 Shack Fu has been a running gag in the gaming community going on 20 years now. One big reason is the very forced attempt at the time, by mainstream corporate America to make Shaquille O'Neal the latest and greatest marketable superstar athlete, a successor of sorts to Michael Jordan since he did the whole retirement thing to go play baseball. There were two problems with this, number one, people saw right through it, and number two, everything Shaq touched turned to shit. His movies were terrible, his rap album was seen as a joke, and his video game, uh, wasn't exactly well received either. I really think though that this is one of those instances where people just absolutely load the idea of this game more than the game itself, because it's actually not that bad. In fact it's not even half as bad as people like to say it is, it's just that the idea of Shaq Fu on the surface is so absurd and so forced, and it didn't help that there were a gazillion one on one fighting games out there anyway, so this just felt like one more hanger on trying to leech off something popular. Also believe me, this was up there with Bubsy in terms of how much this game was advertised, if you bought a gaming magazine there were at least two ads in it for Shaq Fu, so overexposure and subsequent burnout also played a big part in why this game is hated by so many. As for the game itself, the Super Nintendo Edition anyway, since that's what I have, it's fine. No, it's not worth going out of your way to play or track down, despite it going for an average of only 450 on eBay, and yeah there's a lot of fighting games I'd much rather play instead, but Shaq Fu is largely inoffensive, as long as you ignore the story, which features Shaq going into a dojo in Tokyo, getting sucked into another dimension and rescuing a boy from a mummy. Sure, okay, whatever. In Versus mode there's seven fighters to choose from, everyone from Shaq himself to the evil mummy, to a couple monsters, to a catwoman person thing, to a magician. The graphics, backgrounds, and sprite work here are actually very good, kudos to the game for making unique looking characters instead of doing the lazy sprite swaps. But all of the standard stuff is here, hard punch, quick punch, hard kick, quick kick, as well as move boost and taunt. I'll give Shaq Fu this munch, it's got some personality, it's a weird personality, but it does have one. Anyway, pressing back or forward while holding the move boost button allows your character to kind of teleport a short distance, and that'll be useful because jumping in this game is terrible. You either jump straight up or leap across the screen at a set distance. One thing I have to mention about the fighting gameplay is that it really feels like there's a delay between when you press a button, or a direction, and when it actually happens on screen. That's kind of a major problem, and it's another reason why people crap on this game I would guess. You do kind of get used to it, and also bear in mind that the people that made games like Flashback and Out of This World also worked on Shaq Fu. If you think of this game in those terms, the way those games play, it's a little easier to digest. It really seems like they were going for something huge here the same way those games did, but it just didn't work out as a fighting game. Don't get me wrong, Shaq Fu is perfectly playable, it does feel awkward at first though. It's worth pointing out by the way that there is a blood code in this game. There's not a lot of blood, but it does unlock some mildly amusing finishers. So yeah, Shaq Fu isn't very good, but it's far, far from the worst game ever. I mean, how can anyone call it that when the SNES port of Pit Fighter is right there? There's also horrible crap like Street Combat and Rise of the Robots, so this isn't even in the top 3 worst fighting games on the Super Nintendo, but the legend lives on, for better or for worse, to the point that a sequel was crowdfunded and is being made right now. Boy, people sure do love their irony, don't they? There's also weird stuff like Shaq Fu.com, whose mission is to destroy all copies of this game. Okay, I'm not sure what that's supposed to accomplish, but whatever. Shaq Fu is ultimately a harmless, forgettable fighting game with a couple notable strengths, like the graphics and animation, and it's got a lot of weaknesses, but there's really not too much that's offensive here. But hey, if you simply can't get enough Shaq Fu, the Genesis has 5 more playable characters, a few extra stages, and a longer story mode, so there you go. If you're looking for the worst game on the Super Nintendo, Shaq Fu is not it. Go play Pit Fighter instead. Wait, no. What am I saying? Don't play Pit Fighter, it's horrible. Don't play Shaq Fu instead, it's better than Pit Fighter.