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Introduction
The 3D Battles of World Runner (known as Tobidase Daisakusen in Japan) is a 1987 runner (?)/shooter developed by Square and either published by themselves (Famicon) or Aclaim (NES). The game follows Jack (aka World Runner) as he travels across planets in ‘solar system #517’ in order to defeat the Serpentbeasts and their leader Grax. Interestingly there is a japan-only sequel to this game, also interestingly is that you start the game on a ‘game over’ screen.
The Review
One of the first things you notice when starting the game was the odd visual choice of tiled floors which I suspect had something to do with the 3d mode that sadly does not work on emulators but the backgrounds and the hud looked pretty nice whilst the music was also catchy despite being honestly repetitive after a while (not including the bonus area).
Gameplay seems simple at first with the main focus being running and jumping over gaps whilst dodging (or shooting if you have a gun) however thank to the fact that you have really nice control over both the running speed and how long you jump for its actually more complex than it seems. Though sadly playing slowly is not a thing that’s possible because of the time limit even if you increase speed only to cross gaps. Then again the idea of getting through stages really fast if you can do it (I can’t), after all you’d want to have the character live up to their name “World Runner”. Not that some of the things that appear in later levels let you do that easily.
One thing that was a little awkward though was the fact playing emulated meant I missed a huge part of the gameplay aka the pillars (not the fire ones). Running into them nets you items like a laser gun (which you lost if hit), a potion that gives an extra hit as well as some other things including a magic mushroom that insta kills you like some sort of joke towards super mario or something. Not that the game is impossible without these things, once you get to a boss the gameplay changes and you are given a gun whether you picked one up or not.
Speaking of bosses once you encounter one at the end of each of the 8 worlds you suddenly start flying with a jetpack with you gun as a huge snake-ish thing (or more than one) flys around the screen. The idea is to keep shooting at it to destroy the parts or just focus on the head until it dies. Getting killed here is actually quite annoying as it starts you in the stage where the boss appears in instead of just starting you directly before the boss though thats how most games are.
Overall
There are some things that are a little repetitive or annoying nowadays but its still fun to try out thanks to decent controls and its fast pace. Too bad its gimmick doesn’t work on emulators. I’d recommend giving it a try even if people like to call it a Space Harrier ripoff (though didn’t Space Harrier come after…).
0% Imagination 