Anime and video games have always had somewhat of an interesting relationship, and one can only imagine that that was even more true back when the game industry was just a newborn in entertainment.
Akira remains one of the most recognizable manga and anime series to date, so despite this complicated relationship between the two media, it’s still shocking that the series never received the game treatment. Though you may not have known that, apparently, it was supposed to way back when.
Set to release on the Game Boy, the self-titled Akira game only got to around mid-development stages before being cancelled. It may have never gotten to see the light of day again had it not been for retro game hunter Patrick Scott Patterson, who managed to get his hands on four different copies of the unfinished game. Each copy is just an experimental build, meaning that the cartridges aren’t even finished, put together cartridges.
If you don’t feel like checking out the video, the whole game can be summed up into about two parts: biking and platforming. The platforming portion is to be expected, as most games from that era had at least some element of jumping around and attacking enemies, especially when it came to licensed games. The biking section, on the other hand, is awkward and basic looking, and not as traditional to early video games as platforming.
The game’s two main characters are Akira protagonists Kaneda and Tetsuo, though, which is nice to see.
Akira, despite these playable experimental builds, is still extremely unfinished. If you’re interested, you can check out the full video above, and take solace in the fact that Patterson is aiming to create a playable game out of the working pieces of each build he’s gotten ahold of.
Leave a Comment
Written by George Comatas
As a wannabe social media personality and professional in the world of sarcasm, George does his best to always adapt to the changing world around him. He considers himself a maverick: a true-to-heart gamer with the mind of a pop star. Whether this makes him revolutionary or a setback, he's yet to find out. But one thing’s for sure; he's one-of-a-kind.
