San! Ni! Ichi! Hajime!!!

Hurdle barrels, outrun Shiba Inu and dive out of the paths of bicycles - all while chucking fruit at your opponents and dashing across planks precariously balanced over waterfalls - in an unreal experience that must be played to be believed.

Story Mode allows you to choose and follow the journey of the four main characters from pre-Nippon Marathon to post-Nippon Marathon in a mix of races and visual novel with numerous chapters - one of them is Snuguru Maestro! Find out about his ancestry, where his love for watermelons comes from and most importantly: how in the world is he half-human, half-dog?!

Nippon Marathon is billed as Micro Machines meets Takeshi’s Castle – a hell for leather physics-heavy race across Japan. Slip into your Narwhal Onesie, Lobster Suit, School Uniform or… er… Dog Head and charge through locations across Japan!

Stay at the front of the pack to make your competitors disappear at the end of the screen and gain stars - then the race resets to the last checkpoint until the finish line where the racer with the most stars wins! Easy, right? Absolutely, if it weren't for throwable fruits, shopping carts, inflatable pineapples, collapsing tracks, clingy Shiba Inus, water melon rains and many more hilarious hazards!

The developers have released new screenshots and details that offer a sneak peek of the game's seventh level "JINKO EKI STATION", where runners have to jump from bullet train to bull train, as well as Snuguru Maestro's story mode: the half-human, half-dog with the voice of an angel.

What could be more chaotic than having to run through a busy Japanese train station during rush hour with hundreds of salarymen and barriers? How about just missing the departing bullet train so you have to run on top of it and jump on a bull train mid race! Add some watermelons, classic banana peels and hurdles to that and - voila - we have ourselves a brand new Nippon Marathon track!

Key Features:

• Four-player madness!: You can't spell Nippon Marathon without ‘P', ‘A', ‘R', ‘T' and *checks letters* ‘I', we suppose… Solo play is supported, but grab up to four pads and enjoy the supreme silliness of gaming's greatest marathon.
• See all of Japan!: Cross the entirety of the land of Nippon in a series of creative courses spanning busy city streets, village lanes, bustling markets, mountaintop shrines, supermarkets and even unsafe sake distilleries! Four courses will be available at the launch of Early Access, with more being added on the road to completion.
• Wacky characters!: Go toe-to-toe with some of the coolest contestants who ever did, er… contest! Lobster-man J DARWIN, onesie-obsessive Elizabeth Nishibori, school uniform fan Zenbei “Xen Bae” and the completely normal Snuguru Maestro are among the challengers vying for the podium!
• Epic pratfalls!: Swinging poles! Giant face-slapping fish! Cyclists! Shiba Inu! Panes of glass! Traffic! False doors! Barrels! Rolling beams! Wobbly planks! Flying fruit! More Shiba Inu! EARTHQUAKES!!!!! Dodge and dive over the lot or suffer the painful and embarrassing consequences of physics-based collisions…
• Tons of surprises!: You never know what will happen next in Nippon Marathon. Perhaps you'll find time for an impromptu spot of slot machine fun? Maybe a news anchor will jetpack in to interview you on the racetrack? Heck, anything is possible…
• Drop-in/drop-out play!: Need a bathroom break to squeeze pineapple juice out of your foam lobster claws? Random pedestrian passing by your couch and wants to play? Whatever the cause, hop in and out for the ultimate, flexible party get-together!

Currently available on Steam Early Access, Nippon Marathon will be out for Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and Steam on December 17th!