Life is tough for Carissa at the beginning of Truck-Kun is Supporting me from Another World?! (from now on referred to as TKSAW?!). She has sacrificed everything she could to get a purchase on the corporate ladder – no more anime, long nights, cutting off her personal life. Then, as her efforts have come to fruition, she gets hit by a truck and hurled into a fantasy world.
The only way for her to get out of this fantasy world is to level up and beat a Skeleton King. The only way to level is to fight monsters, which means the truck driver has to hit more people to send them to the world for Carissa to defeat.
For those that are into anime this will probably not seem too big of a deal, and the writing takes on the premise with the kind of happy-go-lucky unhingedness (word is trying auto-correct that one, please help me out – that really should be a word) you would hope from a premise like this.
Every sentence feels like it could end in an exclamation point, and emotions run hot and cold like protagonists in a screwball comedy. Ethical concerns about the way that common citizens are defenestrated from their world and emerge from a portal to be killed are quickly replaced with musings on what is good in life.
The gameplay of TKSAW?! is similarly madcap with the players taking control of both truck driver and Carissa. The main action is in a small open 3D world, with the truck careening around looking for things to demolish (hedges, signs, people, you name it) and then Carissa in a small, 2D, vignette at the bottom of the screen. The truck has a drift, boost, a side swipe (that is reminiscent of the physics-defying move from the Vin Diesel classic The Wheelman) and a horn honk that triggers Carissa’s attack.
Each run starts with a tight time limit, with a list of challenges to complete per run, these extend the time and/or award stars that helps with the overall meta-objectives. The Challenges range from running over a number of items, drifting for a distance, or not using the boost for a certain amount of time.
The freedom to move around the city, and tackle objectives how the player sees fit leads to a lot of the Crazy Taxi comparisons. Repeat runs through that world leads to the same familiarity I felt for the SEGA classic – each zone has its own distinct personality – and after about an hour of play I found myself being able to automatically head to certain areas when I had to smash 30 crates.
TKSAW?! is a neat little package and before it can get too grind-oriented with the meta-objectives, it ends. Some might complain that the run time is too short but, for me, it was the perfect bite-sized treat between bigger games.
What is less perfect come from the traits that I think TKSAW?! shares with its most contemporary peer – Goat Simulator. Both have a loose open world, both rely on an element of make your own fun, and both are a little bit shaky.
The side swipe ability in TKSAW?! triggers an effect that I can’t tell if it is supposed to be cinematic, or a crash in frame-rate. Rotating the camera quickly, makes items pop in and out of existence. Some of the controls are little loose, though this looseness is forgivable because the world itself is built to accommodate it, but that is why the Crazy Taxi parallel doesn’t work as well.
This is a game is more interested in goofy experimentation that it is in technical mastery and as long as the player goes in with that mindset they should have a good time.
Conclusion
Truck-kun is Supporting Me From Another World?! is a pocket-sized game with a lot of heart. It is full of experimental bits and packs a lot of amusing lines in its short run time.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
