Sengoku is underrated as an example of early 90s Japanese weird

Sengoku is not a great game. It's a 1991 beat 'em up with a transformation gimmick (you can transform into a dog, who I can't figure out a use for, a ninja who flippin' flips everywhere whenever he moves, and an ornate Samurai dude.) As a game it's...ok...kind of stiff and clunky but not unfun. What it does have going for it is that it is very very crazy.

Deformed Ninja Turtle Sewer Dance Party!

Sengoku's plot is that some magical warlord is returning to Earth and trying to take it over. You play a 90s Cool Dude (tm) with yellow pants, a sweet jacket, and knee and shoulder pads, as well as fingerless gloves. Your goal is to stop the baddies by punching and kicking them. Sometimes you get a sword though. Sometimes you can shoot stuff. Sometimes you turn into a dog. It'e kind of unclear what's going on much of the time.

Player 2 is some kind of cowboy stripper guy? Forget it Jake, it's Sengoku.

Beyond the incomprehensible premise, Sengoku features a bizarre cast of enemies from Japanese lore, and was clearly used as a tech demo for a bunch of Neo Geo special effects. Sprites scale in the background, get rotated squashed and stretch, and just have weird animations and effects when they die. It's very flashy compared to most beat 'em ups, but not in an impressive way, because there are very few frames of animation. It's just...weird.

Foreground graphics to give a sense of depth, check. Dudes scaling in from the background? Check. This must be the early 90s!

In addition to all the weird effects, the game often whisks you up into the clouds to fight even weirder enemies. It is both disorienting and bizarre and it gives the levels a very strange flow. I was surprised when I defeated the first boss and was sent to stage 2. I had assumed it was just going to be one continuous left to right scrolling level because there are a lot of minibosses and the jarring transitions make it impossible for a stage to have "flow."

This guy shoots smaller versions of himself at you from his sack, because Japan. Why am I fighting this big head and hand? I presume because Japan. Three women come out from that room in the background and turn into this turtle dragon. The game's explanation? Because Japan!

There's not a ton more to say about the game, except that it's available on the major consoles through the ACA series so if you're in the mood it's kind of worth checking out just for how strange it is. I wouldn't call it a great game, but at least it's different.

That's the Empire State Building in the background so this might canonically take place in New York City.Ninjas on the ceiling? Of course.Nicer than the NYC subways are currently. That dude appears to have a magical chariot to ride around the tracks. I would buy one if the price was right. You can transform into the guy with the red hair. Here you're fighting on some phantom horses or something. I dunno. Japan. Did Iwata travel back in time to help with the development of this game? There's strong evidence to support it.