Known in its native Japan as Tobidase Daisakusen, in America as 3-D WorldRunner, and other territories as The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner – I’m sticking with the simpler and more familiar WorldRunner for this website.

WorldRunner is a third-person running and jumping game where you’re sprinting into the screen and must avoid hitting oncoming objects or falling into pits. It starts off easy but quickly gets very challenging. By stage two you’ll be tearing your hair out…

Graphically WorldRunner looks a bit like Space Harrier – the scrolling checkerboard floor, the pillars, and the end of level bosses are all reminiscent of Sega‘s 1985 arcade hit. Must be a coincidence… Anyway, gameplay-wise WorldRunner is slightly more interesting than Space Harrier. At least until you encounter the hands. When you encounter the hands you’ll probably sack it off, like I did, because they’re so damn frustrating. ‘Talk to the hand’ is given a whole new meaning…

WorldRunner was developed by Square and first came out on the Famicom Disk System in 1987. The core of the team who created this game later rose to fame as the team who made the Final Fantasy series.

More: WorldRunner on Wikipedia