Diesel's Dud: Shaq Fu Review (Genesis) | Hazy Bit #6

Welcome to the sixth edition of Hazy Bit!

Hazy Bit delivers video game retrospectives, reviews, and other nostalgic content directly to your inbox twice a month.

This week’s retro releases:

• Star Wars Episode I: Racer (N64/Windows, May 18, 1999, NA)

• Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (DS, May 19, 2005, JP)

• Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick (PS2, May 20, 2003, NA)

• Baroque (Saturn, May 21, 1998, JP)

• Solitaire (PC, May 22, 1990)

• Digimon World (PlayStation, May 23, 2000)

• Princess Maker (NEC PC-98, May 24, 1991, JP)

Check out this list on GameFAQs to see other titles released this week.

Loading Screen - Retro Gaming News

Here are some of the headlines from the world of retro gaming in the past few weeks:

• 30 Years Ago, Sega Took Its Biggest Gamble With Saturn And Failed - Time Extension

  • Ah, the Sega Saturn - Sega’s 5th generation console that stumbled out of the starting gate with a surprise North American release and never quite regained its footing. This article by Damien McFerran of Time Extension takes a closer look at the Saturn’s launch in NA for its 30th anniversary.

• Metal Gear Sneaks onto Genesis - Retro News

  • Developer Hoffman has created a fan port of the first Metal Gear game for the Sega Genesis. You can check it out, along with Hoffman’s other ports, on his itch.io page.

• Gamer Discovers Two Super Mario 64 Bugs That Only Trigger After 14 Months Of Continuous Play - Retro Dodo

  • Super Mario 64 modder and YouTuber Kaze Emanuar has managed to discover two time-related bugs in the Nintendo 64 classic nearly 30 years after its release.

I’m going to say something that isn’t that hot of a take: most licensed games suck. Sure, there are a few exceptions: SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arcade games, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic are a few that pop into my head. But for every licensed gem out there, there are probably twenty or so complete shitshows looking to make a quick, shameless buck.

This week I’m interested in a game that consistently shows up on “Worst Games” lists, whether licensed or not. Shaq Fu, released on October 28, 1994, for Genesis and SNES and later for the Game Gear, Game Boy, and Amiga, is infamous for being bad. It’s even got a website dedicated to the purchase and destruction of all copies of the game.

Damn, that’s pretty harsh.

It’s best not to talk smack about something you’ve never tried though, so I fired up Superman’s fighting game to see if it’s that awful or if it’s the victim of overexaggeration.

This week’s game

• Title: Shaq Fu

• Release date: October 28, 1994 (Genesis & SNES, North America)

• Developer(s): Delphine Software (Genesis)

• Publisher(s): Electronic Arts, Ocean Software

Shaquille O’Neal, a dojo, and a charity basketball game

If it sounds like the setup to a weird but promising joke, it’s not. It’s the plot of Shaq Fu. Shaq has a charity basketball game in Tokyo and while wandering around the city, he walks into a dojo. Shaq is quickly hurried into a different dimension by the old man running the dojo to save some kid named Nezu from the evil Sett Ra - and that’s it. We’re up and running.

It’s a paper-thin excuse to get Shaq to throw some punches at baddies, but it does the job for a fighting game. It’s absurd and I like absurd. Just, uh, don’t overthink it.

The rest of the story mode lets players run around a world map to various stages, each with a fighter you must defeat to progress. The Genesis version of Shaq Fu features 12 playable characters including Shaq, so it’s a decently sized roster for a fighting game from this era. These fighters are all original, they’re just as absurd as the story, and, if I’m being honest, aren’t half bad. Not great, but not bad.

Weird plot, weird characters - what about the graphics?

The visuals are easily the strongest part of Shaq Fu. The character designs are varied (though some rely on stereotypes) and the stages aren’t what I’d call memorable, but they look decent and provide good backdrops for the foreground action.

The character animations, however, are fantastic. Shaq Fu’s fighters bounce on the screen, fluidly kicking, punching, and somersaulting over fellow pugilists. For all the areas in which Shaq Fu is subpar, it’s a visually impressive fighting game.

There are a few other small touches that make the game look nice, like character portraits that change based on the fighter’s health bar. You can tell the developer, Delphine Software, put a decent amount of time into making the meat of the game look good.

But that effort doesn’t show up in the rest of Shaq Fu.

Flailing instead of fighting

I’m not the best at fighting games, but I do know bad gameplay. Shaq Fu’s combat feels unresponsive and boring, not even coming close to its 16-bit contemporaries like Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat II, or Fatal Fury 2. The AI isn’t great either, as I ended up cheesing my way through the story mode by cornering my opponents on either side of the screen and wailing on them with kicks.

The most annoying characters to fight against are the smaller, quicker characters, especially in the story mode where you have to play as Shaq. Fighters like Kaori and Nezu zip around the stage and can dodge Shaq’s power kicks simply by being short. Fights against them became a somersault fest just to dodge projectile attacks and hopefully land a hit.

The three gameplay modes (Story, Duel, and Tournament) offer a smidge of variety, but the experience might be better if you could find another person to play Shaq Fu with you. Good luck with that one.

Shaq was a superstar - Shaq Fu isn’t

I wish I had anything else positive to say about Shaq Fu, but I don’t. I don’t think it’s as bad as most reviewers make it out to be and I don’t believe it belongs in the category of “Worst Games of All-Time.” It has some good points, but it isn’t that far from making the cut thanks to its gameplay, though.

If you’re interested in finding a copy of Shaq Fu in 2024, it isn’t hard. SNES and Genesis copies of the game are plentiful. Complete copies are obviously a little harder to track down, but I found a few on eBay for less than $20.

The bottom line here: I don’t recommend Shaq Fu to any gamer and it’s certainly a bad video game, but it isn’t deserving of the exaggerated shade that’s thrown at it.

Thanks for reading! That’s all for this edition of Hazy Bit. Next up: samurai, demons, and Sengoku Japan from the world of Onimusha: Warlords.

The YouTube longplay of Shaq Fu included is from the channel AL82 Retrogaming Longplays, which has a multitude of other longplays of retro games.