Shaquille O’Neal was a popular basketball player in the 90s and the 2000s famous for his giant size and incredible play. And just like every popular athlete at the time, he tried to take his fame into places his talent couldn’t follow, starting a rap career, an acting career, and in 1994 he decided since those went so well that he’d try his hand at video games. And while a basketball game starring Shaq might have been fun, he decided to go outside of the box, creating a martial arts fighter for the SNES and Sega Genesis. Hailed as one of the worst games of all time, I had to pick it up and try it for myself. And it’s published by EA, so it can’t be that bad, right? Let’s find out in my mighty review of… Shaq Fu!

    The game starts off with Shaq going to Japan to play in a charity basketball game when he stops at a martial arts store. The old man inside sees the star on his shirt and takes him for the fulfillment of a prophecy, here to save a boy from another dimension. He then tells Shaq to go into the portal that just so happens to be in the back room of his shop and save a young boy named Nezu and stop the martial arts master. Shaq’s just like arright, got nothin’ better to do, hops in, and now we’ve got a game. So remember kids, if an old man tells you you’re the chosen one and brings you into the back room to enter a Portal into another dimension, always say yes. What’s the worst that could happen?

    You start out on the overworld and play a game of find Shaquille O’Neal in this splotchy mess of a world map. Seriously, where is he- oh, there he is! Geez, I betcha Waldo’s hiding around here somewhere too. Now you have to go to the different locations and fight enemies to collect information on the boy’s whereabouts. My first match is against Voodoo. Really? Voodoo? Arright. Oh my god these little pieces of dialogue are hilarious. Shaq’s wagging his finger at her like, “young lady, you are not going out in those clothes”, then he goes right into beating the shit out of her. Shaq, I thought doing horrible things to women was Kobe’s job. Ah well. I kick her ass and move on to fight this old guy, Leotzu.

Fighting this guy was when I first realized that the controls in this game are awful. So you have three buttons that are used for fast punch, strong punch, and taunt. To kick, you have to press the start button to make the three buttons change to fast kick, strong kick, and shield. However, since the start button is used to switch button controls, the game can’t be paused! Who thought of this?! Shaq also has a projectile combo. Now you’d think they’d have him throw, oh I don’t know, a basketball? But no, he materializes and throws… a sword. Ugh, not like it matters much. It’s practically impossible to pull the combos off because of the terrible directional controls. You’ll be accidentally jumping the entire time you play. And look how slow Shaq moves when walking! The only way to get around quickly is to jump. And when you jump in this game, you fly, making it hard to get near your opponent. You’re also supposed to be able to block by pressing back on the controller at the right time, but it doesn’t work. Of course, the computers have no problems blocking.

The bad controls aren’t helped by the insanely difficult enemies. Remember the projectile combo I mentioned? The computers have them too, but they don’t need to use a shitty control scheme, so they’ll just keep firing them at you until you die. And you will die a lot in this game. Luckily, I did find one strategy that will work. Introducing the infinite wall of kicks! That’s right, the AI can pull off crazy combos, fire projectiles, and be as dickish as they want but they can’t stop Shaq from shoving his size 13s up their asses! Woo!

I’ll give the game this much, the character designs and backgrounds are nice to look at when they’re not moving. Although what’s going on with Shaq’s face next to his health meter? After beating gramps, I move onto… huh, I didn’t know there were two Aladdin games on the Genesis. Kick his ass, move onto this guy, Diesel. What kind of tool goes around calling themselves Diesel? Wall of kicks, he’s gone. I then beat a rock monster and a goblin. It is funny to win because Shaq always does a little dance.

Once all the players on this island are defeated, a cutscene plays in which a skeleton is raised from the dead and a bridge to the next island appears. Aw, sweet! Do I get to fight a skeleton? That’d be awesome! NOPE! Now I have to fight a furry, a bad Robocop cosplayer, and a small child? Okay, Shaq, buddy. You wanna have a fighting game that’s fine, but maybe go easy on kicking the shit out of old people, women, and children, yeah? 

Once those three are defeated, I move onto a demon, who I kick to death and then face off against Sett Ra, master of the realm. Alright, no problem, kick, kick, kick, and wait, ow! No! Oh my god, he won! He defeated the wall of kicks! What do I do now? Guess I gotta practice a bunch until my skills are good enough to finally defeat him without kicks. Or… I could just mix in low kicks and… done. Dead. I win. When you beat the game, Shaq takes the boy and the shop owner to his basketball game where, I shit you not, the demon is on the court playing basketball and waiting for Shaq.

    So that’s Shaq Fu. And now that I’ve played it, it’s time to decide, are the critics right? Is it one of the worst games of all time? Well honestly, no. Don’t get me wrong, the game is bad. Incredibly bad. But it does at least function. It may have gotten the most important part of a fighting game wrong, the controls, but the music is okay, the visuals are passable, and it actually does have moments of fun, even if it does come from the hilariously stupid cutscenes and dialogue. In fact, this game might be the video game version of something that’s so bad, it’s good. 

A game to get drunk to and play with a group of friends. That’s why my final rating for Shaq Fu… Is a 2.5 out of 10. With that being said, seeing as how this is my first game to get a 3 or less with a physical copy, Shaq fu is also getting thrown into the box of bad games. A special place for games that just shouldn’t have been made. And don’t worry, I have plans for when this box fills up. Anyway, that’s the review. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, be sure to give the subscribe button a soft caress on the cheek, and be on the lookout for next week’s nifty recipe based on Shaq Fu. And as always, have a mighty nifty day today!