Magical Truck Adventure is an arcade by Sega made in 1998. It is an interactive game where the player have to use a unique rail cart controller to pump their handcar and keep the speed during gameplay. As well as pedal to in order to either lean the handcar to the side or jump over obstacles.
The story apparently starts in the Netherlands in which a boy name Roy is just milling around in a field. That is until a bright light suddenly appears near him. Out of it comes a girl and two men after her, taking away a stone on her person and jumping on a handcar to escape. The girl, Alma, begs for Roy's help in retrieving the stone as it has the power to travel through time which the men, Mommy (yes, really) and his henchman, Marrow, want to use to take over the world. Roy agrees, they board their own handcar and the chase is on.
The game is a major test of one's reflexes as you try to keep the handcar safe through the adventure while maintaining it's speed, as each bump puts damage to the hardcar and results in an automatic game over if destroyed. The game has different tracks depending on if you retrieve the stone or the villains manage to hang onto it.
Has been successfully emulated, see gameplay here
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Magical Truck Adventure has the following tropes:
- For the Evulz: If Ending D is any indication, Mommy and Marrow have no motives for ruining history other than causing chaos and watching the world burn.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: In the congratulation screen, Mommy and Marrow applaud Roy and Alma.
- Handcar Pursuit: The whole game revolves around it.
- High Fantasy: One of the final levels if the villans still have the stone in the second level has Roy and Alma making their way through a fantasy world including going through a dwarf village, riding over a sleeping giant and avoiding a dragon.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: If you beat Mommy and Marrow in the Dinosaur World level, they're taken out by one of the dinosaur bones Marrow was throwing like a boomerang.
- Jungle Japes: One of the second level if the heroes have the stone which sees them sent to a savannah and avoiding the wildlife around them.
- Multiple Endings: Depends on who has the stone at the end of the third stage. There are four of them
- D Fail to catch Mommy and Marrow in the third stage while they have the stone, and they warp away for good. Roy and Alma return to his hometown and find it being laid to waste by robots, dragons and dinosaurs due to Mommy messing with the time stream. The two lament their failure as an image of Mommy and Marrow hangs in the sky, laughing evilly.
- C Get the stone by the second stage but fail to get away from the villains by the third. They destroy the pair's hardcar, tie Roy and Alma up, take Alma with them and use the stone to warp to parts unknown with Roy unable to do anything as Mommy triumphantly states the power of history is in his hands.
- B Retrieve the stone by the second stage and successfully get away by the third, or get the stone back in the third stage. Mommy and Marrow are stuck on a windmill unable to get down and Roy decides to go time hopping with Alma for more adventures.
- A Keep the stone after the first stage and successfully get away through the next two stages. The duo lose the villains in the future and return to the present, placing the stone back on it's altar. Alma thanks Roy for everything and kisses him.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The Dinosaur World level noticeably reuses the T. Rex model and running animation from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which was also made by SEGA, along with the roar sound clip for the T. Rex from that game as well.
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Nintendo Hard: There's no option to continue, there's only one life, and there's no way to restore the handcar's health. Combined with all the hazards that require speed and timing to avoid, it's quite rare to see anyone even finish the game without losing, let alone get the good endings. - Not-So-Harmless Villain: Mommy and Marrow are both Laughably Evil incompetent villains, yet in one ending, they destroy Roy's hometown and likely more with time displaced monsters.
- Prehistoria: One of the final levels if the heroes retrieve the stone by the second level which has Roy and Alma dodging dinosaurs.
- Shout-Out: Among the things that can be seen in the first level are a windmill, a green tank engine with the number 6, two brown tram engines with the number 7, and a blue tank engine with the number 1.
- Story Branching: Depending on whether the player's able to keep up with Mommy and Marrow, the following level will change. For example, successfully catching up to Mommy and Marrow in the first level and taking back the stone from them results in the Safari level while falling behind too much results in the South Sea level.
- Threatening Shark: One attacks the duo in the underwater level chasing after them.
- Under the Sea: The alternate second level if the villains have the stone which sees Roy and Alma somehow managing to keep the handcar going underwater.
