Capcom Acid Nightmare. This is a hilarious, and suprisingly good game. Originally called
Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix (the alarm bells should be ringing now) and released on the
CPS2 arcade unit, it has subsequently seen console ports for the
Saturn,
Playstation and
Wonderswan (non-colour).
Take
Street Fighter Alpha. Add in some
Darkstalkers characters. Draw the whole thing in the
super deformed style used in
Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. Then let the programmers cram in as many
in-jokes as they possibly can.
Typical scene;
Chun-Li vs
Ken. Chun-Li punches Ken, then magically switches into the clothes of
Jill Valentine from
Resident Evil and attacks with a knife, then turns into
June from
Star Gladiators and attacks with razor discs, then appears in schoolgirl dress and hands Ken a love letter, which Ken studies for a moment, then recoils with heart shaped eyes. Then Ken hits Chun-Li with a giant
stop sign, compresses her into a
football and kicks her across the screen. In the background,
Sodom and
Rolento can be seen stuffing their faces with noodles, while
Vega (or
M.Bison if you prefer) occasionally zooms past on a
toboggan, apparently having the time of his life.
Don't even get me started on the
sound effects that accompany this.
But forget visual appearences! What about the plot?
Oh my. Each character's mission is described when you first start the game. Ken's intro states that he's bored of his wife
Eliza, and wants to find a nice girl to have tea with.
Ibuki's sole quest in life is to eat ice-cream in
Tokyo.
The game may sound too ridiculous to work, but it does, and well. Behind all the hilarity is a sound game structure, and the character balance is superb, with no overly strong/weak characters (even
Zangief is fairly lethal). Definitely worth a play, preferably in
two player mode under the influence of narcotic substances.