Rating
Nippon Marathon
San! Ni! Ichi! Hajime!!! Stretch your muscles and embark upon the ultimate marathon of Nippon in a crazy, physics-driven, four-player party racer where anything can happen!
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Nippon Marathon Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
Nippon Marathon isn’t not going to be everyone’s tastes – those eye-wateringly janky visuals (whether by design or not) and the nature of physics-driven racing are an acquired taste that most people are going to tire of, fast. However, look past the surface and there’s a multiplayer experience here that will appeal to fans of Gang Beasts and the like, who just want a silly party game that cares not for seriousness in any form.
Nippon Marathon has the potential to be a fun party game, but its technical and design shortcomings prevent it from being a race worth running.
UK-based Onion Soup Interactive’s Nippon Marathon has a bit. That bit is somewhere in-between “Japan is wacky” and “bad, on purpose, is actually good.” After spending time with it over a weekend, I’m still not sure if I don’t “get” it, I’m not buying what it’s selling, or if I fell into a time portal to a distant, meme-y past. Wherever the truth lies in terms of this game’s goals or authorial intent, at the end of the day I can’t say I enjoyed my time bumbling around a bunch of almost sardonic-feeling Japan humor and gameplay that seems to have been inspired by QWOP.
It does feel like there's some strange appetite at the moment for multiplayer games that are actually a little bit shoddy. Gang Beasts is kind of the poster boy for this brand of title, with its flailing, imprecise brawls leading to some golden moments. Nippon Marathon slots very neatly into this small but growing convention, although we'd say the game leans a little too hard into its janky nature to remain entertaining for very long.
In the end having extra modes beyond the main game do nothing to help Nippon Marathon remain a fun time for more than a few hours at most. It would be impressive as a final project for a college course and is still good for a few laughs at a party, but those fleeting good times are not enough for me to recommend this game.