Shaq Fu

The Good
While many have sighted there are zero redeeming qualities to Shaq Fu, one of the few is that its a fighting game with Shaquille O'Neal as a main character. Surely that has got you somewhat interested (not as interested as you were in those Magic Bullet blenders they were selling on paid programing but still interested, right?).

Other then that, the game itself boasts of a pretty cool soundtrack. And by cool I mean "so bad that you love it yet you can't let anybody else know about it as long as you live". The tunes get stuck in your head and stay there but at least you don't mind it. In fact, it probably is so appealing because it is so cheesy.

The Bad
Despite a wonderfully cheesy soundtrack and the chance to punch Shaq square in the face, this game has very little going for it.

The main problem is how short the game is. You use Shaq to fight your way through 6 (yes SIX, 7 if you include Shaq) characters ranging from all kinds of wonderful stock bad guys like mummies, princes, and some-what originals like a green guy who shoots wind and some cat lady. You fight all these guys then win the game 20 minutes later (no joke).

Another problem is the controls. Shaq moves with all the speed of a turtle and the reflexes of a brick wall and your opponents will exploit this to no end. The only way to even have a chance of winning is to merely jump around and kick your opponent (but sometimes you end up missing). Your enemies (even on the easiest settings) know all of their special attacks and these attacks do a lot of damage.

Another flaw is in the graphics. The characters are 3 times smaller then fighting game characters should be and this makes things just plain dull. The backgrounds are very large and thus fights drag on until the last 2 seconds of the clock remain.

The Bottom Line
Shaq Fu is a very poor fighting game on the SNES, a system that is full of them (and much better ones). The controls are bad, the graphics are bad, the sound is so good its bad, overall this is just a textbook example of a bad game. On a system that is full of fighters, why settle for this?