Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn review (2018, T)
I had heard of this game, and I was intrigued, but not enough to pony-up the cash for it. I was familiar with the infamous reputation of its 16-bit predecessor, but I had never personally had the displeasure. When this sale-dropped to $5, I figured it was worth at least that much.
Honestly, I found the game to be rather ok, but maybe that’s because my expectations and monetary investment were so low. The game is not a fighter like the original, but a mediocre arcade-style beat-em-up. Shaq just beats on the dozens of cookie-cutter enemies that flood the screen. Strategy or technique are not necessary; it’s pure button-mashing simplicity, and I can oddly respect that. It’s as monotonous as one would expect, but not to the point where I was annoyed at it, but it did get close at times. There are health and energy orbs aplenty, as well as power-ups that make you and even bigger curb-stomper than before, so there really isn’t a reason to ever die or even get close to death. It’s not even that long; a 100% playthrough with all achievements plus the DLC should take less than a few hours.
The graphics and art style are simple and cel-shaded, nothing special or memorable. The story, setting, and characters is where this game’s meager enjoyment get the most mileage, at least for me. I can understand why lots of people would find this game’s humor sophomoric and even stereotypically offensive, but I am an immature man-child so it worked for me. As you should expect from Shaq, the product placement is belligerent and numerous. I chuckled at the absurdity and shamelessness of the actual real-world products being used and referenced. The extras’ text and game dialogue did have a lot of funny, tongue-in-cheek moments that I felt worked for what they were trying to do. The plot is practically non-existent, but funny enough. An orphaned Shaq grows up as any normal Chinese master of kung-fu would, and now he must save the world from evil demons disguised as thinly-veiled parodied celebrities. So if you ever wanted to deck the lights out of expies of the likes of Justin Bieber or Donald Trump, you’ll at least get a kick out of that. The physical disc-only DLC swaps Shaq out for (no joke) Barack “Dirty Barry” Obama, who takes up the quest to finish off Kanye West. It’s like a mad-lib found inside a fortune cookie.
All in all, it’s by no means a great or even a good game. It’s barely passable, and certainly not a notch in the belt of crowdfunded games. But what I can say is this: I paid only $5 for it, and I felt I at least got my money’s worth out of it. Any more than that, and this is just another miss like all those free-throws.