The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner (shortened to 3-D WorldRunner on the North American box art), originally released in Japan as Tobidase Daisakusen, is a 1987 third-person rail shooter platform video game developed and published by Square for the Family Computer Disk System. It was later ported to cartridge format and published by Acclaim for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
3-D WorldRunner (NES)
For its time, the game was technically advanced; the game's three-dimensional scrolling effect is very similar to the linescroll effects used by Final Fantasy role-playing video game series.
Players assume the role of Jack the WorldRunner, a wild 'space cowboy' on a mission to save various planets overrun by serpentine beasts. The game takes place in Solar System #517, which is being overrun by a race of aliens known as Serpentbeasts, who are led by the evil Grax. As WorldRunner, the player must battle through eight planets to find and destroy Grax with fireballs.
WorldRunner features many sprite-based elements that are typical of a forward-scrolling rail shooter game, where the player focuses on destroying or dodging onscreen enemies against a scrolling background. 3-D WorldRunner incorporates a distinct third-person view, where the camera angle is positioned behind the main character.
As Jack, players make their way through eight worlds, battling hostile alien creatures such as blob monsters and leaping over bottomless canyons. Each world is divided into different quadrants, and the player must through each quadrant before the time counter on the bottom of the game screen reaches zero. In each quadrant, the player can find pillar-like columns that house power-ups, objects that are beneficial or add extra abilities to the game character such as temporary invincibility or laser missiles. At the end of each world's last quadrant is a serpentine creature which must be defeated to advance. A status bar at the bottom of the screen displays the player's score, the time counter, the world number, the world quadrant, the number of bonus stars (items that increase the player's score count) collected by the player, and the number of lives remaining.
Because the game is set against a constantly scrolling screen, Jack's movement cannot be stopped, but the player can speed up or slow down Jack's pace. The player is also allowed a degree of limited horizontal movement. When fighting Serpentbeasts at the end of each world, the player is capable of moving Jack freely in all directions. Jack's basic actions consist of jumping, used to dodge canyons and enemies, and firing collectible missiles of various types to destroy enemies.
Part of the appeal and selling point of WorldRunner was its '3D mode'. It was the first of three games by Square to feature such an option. To enter or exit 3D mode, players would press the select button. When the 3D mode is enabled, the game uses computer image processing techniques to combine images from two slightly different viewpoints into a single image in a process known as anaglyph 3D. While North American copies of the game included a pair of 3D glasses for players to view the effect, such glasses were sold separately from Japanese copies.
More details about this game can be found on Wikipedia.org.
This version of 3-D WorldRunner was designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which was an eight-bit video game console manufactured by Nintendo in the years 1983 - 2003. In that time, it was the best-selling video game console for which more than 700 licensed games and a number of non-licensed games were created. Worldwide, approximately 62 million units of this console were sold at approximately price $ 100 per unit. More information about the NES console can be found here.
Recommended Game Controllers:
You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB gamepad that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. If you do not have a gamepad, buy a suitable USB controller on Amazon or AliExpress or in some of your favorite online stores.
Available online emulators:
6 different online emulators are available for 3-D WorldRunner. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic features of each emulator available for this game 3-D WorldRunner are summarized in the following table:
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