A strange little side quest
The fun part of looking behind Stickman Defender is seeing how many older ideas are still alive in modern play. Chess changed dramatically in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries when the queen became the board's most powerful piece. There is another connection worth keeping in the same mental pocket: Street Fighter II, released in 1991, turned head-to-head arcade fighting into a worldwide phenomenon and helped define the modern fighting-game genre. The screen is modern; the urge to test skill, pattern and timing definitely is not.
