The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner

The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner
North American cover art
Developer(s)Square
Publisher(s)
Director(s)Hironobu Sakaguchi
Programmer(s)Nasir Gebelli
Artist(s)Kazuko Shibuya
Composer(s)Nobuo Uematsu
Platform(s)Family Computer Disk System, Nintendo Entertainment System
ReleaseFamily Computer Disk System
  • JP: March 12, 1987
Nintendo Entertainment System
  • NA: September 1987
Genre(s)Rail shooter, platform
Mode(s)Single-player

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.

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, with music composed by Nobuo Uematsu. All were later core members of the team behind the Final Fantasy role-playing video game series.