FGC #508 Chocobo Racing

Chocobo Racing is a time capsule buried by a company just before its own apocalypse.

Chocobo Racing was released by Square Co Ltd in in 1999. That’s Square, to be clear, not Square-Enix. This was before Square made its movie-based disastrous decisions and was gobbled up by its greatest competitor. In 1999, Square was riding high on practically defining a console generation with the likes of Final…

3-D WorldRunner is a third-person rail shooter platform video game developed by Square in 1987. In Japan, the game was released on the Famicom Disk System as Tobidase Daisakusen, and was published by DOG, a now-defunct label of Square. The North American release, which was the first Square game to reach American shores, was published by Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

In the game, the player assumes the role of 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.