It is a tournament-style fighting game with matches ranging between two and four fighters at once, with either every fighter for themselves or in 2-on-2 or 1-on-3 team matches (in the single-player game modes the player is regularly faced with multiple opponents and outnumbered in matches). Stylized versions of all nine members of the real-life Wu-Tang Clan appear as characters in the game, with a number of fictional fighters included in the character roster ranging from human martial artists to powerful godlike beings with magical powers (which typically serve as the game's "bosses").
Combat The combat is similar to many 3D fighting games: two punch buttons, two kick buttons, a block button, and a crouch button. The game differs by the inclusion of "lives" which are lost when the player's health bar reaches zero. When this happens, the player respawns and a life is subtracted. Should the player be killed with only one life left, their character will not respawn and they will lose the match (in team games, all the members of a team must die for victory to occur). The player has a power-up meter that fills when the player scores or receives hits. When full, the power-up can be activated by pressing all four face buttons at once. Once this is activated, the player's moves are significantly more powerful while the power-up meter drains. Once the meter is fully drained, the effect wears off. Players are free to refill this meter as often as they can during the course of a match.
Finishing moves Defeating the last opponent in a match will result in a fatality being performed on them in a similar vein to the
Mortal Kombat series'
Fatality. Each character has five different fatalities which correspond to the four face buttons on the controller, plus one corresponding to the character's throw move. Thus, the fatality performed depends on the last moved performed. Each character only starts with one available finishing move, and must unlock the additional four by playing through the story mode.
The 36 Chambers Throughout the course of the game's Story Mode the player advances through a series of challenges, called the 36 Chambers - a reference to both the real-life rap group's debut album
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and to the kung fu film
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. These challenges range from visiting certain locations to performing
combos of a certain length. Rewards for completing these include character
concept art, new game modes, characters, and fatalities. Given that some of the chambers require pulling off a certain fatality, the player may be forced to complete a certain goal before proceeding to the next one. Also, the player cannot face the last opponent (and therefore complete Story Mode) until they have first cleared 35 chambers - the 36th being awarded for defeating Mong Zhu himself. ==Reception==