Cannon Dancer

Main

Development

Characters

Gallery

Connections

Cannon Dancer - Osman
Official flyer
Vital Statistics
Genre	"Super Dynamite" Action game
Developer	Mitchell Corporation
Publisher	Mitchell Corporation Atlus ININ Games (2023 rerelease)
Release Date(s)	Arcade February 13, 1996 PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S Nintendo Switch January 19, 2023 * April 13, 2023
Key Staff
Designer(s)	Kouichi Yotsui
Composer(s)	Tago Saku
Program	Ratalaika Games (2023)
Artist(s)	Kouichi Yotsui Takashi Kogure

Cannon Dancer (キャノンダンサー, originally released as Osman in English), is a 2D side-scrolling game developed by Mitchell Corp and designed by Kouichi "Isuke" Yotsui. As Isuke's second action platform title it was heavily inspired by Strider, to the point it was called "Strider Hiryu Part 2" among some of its staff. Yotsui himself considers it an "irregular" sequel and has called it "[his] Strider 2".

The player controls a martial arts mercenary named Kirin as he travels and journeys through six stages set in exotic locations, facing obstacles and a large number of enemies in order to reach the end of the stage and defeat a boss character.

Cannon Dancer did not receive a port or rerelease until 27 years later, when it was announced for a 2023 digital release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and Nintendo Switch by ININ Games and a physical limited release by Strictly Limited Games, in collaboration with Kouichi Yotsui and Takashi Kogure. For this release the game's name was reverted to Cannon Dancer for all regions, with Osman relegated to a subtitle.

Story

Kirin, the main protagonist

Cannon Dancer is set in the late 21st Century in a world governed by a single ruling entity known as the "Federation" or "Federal Government", an overbearing capitalist government who oppresses its people in the name of "freedom". The game stars Kirin, a top class agent in a mercenary unit known as "Teki", whose members train and offer their skills as "weapons" for hire.

Kirin is hired by Federal attorney general Jack Layzon to reclaim one of his cities from a terrorist-leaning cult named "Slaver", who worships a "God without Shape". Kirin infiltrates the city in the midst of the night and makes his way into the cult's main temple at its center. Once inside, however, Layzon suddenly appears with a huge police force and, using all the disturbance caused by the conflict as a legal excuse, has the cultists arrested. Having no further use for Kirin, Layzon betrays him via the police force suddenly attacking Kirin without any warning and leaves him to die in a scorching desert chained to a large rock formation.

Kirin, however, manages to survive by using his inner strength to break free from his chained imprisonment and starts moving with a single goal in mind: getting revenge against Layzon. As he travels toward the Federal Capital in Prague, he has to face not only the government forces, but also the other three members of the Teki who want him dead for personal reasons. Kirin also attracts the attention of the goddess Slaver, who shows special interest in him and his quest for revenge for her own mysterious reasons.

Gameplay

The gameplay is directly inspired by the original Strider, featuring the same freedom of movement and agility, ability to climb through any surface and attack methods, while introducing new elements and offensive options.

Controls

Kirin's main attack

Cannon Dancer features an eight-way joystick and three buttons, "A" to attack, "B" to jump and "C" to activate a screen-clearing attack. Kirin moves and controls very much like Hiryu, being able to jump and perform long somersaults at any angle and direction. He's capable of sticking and climbing through any surface just like Hiryu, although without the need of a climbing tool. Kirin can move freely across any surface and by pressing up while under a platform, flip himself up onto its top. Kirin can also start sprinting then running by holding forward, required during certain areas where he must outrun an obstacle or jump across distances.

Kirin's health, much like Hiryu's, is represented as a three-unit lifebar positioned at the top left of the screen, with each unit taking one instance of damage. Above the bar stands the player's score, while the number of lives are marked below next to a "P". Time remaining to complete the current section of a stage is shown at the top center of the screen. Finally, three red squares with a white "S" at the bottom left indicate the stock for Kirin's special attack.

Techniques

Unlike Hiryu, Kirin fights entirely barehanded. Pressing the attack button makes him perform both roundhouse kicks and punches in rapid succession. Kirin can strike while standing, crouching, jumping or even climbing as well. Besides his basic attack, Kirin has access to a variety of melee techniques:

• Sliding (スライディング): Indentical to Hiryu's slide, Kirin can also perform a sliding kick by holding down and pressing the jump button. This technique is harmless to enemies unless the attack button is pressed while sliding, allowing it to damage or kill enemies on contact.
• Throws: Kirin can perform throw techniques only on human-sized characters. He has two throws, for ground and air-based enemies:
  • Gleaning (落ち穂拾い): Pressing the jump button while sliding into an enemy makes Kirin grab them, spin around and then violently throw them forward. This can also kill anyone in the thrown enemy's path.
  • Crocodile Body Drop (鰐掛け): Pressing the jump button while jumping into an enemy makes Kirin grab them, push them down with him and land head-first into the ground.
• Shredding Dance (キザミ舞い): Pressing down, up or back while mashing the attack button makes Kirin perform a three-punch combination. The attack is stronger than the basic kicks but is difficult to use properly.
• Kirin Star Festival (麒麟星祭り): Kirin's "Fatal Attack", a full-screen super move that can kill all enemies on screen and severely damage bosses. Once activated, Kirin performs several attacks while drawing a five-pointed star and leaving a copy of himself at each tip, then all images fly at the center of the screen for a final strike. Kirin has only three uses and they can only be restored after dying and respawning.

