Sorry to tell people who might want to know, but I have no clue what the storyline is here. There is no indication anywhere in the game that I could find, but if you need to know, I'm sure the info is out there somewhere. Anyway, this is a 2-player side-scroller in which you control a rather large indian-looking fellow with a much smaller little fellow clinching on his back (same character for both players). The unique twist here is that you can transform into one of 3 forms (including the large indian fellow) via powerups.

One of the forms lets players control the little fellow on the indian fellows back. Little fellow isn't all that hopeless though. He's on the back of tiger a la Sigfreid and Roy....well, Sigfreid at least (send hate mail to Joe Santulli). Little fellow gets a mace like weapon and is generally faster than the indian fellow making him convievent for trapping bosses into corners. The third form, the rarest of the group, is a dragon. This beast rips oppoents into pieces via the standard dragon firepower...well, fire. The instances with the dragons are all too brief and far too few in number, so be prepared to use them to the fullest when found.

Another little twist in this game are bombs. Their everywhere. They'll destroy bridges (giving the game some unfortunate platforming segments), enemies, and if timed right, entire screens of enemies and players. It's an orgy of violence and gore.

Now, the gore. The oh so precious bodily fluid known as blood is everywhere. Once you've battered an enemy enough, their faces will turn into a crimson mask. Beat them some more and their head detaches their shoulders and their bodies splatter onto the pavement. This is NOT a game for this kiddies and had this one caught on, it could've been a precursor to the Mortal Kombat controversy. The rest of the game is pretty much generic. It's obviously running on the same graphics engine that powered Ninja Gaiden the same year (same with the game's fighting engine) just without any of the minor mode-7 effects that made that one more popular. Same goes for the sound effects which are unremarkable save for the squishy sound when punching someones bloodied mug.

Ignore the blood and you've got a basic beat-em-up that's been done better countless times by a countless number of companies. It's not a horrid game and it has enough going for it that fans of this particular style of game should play through it at least once. Ninja Gaiden is certainly a better game overall, but the gore factor may be enough to create a few fans.