Everyone loves Square. Unless you're trying to look cool by hating Final Fantasy, then you "hate" square. But I love Square. They've made some fun games besides Final Fantasy. Like 3-D World Runner. Before Final Fantasy. Before their Squaresoft days. This is an old school game.





This is one of the ten games I got off my aunt around age four. She owned a store that had a used games section. I asked if I could borrow some. I was allowed to pick ten. This wonderful ten was picked at complete random. Among them were games as wonderfully as Castlevania, Bubble Bobble, Metroid, Adventures of Lolo, Metal Gear, among others. 3-D Battles of The World Runner was also in that box and was a stand out for a number of reasons. First off the hilarious box art:



During gameplay you'll notice some "3D" effects. The perspective is a change of pace from other games and plays quite differently than most. Fair warning, this game does not look as good in screen shots.



You run up the world jumping over gigantic bottomless pits, avoid objects and monsters, and collecting power ups until you finally show up at the boss. All the bosses (far as I've gotten anyway) are snake like monsters who fly in background to the foreground while you utilize a jetpack and shoot fireballs at them. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. Why can't more video games deliver such an epic and other worldly experience?

This video shows off the first world.


Is it a great forgotten classic? Not really. Is it a fun Nintendo game? Yes. In my internet searching for the game I found out that the game originally included 3D glasses and even more interestingly was featured in Nintendo displays to show off its amazing graphical abilities. EB games were forced to issue a store wide ban of the 3D World Runner displays after numerous patrons, confused by the graphics, walked into walls of the store, and I quote "disturbing other shoppers." That is of course if wikipedia is to be believed.



Well this game has certainly made my day better. How about you guys? Ever play this one? How about the sequel JJ? I never played the sequel but I've got my eye out for it.