Stages

Cannon Dancer features a total of six stages set in different, exotic locations. Each stage's name includes the location it is taking place as well as the day and time (the latter only in the Japanese version) it is set. Unlike Strider, stages have no checkpoints and Kirin respawn on the same spot he was last killed. The final stage, however, changes this so Kirin is send to predetermined checkpoint areas when he dies, making the stage considerably more difficult to beat.

Stage 01: Agadan Monday, am01:52	Stage 02: Slaver Temple Monday, am02:00	Stage 03: Cabil Tuesday, am04:23	Stage 04: Indian Ocean Wednesday, am12:10
Stage 05, 1: Woods near Aleppo Thursday, am11:11	Stage 05, 2: Prague Friday, am04:27	Stage 06: Saskiraf Saturday, am09:03	Final: Solar sphere Sunday, am00:00

The third stage features two instances where the path branches out in 3 and 2 choices, respectively. The choices here determine in which order the three members of Teki are faced as the 3rd, 4th and 5th bosses. In the Japanese original each Teki have unique dialogues for each scenario, but the English version changed them to a single line for each Teki to say when faced in the 3rd and 4th stages and the same shared line for the 5th.

Power-Ups

There are four colored capsules spread throughout the stages, encased in flying containers: Yellow increases Kirin's health by one unit (for a max of 4), Green restores a single unit of health, Blue restores all units of health and Red increases Kirin's abilities up to 4 times, indicated by the color of his pants (with blue being the initial/no upgrades color):

	First power-up changes his pants to purple, allowing Kirin to generate an energy double of himself when he attacks. This double is set in the exact spot Kirin does the attack, and it performs non-upgraded attacks in synchrony with Kirin. After a short time, the double flies back and merges with Kirin.
	Second power-up changes his pants to red and allows him to place two doubles in quick succession.
	Third power-up changes his pants to white and allows him to place four doubles in quick succession.
	Fourth and final power-up changes his pants to black and allows him to create blades of energy with each kick, extending his melee range. Unlike the other power-ups, this one lasts a limited set of time before Kirin reverts to white. The four doubles power-up remains active, although the copies don't present the extended attack range.

Each time Kirin is hit he reverts to the previous power-up. An important element of gameplay is to know how and where to position the doubles to better strike at difficult enemies and large bosses.

2023 Rerelease

Two game modes

Cannon Dancer was rereleased in 2023 for modern consoles, in both digital and physical versions published by ININ Games under Mitchell's license. The game offers six language options (English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese), but this only applies to the new option menus, with the game proper retaining their original scripts in English and Japanese without alteration. The port was programmed by Ratalaika Games and visually shows no difference with its Arcade original, except the copyrights at the beginning have been changed to show United Games Entertainment GmbH (ININ Games' parent company). Gameplay-wise it is mostly the same, with bosses receiving a boost to their health, making battles last longer.

Players can choose to play either the Japanese Cannon Dancer or English Osman versions of the Arcade. Pre-game options include display size, scale and shade filters and wallpaper backgrounds. There are two special menus: "Enhancements" provides a number of gameplay-based options including invincibility frames for when sliding, jumping and/or attacking, as well as an auto-attack ability for continous strikes and the inclusion of a Double Jump. "Cheats" lets the player activate full invincibility, disable the timer and full infinite health, number of Fatal Attacks and max-level power ups. As with most modern releases, in-game options include both save states and a rewind feature.

Cannon Dancer offers two modes of play: "Standard Mode" and "Challenge Mode". Standard allows players full access to the game and all new options, cheats and enhancements as detailed above, while Challenge Mode presents a closer Arcade experience by disabling save states, rewind and cheats, and only allowing 2 enhancements to be active, including among them a choice of 4 or 8 credits (default is 1). Trophies/Achievements are only obtainable in this mode as well.

Trivia

• Cannon Dancer is actually the second Strider-like video game licensed to Atlus for its Japanese release: three years prior in 1993 Atlus published Run Saber, an action platform video game best known for its strong resemblance to Strider, although its Japanese release was ultimately cancelled.
• As said by director Takayuki Nakayama, in addition to all the nods and references to Hiryu and the Strider series, the Street Fighter V newcomer Zeku also adopts references to Cannon Dancer as a way to "pay respect" to the game, recognizing it as a spiritual successor of Strider. This includes nods in Zeku's young appearance and in techniques named after Kirin and Teki, among others.