RUNNER - AKIRA brought to VR

[FunkyTanuki]

Runner, a game by Truant Pixel LLC releases today (10/6/22) on the Meta store. As a HUGE Cyberpunk genre fan, this piqued my interest. The game is described as a "visceral first-person arcade driving combat that embraces the unique visual style of late 1980’s prestige anime."

"Players take on the role of Mina, a rogue mod-courier at the center of a massive city-wide pursuit. Beginning in the heart of the Presidium, the neon-drenched capitol of the mining colony planet N-351, Mina’s only means of escape is the “Thoroughfare,” a massive highspeed expressway that snakes through the entirety sprawling colony complex.

When there's nowhere left to hide, the only way out is through."

The position the player is in feels almost like an arcade machine combined the motorcycle racing games with Time Crisis, and I'm all for it. What really drew me to it is the fact that IT IS actually anime styled. With Cyberpunk hitting its revival after Edgerunners released, I expected most cyberpunk genre games and experiences to follow that sort of artistic design, but this game really does hone in on its 80's anime roots.

The soundtrack is made by Fat Bard. I was unfamiliar with their work so I took a gander at their YouTube channel. Needless to say, I was impressed. Fat Bard has a very wide range of musical sounds that allows them to perfectly match the soundtrack to the overall theme of it's respective game. The music in this game seems to be dynamic and reactive to what's going on in your playthrough which has me excited to hear how it's pulled off. What we've heard from the RUNNER trailers is amazing and I can't wait to hear the rest through gameplay. Here's the soundtrack most recently done by Fat Bard for the game Demon Turf: Neon Splash.

The Devs also put out a free visual novel prequel called RUNNER: PREAMBLE.

I can't close off this post without mentioning this all star voice cast!

• Steve Blum as Vice (Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop, Keisuke Takahashi in Initial D, Orochimaru in Naruto)
• Richard Epcar as Atlas (Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Zangetsu in Bleach, Joseph Joestar in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
• Darin De Paul as Ein (Reinhardt in Overwatch, Revenant in Apex Legends, Escharum in Halo Infinite)
• Amanda C. Miller as Key (Boruto in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Sailor Jupiter in Sailor Moon, Mikage Sharaku in Durarara)
• Marwan Salama as Farid (Young Arthur in Just Add Magic, Navid Shokrani in Here and Now, Bo in Generation)
• Waimirirangi Lee-Reirei as Djinni (https://www.bigmouthvoices.com/en-US/voices/waimirirangi-lee-reiri)
• Andre Santana as Zara (https://www.andreonthemic.com/)

I'm very excited to see the released product today. Like I said at the beginning i'm a sucker for Cyberpunk and this looks more like a passion project than a a typical game release so I know they poured everything they got into this. Hopefully some of you will dive into this game too. I'll drop the direct link to the game in-store HERE.

[RoastPork]

This game looks absolutely nuts. Definitely up my alley too. Thanks for such a comprehensive post. Go get this game, y'all!

[UneditedRequiem]

I love this game! Just found out about the mobile app a couple days ago, (after beating the game) and it helps understand the cast and setting more, which added to my immersion. Fat Bard. Fat Bard nailed the music. Someone DM me, with where to unlock the second to last bike please, haha.  On that note, replaying a track through Level Select to try for the key can be brutal, since its starts with base equipment, and replaying the whole to game for a later key is time consuming. I also read somewhere of a chargeable special attack? Where/How? I don't think they ment the guns-akimbo mode either. Really fun to play, cool interactive main menu area, solid presentation, good visuals and audio, decent asking price. Nice job, well done.