‘Truck-kun’ is a trope that’s present in some stories within the Isekai genre. In a storytelling sense, it is the literal vehicle that instigates the event that results in a character ending up in another world, usually via a tragic accident. Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World!? takes that idea and builds an entire game around it. It’s ridiculous and crazy, but it did successfully catch my attention.
Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World is an arcade driving game set in a semi-open-world sandbox, where players control a driver who now drives an enchanted truck. The driver’s mission is to send “support” to an ‘otherworld person’ named Carissa who turns him into a collaborator after running her over in an unfortunate incident. For reasons we’ll learn later, the driver accepts the mission, beginning Carissa’s journey to defeat the Skeleton King and return home. (Or you know, typical Isekai fantasy stuff).
The Steam demo covers the first section of the game before entering an endless loop of runs. During this sequence, players will learn the basics of driving as well as which objectives to focus on to progress the game. In between missions, you also learn a little bit of your situation, including the ‘why’, the ‘how ‘, and ‘what’ happens to the people you are sending over to the other world. Spoiler warning: it’s not all that bad…. Maybe.
The game starts with Carissa Ward, an office worker who was recently promoted to the position of vice president of marketing. In her excitement, she failed to watch out for oncoming traffic. The tale should have ended in a traffic accident and a prison sentence for manslaughter, but fate had other plans that day.
As it turns out, Carissa got incarnated in another world inside the body of a muscle mommy elf warrior. But instead of following the typical route of becoming stronger to find a way back home, Carissa decides to speed up the process by guilt-tripping the driver into helping her level up. She explains that the only way for the driver to make up to her is to run over bystanders and cause property damage. The bystanders get Isekai’ed to the other world as monsters, and the property damage somehow increases Carissa’s attack power. Whenever you honk your horn, that’s somehow a signal for Carissa to go on the offensive. The more power she has, the easier it is to clear the screen of monsters.
Sounds simple, right? But that’s only part of the equation.
See, there are these things called Star Milestones. Heroes earn them by doing good deeds and such. By collecting enough of them, Carissa can open up what’s called the Galactic Gate by force. But Carissa, by virtue of being the otaku, supposes they can cheat the system by having the driver collect the stars and having Carissa cash them in. And you know what, if they’re already gaming the system by force-spawning a bunch of monsters with human souls, they might as well go all out. So, now the driver has free rein to check off tasks from a list of random objectives that are then converted into stars for Carissa. Remember, every act is one step closer to bringing Carissa back home.
This whole thing feels like a game that can only come out from Japan in the early 2000s. I love Crazy Taxi and that whole era of experimental games, and this game sort of reminded me of that. Plus, the whole isekai thing is up my alley, and I must admit that the idea of this game made me laugh when I first heard about it.
Other than that, I like that the game’s controls are arcadey to the max. There’s none of that go-kart floating feel as if everything’s made out of balloons. Every collision has impact to it, and you can pretty much go on a tear and cause relative chaos, provided you “try” and do your laundry list of objectives to advance the story. Otherwise, it would just be another tech demo with no real sense of progression. That might be fun for some players, but that’s best left in an Endless game mode.
The more I played the demo, the more I realized that it’s best played in short bursts. I really can’t imagine myself playing in long sessions. The objectives get boring, and I found myself looking for good “farm” spots to get easy stars. I wonder what more the game can introduce to keep the experience fresh until the end. Games like Crazy Taxi keep the pressure up by having fail conditions and time limits. There doesn’t seem to be much consequence for the player if they decide to forego the objective. They can simply load up and repeat the mission ad nauseam.
While I don’t think there’s enough here to warrant a full anime season, there should be more than enough for an OVA series at least. Of course, my opinion can change if I discover there is unlockable stuff in the game. There’s a greyed-out section on the Main Menu called Garage. That could be something, or it could just be the game’s gallery for all I know. But I’ll keep that in mind when the game releases.
The game’s visuals are probably what I liked best about the game. It’s straight out of the PS2 era, and I am so happy that it looks the way it does. The bystanders also look equally cute, like little game pieces. You almost forget that you’re committing vehicular manslaughter. And an Isekai game isn’t complete without 2D anime sprites. For now, it’s just Carissa and the driver. And honestly, that’s enough for a visual novel. If there are more, I’ll comment more on that.
The ska-inspired soundtrack is composed by David Mason, of Dredge fame. The energetic, almost pop soundtrack is yet another highlight of the experience. And finally, the performance is ok for the most part. There are the occasional graphical glitches, but that’s more to do with the high volume of chaos on screen than anything else. At least there’s the option to reset Truck-kun’s position in case it ever gets stuck on something.
In a sea of simulator games and remakes, I’m glad that ‘Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World!?‘ somehow got onto my radar before it released. Some days, you feel like changing things up with something you don’t usually see. I’m betting that this game will shake things up until the next set of releases later this year. Check back later when I get my hands on the game for the full review.
