Overview
Shaq Fu is a 2D contemporary-fantasy fighting game developed by Delphine Software International and published by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System on October 28, 1994.
The game follows professional basketball player Shaquille "Shaq" O'Neal, who must use the deadly arts of Shaqido in a mystical alternate dimension (known as the Second World) to rescue a mysterious boy from an army of servants loyal to an evil, powerful mummy known as Sett-Ra. He must be quick, so he can go back to a charity basketball game in downtown Tokyo!
As a typical 2D fighting game for the era, Shaq Fu is known not only for its detailed animations (which sometimes resemble games like International Karate +), but for its complicated (and sometimes inconsistent) gameplay and its bizarre use of a celebrity tie-in. It is also known for its inconsistency between versions, as the SNES version loses almost half of the Genesis version's roster.
In 1995, the game later received conversions to Amiga computers (in Europe only, developed by The Dome and published by Ocean), the Sega Game Gear (developed by Tiertex), and the Game Boy (developed by Unexpected Development and co-published by Black Pearl) a year later. Ocean was also the publisher of the SNES version in Europe.
The "Shaq Fu" name was later used for the 2018 beat-'em-up game Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn.
Characters
The game includes all 12 playable characters in the Genesis and Amiga versions, with only 7 of these characters in the SNES and Game Boy version, and only 6 characters in the Game Gear version.
In the game's main Story Mode, players only have access to one playable fighter (Shaq) as he fights a variety of opponents on each Island in any order. The Game Boy version instead uses a fixed order (Kaori, Rajah, Mephis, Voodoo, Beast, Sett). The Game Gear version has the Second Island include a doppelganger Sett and a Mephis rematch, with the Third Island being an evil Shaq doppelganger.
- Shaq (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB/GG) - The game's main protagonist and a professional basketball player who founded the extremely lethal martial art form of "Shaquido".
First Island
- Auroch (Genesis/Amiga) - A bandit from the Second World who fights for pleasure.
- Diesel (Genesis/Amiga) - A longshoreman from San Francisco who excels in rough brawling.
- Leotsu (Genesis/Amiga/GG) - An elderly master of an ancient Far Eastern martial art and the grandfather of the kidnapped boy Nezu.
- Mephis (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB/GG) - An undead sorcerer who was once Sett's apprentice.
- Rajah (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB/GG) - A Second World mystic who is skilled in swordsmanship with his twin scimitars.
- Voodoo (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB) - A voodoo mystic from Haiti, later revealed to be Mephis's daughter. In the SNES version, she is fought in the Second Island instead.
Second Island
- Colonel (Genesis/Amiga) - A cyborg from an Earth bio-tech corporation and the sole survivor of a battle in the Second World.
- Kaori (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB/GG) - The martial arts champion of an alien feline race known as the Cimothans. In the SNES version, she is fought in the First Island instead.
- Nezu (Genesis/Amiga) - A cunning teenage martial artist who was kidnapped to free Sett.
Third Island
- Beast (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB) - Sub-boss. A beast-like creature and the mightest of Sett's servants, created from Sett's own shadow.
Fourth Island
- Sett (Genesis/SNES/Amiga/GB/GG) - Final boss. A mummy and an entity of ancient evil who was entombed ages ago.
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