The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner (shortened to 3-D WorldRunner on the North American box art), originally released in Japan as Tobidase Daisakusen (とびだせ大作戦?), is a 1987 third-person rail shooter platform video game developed and published by Square for the Family Computer Disk System and published by Acclaim for the Nintendo Entertainment System itself.
In the game, the player assumes the role of Jack the WorldRunner, a wild "space cowboy" on a mission to save various planets overrun by serpent-like 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 destroy Grax. For its time, the game was technically advanced; the game's three-dimensional scrolling effect is very similar to the linescroll effects used by Pole Position and many racing games of the day as well as the forward-scrolling effect of Sega's 1985 third-person rail shooter Space Harrier. 3-D WorldRunner was an early forward-scrolling pseudo-3D third-person platform-action game where players were free to move in any forward-scrolling direction and had to leap over obstacles and chasms. It was also notable for being one of the first stereoscopic 3-D games.
WorldRunner was designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli, and composed by Nobuo Uematsu, all whom would later rise to fame as core members of the team behind the popular role-playing video game Final Fantasy.
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