Do you remember Shaq-Fu? The breakout, non-sport related fighting game featuring the popular 90’s NBA star turned actor, turned rapper, turned Icy/Hot spokesman (which is a health pickup in the game), turned cop’s attempt at gaming stardom. Much like his film career, it kind of sucked; so much so there are sites now devoted to destroying or saving all of the remaining copies of the game. Fast forward a few decades and he has succeeded via a successful IndieGogo campaign in releasing a follow up/reboot titled Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn.

The story revolves around a young Shaq, who is abandoned in a small Chinese village as a baby. The locals notice a strange birthmark on the boys neck, which alludes to a prophecy that he is the chosen one that will do battle with the forces of evil. A massive time jump later, the village is attacked by demons, leaving Shaq as the world’s savior as he sets forth on his adventure. This is all animated through well rendered cut scenes that mix popular anime styles with American animation, all of which looks pretty damn amazing and is almost always good for a laugh. The game offers up a number of tongue-in-cheek, mildly offensive jokes that may trigger some more so than others due to the subject matter. There are some borderline racist jokes which mock Shaq more than the Chinese culture, as he thinks he is Chinese. You’ll duke it out with some bodybuilders and bikers who clearly are meant to mock gay culture, and one of the bosses heavily mocks Donald Trump.

The references to pop culture icons don’t stop there, as each of the game’s six levels culminate in a boss battle with a legally safe knockoff celebrity that is a demon in disguise in place to drive the world into a frenzy. You’ll find versions of Justin Bieber, Madonna, what I am assuming is some of the Kardashian sisters, among others. My personal favorite was one of the women that transformed into a gigantic, talking, flame spewing, twerking, gassy ass. Yes, you read that right. Each of the characters are well rendered, varied, and pleasant to look at; however, they fail to impress in regards to their execution. Each of the baddies has only a small box of tools in their arsenal which becomes stale early into the long battles. Making matters worse, the game has a habit of locking up during the battles due to some poorly scripted events that are triggered upon their health gauge depleting a certain amount; do too much damage at the wrong time and everyone on the screen will freeze in place or lightly bounce up and down as if they are confused.

The standard enemies are much less inspired, with most of them being nothing more than fodder for your gigantic fists. After the first few levels are completed, you’ll easily recognize that most of them are reskins of past enemies with only a small number of variations outside of the visuals. Five of the six levels include unique enemies, with the sixth level being a culmination of rest of the game, primarily repeating the same mechanics or enemies you’ve seen on the rest of the venture. This was acceptable in the beat ‘em up days of past consoles, but feels more dated than it rightfully should now.

Shaq’s toolbox isn’t much more varied, with a standard attack, jump kick, and a few attacks that have to be built up by collecting pick-ups or stringing together moves. In addition to these, you’ll occasionally get some context sensitive attacks requiring you to hit a trigger to counter or grab the enemy or items from the game world. Finally, you will be able to transform Shaq into one of two super powered states. Shaq Diesel is essentially a mech that has super powered punches, and Shaqtus is a half Shaq/half cactus combo that shows pricks from it’ hands. These are wacky, huge amounts of fun to use, but due to the nature of the rest of the game, become quite tiresome.

The stages you’ll duke it out in are varied enough and well animated, but run a bit on the long side with few variations making them feel long for the sake of longevity sake, each clocking in around 15 minutes. In case you’re not good at math or remembering that I mentioned this has six levels, the game can be completed in less than two hours. At its normal $20/30 price point depending on whether you go digital or physical, it’s hard to recommend. With this being said, I would have preferred a bit more variation, or more levels opposed to what we were given due to the fact the game has very little replay value.

The overall delivery is decent, with tons of subtle nods to past games in the genre, such as using throwing the enemies into the screen, “cracking” it as a throwback to some of the better Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle brawlers or bikers found in Streets of Rage 2. I’m not sure who asked for it, but there is a new rap track provided by the laughably horrible gigantic MC (it’s safe to say that both Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly’s rap careers are safe from Shaq taking over), which is played often, so much so I disabled the music pretty early into the game. On the plus side, the voice over work has so much cheese in place that it falls into the so bad its good territory.

While far from being a slam dunk, its light years ahead of the past Shaq-Fu game in terms of quality and presentation. Sure, it’s dumb, short, and a bit on the boring side towards the climax, but it can be mindless fun. If you can find the game on the cheap like I did, $10 via the current Xbox Live sale, I would recommend jumping on the Shaq Diesel train, but anything more would be an overly pricey ticket for Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Loads of Fan Service
• Capable Brawling Mechanics
• Often Hilarious
• Well Animated Cut Scenes

Cons

• More of Shaq’s Horrible Rap Skills
• Levels Drag
• Short on Content
• Boss Battle Glitches

Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn was developed by Big Deez Productions and published by Mad Dog Games LLC. It launched on NS, PC, PS4, and X1 on June 5th, 2018. The game was not provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn, check out the official site.

 

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