Preliminary:

Ahhhh! I'm trying not to get too excited but this is one of my all-time favorite movies and it seems to be just a visual novel form of the movie (more than the manga it's seeming) and the artwork is spot-on and I will always gladly relive this plot and ah! So far I'm liking the terse text, but it's a bit unfair since this is a fan translation of the original Japanese. Hm. Let's just hope the usual 80s text adventure cheap deaths and RNG-based situations don't bog it down.

There's even some basic animation (really just of the mouths heh) and sound. I like the industrial rugged sounds so far, but also they get repeated a bit too much at a time.

Day 1

Crazy tune during the part when Tetsuo snaps and beats the rapist Clown, and when the army comes for Tetsuo after that. (tho I was hoping the Sound would be based more on the film's music). And great fountain water sounds too! Also lol with these random Men who give info about main characters' whereabouts. Literally just titled "Man."

I dig the tune at this part too, the tunes definitely got better than the intro ones! And I definitely know this scene/part haha.

Lol pray as an option. It honestly helps to know the movie because you know what the characters do to survive :-p Like I probly would not have picked Dash and then Dive if I didn't know that's what he does in the movie. And ahhh I love when early adventure games include things like "Lab I.D." always reminds me of Resident Evils, so beloved to me.

Hmmmm, there must be a Save function because there's Continue but I can't seem to find it? I'll just use Savestates I suppose.

Ha right after saying that I got to my first action segment. That was rough but not bad. Especially for what is essentially a text adventure game.

Lol this series of action depictions

Yessss for the part when you find Tetsuo at the Olympic field about to discover the Akira tube the music did start to explicitly reference the film music! And it was great!

And the noise music that plays at this part!

Even tho I'm loving this for the Sound, references to the movie/manga, and the terse and direct text adventure gameplay, the Play does feel quite limited due to the text adventure format and still screens. Like, Tetsuo's arm didn't even grow, it was just described as growing. Oh, wait well they do have an animation soon after

But I will stop taking screenshots cuz uh spoilers. But glad to hear more music referencing the film's music. It was fun to relive the plot again in yet another format, already having experienced the manga and the anime film heh.

Lol wait what the heck the credits music is like a playful rag time song.

Look: 8.5/10 Not that it was that amazing, but as someone who loves the film and the manga, it's fun to see yet another format for it to come to life.

Sound: 8.5/10 One of the highlights of the game for sure. Still just NES tunes, not C64 level, but some great noise music parts and sound effects and tunes especially in the latter half.

Play: 8/10 Terse, short, to the point text adventure about a plot I love? Sign me up. I can't claim text adventures, especially NES kind, have that same oomph as in late 70s or early 80s, and this format limited the possibilities of an Akira NES game, but they did it right. So I can't complain.

Feel: 9/10 A lot of the high ratings are from the Feel, the fact it's the game for a movie and manga I love so much.

Attachment: 8.5/10 How often will I replay it? Probly not often. But very likely I will just to relive that feeling of seeing the build up to the ending again. In the end, I likely will just re-read the manga or re-watch the film, but always possible I'll want to play a little game. If only I had the actual cartridge, that would be such a cool feeling! Especially with the nuke and Akira text beginning! The extra .5 is because I wont forget it, because it accompanies a favorite media of mine, and because I'm so grateful they did it well.

Overall: 8.5/10

Completion: 100%

Playtime: 1 hour