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Hearing Sega resorted to generative AI with Crazy Taxi: World Tour broke my heart, but playing Strange Scaffold’s Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World gave me something to believe in again. While this game is absolutely unique and its own thing, there are certain driving, humor, gameplay, and even soundtrack elements that feel familiar. It’s sincere in its silliness, with a design that encourages you to keep heading out on drives to help Driver and Carissa.
Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World starts with an isekai set-up. Carissa Ward is a career woman who, after years of hard work, finally got a much-deserved promotion. She doesn’t get to enjoy the new VP of Marketing role or perks that come with it, unfortunately. When leaving work, she ends up run down by a truck. While she died, she reincarnated in another world as an elven warrior. Through the power of magic, she manages to contact the driver of Truck-kun that mowed her down to assign him a mission. The Skeleton King final boss of the realm she’s been sent to possesses the Scroll of Resurrection, which she could use to revive herself in her original reality and resume her life.
Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World revels in absurdity. Driver expresses guilt about running down hundreds of pedestrians to force them to reincarnate in the other world as monsters Carissa can kill for XP? Don’t think about it! There’s a gigantic man in the middle of the city you can constantly see towering over everything? Don’t think about it! You still might need to deliver packages while you’re destroying property, ruining lives, and being chased by police? Don’t think about it! It is goofy fun, with nothing being taken too seriously in this cartoonish city.
Each time Driver heads out on a drive to further Carissa’s goals, you get a set amount of time to mow down as much as possible as quickly as you can. If you hit humans, you can see them “spawn” in the other world as opponents for her to fight for XP. The more you hit, the larger the stack of enemies ahead of her. However, it isn’t just about forcing reincarnation on innocent bystanders. It also comes down to senseless destruction to power her up. If you hit other cars, billboards, traffic cones, and environmental objects, their destruction fills the sword gauge above the ever-present on-screen portal to make it possible for her to use a Super Burst special to cut through foes. When that’s full, you can hit Truck-kun’s horn to swiftly cut through the enemies.
Driving is mostly fine? I played Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World with a controller. Drifting is pretty easy and effective, and slamming on reverse is helpful for positioning when chasing down moving targets or preparing to ram more durable items. My main issue is that there is some adjusting to the steering’s sensitivity, but that’s a common issue in any driving game. Strange Scaffold confirmed in the Steam Discussions that the team will add button remapping, so that might also help with precision eventually.
While the goal each time is to accomplish as much as possible before the timer hits zero, completing bonus objectives gives you additional seconds or opportunities to further power up. Delivering one or a certain amount of packages could be a task! So could breaking a billboard or hitting certain types of objects. Drifting, driving in reverse, jumping, or honking the horn could work too! There’s usually a pretty varied amount available, to provide options that might pertain to things in your immediate vicinity.
Aside from there being a bit of an adjustment to the steering and drifting mechanics, I will say that I sometimes wish there were more things to hit in Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World. Driving through billboards is fun, but it seemed like I’d get that possible quest when I couldn’t easily find or reach some. While it isn’t difficult to find people to hit, I honestly wish there were a bit more around to making building up stacks more efficient. Especially since the object distribution for cars and other inanimate features seemed to be a bit higher when I played.
Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World fully commits to the bit and uses every isekai trope to provide motivation to run over everything. It’s such a silly game. Driving around town causing senseless destruction in a colorful cartoon world can be a lot of fun! I just wish sometimes there’d be more people I could turn into monsters.
Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World is available on the Xbox Series X and PC via Steam.
