best Game of the Year and Best Graphics in a Video Game. In 1992, Mega placed Strider at 31st spot in their list of top Mega Drive games of all time. In 1997 EGM ranked the Genesis version the 42nd best console video game of all time, remarking that "any game where you can crawl on walls and do all kinds of cool flips is pretty awesome." In 2010, UGO.com included Strider in their list of the 25 video games that need sequels, and Game Informer included it on the list of ten gaming franchises that should be revived: "Imagine the sidescrolling insanity of the Metal Slug series, but replace grizzled soldiers with a badass ninja. That's Strider, and it's awesome." That same year, the game was also included as one of the titles in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. ScrewAttack named it as the best Genesis game ever made, and Retro Gamer included it among the top ten Mega Drive games. In 2017, Gamesradar ranked Strider 33rd on its "Best Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games of all time." Legacy NES game Strider was released for the NES exclusively in North America a few months after the arcade version's release. This version was produced alongside the arcade game but follows the plot of Moto Kikaku's tie-in manga. A Famicom version of the same game was planned for release in Japan, but never made it to the shelves. Sequels Under license from Capcom U.S.A., U.S. Gold and Tiertex produced a Strider sequel in Europe titled Strider II (released in North America as Journey From Darkness: Strider Returns) for various computer