A 3D fighting game by Konami (the Osaka division) released exclusively for the Nintendo 64, back when games console shad their own exclusive fighting game franchises. PlayStation had Tekken, Sega Saturn had Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter and the Nintendo 64 had Killer Instinct, and G.A.S.P. Released in 1998 when Tekken 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 had already established themselves within the home console market. 

Gameplay revolves around arena-based 3D fights inspired by titles like Virtua Fighter, with scoring based on move quality and combos rather than just depleting health. Although this only appears to matter when the round time has expired, instead of awarding the match point to the player that’s the most health remaining, the game calculated the score based on remaining health (which weights heavily) along with technique.

You select from 8-9 playable fighters (plus unlockable like a cat-masked wrestler Gouriki and boss Reiji Ogami, who transforms into forms like Hikari and Yami), each with unique moves, punches, kicks, throws, and evades. Modes include single-player tournament/duel, versus (1v1 or tag-team), training, and a notable create-a-fighter system where you customize appearance (hairstyles, body types, faces) and steal moves from defeated opponents. This is one of the few fighting games that does let you create and customize your own fighter, something that is more commonly seen win the wresting game genre.

Unfortunately the game failed to capture the audience that Tekken and Virtua Fighter had, and the game itself wasn’t very well received both in Japan and Internationally. One of the main criticism’s was the overall pacing and speed of the game, giving a fell that the characters were fighting underwater. I’m not sure if this was a design consideration from Konami, as they possibly wanted to implement a more strategic fighting system that gives the player opportunity to counter and plan their next fighting move, or it this was more so of the technical limitations of the Nintendo 64. Many of the stages have destroyable objects that break as your chapter slams into them, but the physics processing could have an impact of the games overall speed as a result. Running on an actual N64, expect to get a frame rate of 20-30FPS.

The moves of the characters is also rather limited, with many moves just being a various of the same punch/kick. This might be due to the ability to create custom fights, which affects how the character’s moveset would flow, and how the animations execute across different character models and meshes without clipping or looking unnatural. This is often difficult to pull off and is why we often don’t see customisation in fighting games.

Still, the game reward you give a nice Techno-inspired soundtrack that has dark elements to it. If you have already admired Tekken for it’s soundtrack, you won’t be disappointed considering sound isn’t one of the N64’s strong points.