is a turn-based RPG developed primarily by Sting (but published by ASCII

ASCII (company)

was a publishing company based in Tokyo, Japan. It became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works. The company published Monthly ASCII as the main publication...

) and released for the Super Famicom

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

 in 1997, late in the Super Famicom's lifespan.

The game takes place in a town known as Solid City, which despite being technologically advanced, is overrun with crime. Very few people dare to challenge the control of the underground mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

s and street gangs that threaten the city. While the game has a continuous plot, players are urged to complete individual missions.

Gameplay

Criminals are fought in random encounters in various sections of the city. Healing items are used to fix the attack robot and can be bought at a special warehouse. The player must go to the correct district for crime fighting action and the game refuses to send the player to the district that he isn't authorized to be in. The combat is handled from a third-person perspective in which the player must select commands (using buttons and not a menu screen) for his turn in an attempt to defeat the enemy's mech.

All dialogue in the game is in Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

; literacy in the language is required. The game takes place in a top-down perspective for the overworld. From there, the player can talk to NPCs

Non-player character

A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...

and explore.

Characters

Shuu: A detective in Metal City. He is engaged to the daughter of the Shadow Dragon organization's leader, Eileen. Despite his job, he still has to pinch pennies to keep his combat mech in working condition.

Ion: A girl who ends up as Shuu's partner. She eventually becomes something of a love interest.

Eileen: The daughter of the Shadow Dragon Organization's leader. She is engaged to Shuu (the main character).

Translation

While there is no official English translation for Solid Runner, there is a translation currently being undertaken by AeonGenesis, although at this time it appears the project has been put on hold.