PLAYERS: 1-2 simultaneous
PUBLISHER: Sanritsu Denki (JP), Razorsoft (US)
DEVELOPER: Brian A Rice Inc. (port by Mediagenic)
GENRE: Fighting
RELEASE DATE: 10/12/90 – (JP), 12/20/91 – (US)
Like a fugitive on the run, Slaughter Sport is known by many different names. Tongue of the Fatman on IBM PC. Mondu’s Fight Palace on Commodore 64. Fatman on Mega Drive. And finally, Slaughter Sport on Genesis. Whatever you call it, this fighting game is a menace. Unresponsive controls and unfair hit detection are but two of its offenses. While its crime spree may have ended on the Genesis, the trail of destruction left in its wake was forever imprinted on those who dared to play it.
You play a hardened fighter, tasked with taking down an array of beasts for Mondu the Fatman’s amusement. Cyber punk women, dinosaur skeletons, minotaurs and more are waiting to be schooled by your taut muscular frame. Since you’re taking your life into your hands with every bout, you might assume that you have some fighting ability or, at least, some strength behind your attacks. Wrong. You can punch, kick, jump, back flip and jump-kick, but none of the moves take off much health unless you land them perfectly. You also have a special attack that looks neat, but does little to no damage, and a Magic Weapon that can hinder your opponent’s movement.
Once you step into the Arena of Death, something’s immediately wrong. Pressing ‘A’ with the D-pad only occasionally results in an attack. Pressing ‘B’ for your special attack does little, even if it hits your opponent. Your computer opponent constantly jumps in your face, leaving you unable to get a move in. Once you start jumping around the arena, you realize a jump kick to your opponent’s head is the only way to knock him down and take off some damage. The hit detection is so awful that any hits you land only work half the time. Your life bar drains far quicker than your opponent’s. You lay on the ground, praying for death, while the Fatman’s tongue waggles mercilessly from behind you…
If by Mondu’s good graces you happen to beat an opponent, you’ll be given some prize money and ushered to the store. Here, you can increase your life bar, your attack strength, or choose a different Magic Weapon. Hope emerges as you beef up your fighter, then is quickly dashed as you’re tossed back into the arena for one more pathetic brawl.
While you’re initially stuck with Generic Shirtless Human #263 as your default character in one-player mode, you can input codes on the title screen to play as one of the other seventeen characters. None of them really control better than the others, but at least you can play as a freaky potato torso thing if you so desire. There’s also a two-player mode where you and a friend can choose from one of the combatants, sans code, and flail around like fools together.
According to SegaRetro, Slaughter Sport was set to come out under the title Mondu’s Fight Palace on the Mega Drive as early as fall 1990. Original publisher Mediagenic went bankrupt, however, and Activision ingested them into their collective. Mondu’s Fight Palace was delayed until the summer of 1991, until finally, publisher Razorsoft released the game on December 20th, 1991. I couldn’t verify this story, but if it’s true, what fortuitous timing. Street Fighter II was taking the arcade world by storm, and console gamers were more likely to buy any fighting game in sight. Pity those poor souls who didn’t know that Street Fighter II was the only fighting game worth playing at the time. We’ve all wasted money on a bad game here and there, but few are as soul crushing as Slaughter Sport.
Out of all the fighting games developed prior to Street Fighter II, Slaughter Sport (a.k.a. Fatmandu) might be the worst. The controls are broken. The move sets are worthless. The hit detection favors the challenger. Unless you whittle an opponent’s health bar down by luck, it’s impossible to make it to the second round, let alone the Fatman and his harem of alien babes. Don’t indulge Mondu’s sleazy whims. Slaughter Sport is truly for the dogs.
F
18 replies on “Slaughter Sport (Genesis, 1990-91)”
I’ve always avoided this game because of it’s notorious reputation. Following your review I fired it up on my Everdrive and I’m in complete agreement with your review.
Awful just awful, definitely the worst game I’ve played on a Sega platform. I can’t beat the first guy, hell I can barely land a hit !
Exactly! Landing a hit is impossible. I can’t believe any developer in their right mind published this.
There should be a Budokan Slaughter Sport Showdown for worst fighting game on the Genesis. This reviewed so poorly even I never rented it back in the day. I booted it up in emulation once, played 5 minutes. Decided it was horrible trash and never went back. Seems like we’d have to wait for Midway to make decent Western developed fighting games.
At least Budokan has the peaceful dojo. Sure the combat is terrible, but I could soak up the dojo surroundings for awhile. Slaughter Sport just has the disgusting Fatman…
Good review of a dreadful game – 5 minutes of emulation was enough for me. I reckon anyone who paid full price for this might actually have a strong legal case, like those people who are mis-sold insurance policies.
The paragraph on publishers interested me. The recent Retronauts podcast on Activision stated that Mediagenic was an unsuccessful re-branding of Activision. Once Mediagenic were in trouble of going under, they were bought and rebranded as Activision again. The new owners probably saw Slaughter Sport and decided to pass it off to someone else…
Activision dodged a bullet there. Simultaneously, no one’s heard of Razorsoft today.
I remember seeing this game with such cool cover art and title, thinking how good it must be. Boy what a turd underneath. Sure glad I didn’t throw my meager savings on this.
I played this on a friend’s Japanese import Megadrive shortly after it came out – I remember the fruitless jumping around and the curious bed of nails which appears above a fighter’s head from time to time. It was a deeply frustrating and joyless game. Sometimes the out and out weirdness of the fight characters was funny though, including a demon that farts at you, and a robotic chicken. More than anything though, I have fond memories of a friend impersonating Mondu’s ‘Welcome to the fight palace’ line in the school playground. Mondu’s man breasts were also a source of mirth for us kids.
Yeah, it’s a shame the game is so crap, because the Fatman and some of the other characters are pretty interesting.
I’m looking at the Japanese box art, is that Kurt Russell?
Big Trouble in Mondu’s Fat Palace.
Great review Dylan. I think that giving this game an F is far too kind. Anyone that took part in the making of this monstrosity should be forever banned from making games. I can’t remember ever playing a worse game.
I think the only worse game I can remember playing, at least on a Sega console, is Space Mountain for the Othello Multivision (SG-1000).
Wow, this brings back a lot of bad memories. This game is insane, clunky, and just plain bizzare… but it was fun to play with my brother and our two cousins in the days before Street Fighter II: SCE and Mortal Kombat. We didn’t know any better! I have to see if I still have this one because if I do, yeah, it’s going to the used book store for trade credit…
All that said, Bonaparte still cracks me up.
The game’s character designs are somewhat inspired, but you can’t enjoy them with that awful control…
This game was very difficult.
DIFFICULTY: Impossible – was well used there in the description.
But it was an emotion to go through the opponents.
Great Game!
I can beat the game with Buff spamming his lariat but no chance with the default character.
Good lord, that is one hideous looking game.