Rad Racer

Rad Racer is a racing game in which the player races in a "Transamerica" race from the West Coast to the East Coast. The gameplay is sprite-based, and the player controls the car from a "behind the vehicle" perspective. At the start of the game, the player chooses between two types of car to race, either a 328 Twin Turbo or an F1 Machine, though both cars perform exactly the same. The objective is to complete eight driving stages of varying skylines, environments, and locations, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Athens.

Competitors' vehicles get faster as the stages progress and include Volkswagen Beetles to Ferrari Testarossas. The player's car can accelerate to 100 km/h, which turbo can then be activated to accelerate to a maximum of 255 km/h. The player can brake, steer, and change the background music while driving. Hitting any obstacles or other cars may cause the player's vehicle to flip and crash.

The root cause for the game's development was the then-President of Square Masafumi Miyamoto wanting to implement newly hired programmer Nasir Gebelli's skills with 3D programming previously used to develop games for the Apple II. Rad Racer was the second title by Square to use anaglyph-based 3D: Gebelli worked on both titles and was influenced by his work on the first 3D game titled The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner. Two game programmers had left Square as Gebelli was hired, resulting in Gebelli to begin programming the game by himself. Gebelli remained in Japan to figure out how to create realistic background movement of the game's scenery while the rest of Square was on vacation in Hawaii.

Game developer Takashi Tokita worked on Rad Racer with Gebelli, alongside developer Hiromichi Tanaka and artist Kazuko Shibuya who had previously worked on The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner with Gebelli. Akitoshi Kawazu also contributed to the development as his first game under Square. Hironobu Sakaguchi and Akitoshi Kawazu both worked on Rad Racer, causing developer Koichi Ishii to plan for the original Final Fantasy by himself briefly.

Rad Racer was met with favorable reviews, enjoyed commercial success, and sold 1.96 million copies. It also ranked 8th on Nintendo Power's player's poll Top 30. Famitsu praised the sense of speed but felt the game was slightly monotonous. Japanese publication Family Computer Magazine applauded the variety of game landscapes found in different levels. British magazine Computer and Video Games called it an "extremely playable racing game" and said "things get very fast and competitive as you get further into the game."

Retrospective reviews gave the title a more mixed reception. Skyler Miller of GameSpot, in his article The History of Square, commented that the game bears more than a passing resemblance to Out Run," but went on to say that "it's more than just a clone" and credited the game with "effectively convey[ing] the proper sense of speed." He continued to criticize the 3D effect, stating it created some sense of depth to the gameplay but was hindered by a pronounced screen flickering. He concluded that the game does not require 3D features and that it stands on its own as a "fine racing game".