1-on-1 fighter featuring 8 selectable characters.

The game's major innovation is the ability to walk into the background, in a similar manner to side-scrolling beat 'em ups such as "Streets of Rage" or "Final Fight" because of this, unlike many other 2-D fighting games, the game uses one action button to jump, it also does not use the 'D' button, (Which many of SNK's other fighters did), only 2 action buttons are used for attacking (punch and kick), instead grappling and grabbing opponents (Pressing the A & B buttons simultaneously) is the focus of the gameplay, opponents can counter being grabbed, as well as break free. Also featured is weapon play, again similar to beat 'em ups, weapons can be picked up and thrown, or used in special & standard attacks. Weapons are thrown in by background crowd members who will step forward to toss them into the ring. Another (strange) innovation of the game is that characters start to sweat -graphically- after a while.

Characters have unusually high health for the genre, with multiple, different coloured, health bars in one bar similar to a method of health bars used for boss characters in games of the time, in addition to this, each character has a 'Crazy Meter' at the bottom of the screen, which is built up as characters attack, this gives the character a special, often very bizarre, attack that will kill the opponent outright, known as the Gan Gan Attack in Japan, and the Crazy Attack in the US.

Battles are joined by irreverent, sometimes humorous pre-fight banter from characters, the dialog differs depending on whom each opponent is, and a clashing of 2 small images of the characters eyes, which clash in the center of the screen.