This seems like a 12 year old came up with the idea. "A fighting game! But with GUNS! And biiig stages! And also a countdown and the stages gets destroyed more and more as the fight goes on! You can also pick up different weapons! And there is stage hazards like a shark tank or elephants! And most stages have to take place on moving vehicles like a train, plane or boat that rocks up and down!"

And the other ppl go "That sounds impossible! Should we maybe make the stages smaller like a normal fighting game? Or is it supposed to be more of a shooting game? Also how should the stage be destroyed? And YOU WANT US TO ADD SWIMMING TOO? You're clearly 12 and it shows! You have no idea how games are made! This isn't as easy as you think!!"

The kid goes "Just make the damn game!! Also add a gorrilla"

They did make the game and it turned out great imo

What a cool game! An early example of a platformer fighter tied to a very fun comic book/cinematic aesthetic. For as fun as the high-concept characters are - hard not to love "chimpanzee TV star who is also a contract killer" or "formerly-conjoined twin 11-year-olds... who are contract killers", the real stand-outs are the stages: huge, dynamic, and full of so many little details to keep longer matches constantly interesting. Especially for the era, the sheer amount of STUFF going on is quite impressive. My main complaint is that it's sometimes hard to keep track of what's going on - for as impressive as the sprite-scaling effect is, it does lend itself to readability issues on maps like the weapons factory or the circus tent. But that honestly strikes me as more a limitation of its era, and something that would have a ready solution if this was ever remade.

I actually got to play this on a arcade cabinet! Outfoxxies represents a diametric opposite of competitive Smash Bros. in terms of its design as a platform fighter. Melee attacks do little-to-no damage and combos are nonexistent in favor of item drops doing the bulk of the damage; the stages are so large and difficult to traverse they make New Pork City look quaint; so much is happening on-screen at any given time that it’s impossible to take everything in at once without some sort of sensory overload. Outfoxxies laughs at the need for other fighting games to be “fair” and “balanced” and instead delivers a uniquely manic experience that is equal parts frustrating and mesmerizing.

I love the espionage-thriller aesthetics paired with some goofy characters and stages. You have John Smith and Betty Doe to select if you want to play the assassin role straight… or you can play as the chimpanzee or pair of homicidal twins, fighting in the middle of a circus show. Suda51’s love for this game makes so much sense. I was so enamored by this wonderfully weird, dark sense of humor that I kept pushing through even when I lost and felt frustrated because I really wanted to see what oddities the game would throw at me on the next stage. The style is the substance, and I think everybody owes it to themselves to try this game once, preferably with friends, even if my description of the gameplay sounds unpleasant to you.

Holy shit this game is so good. It's one of those action platformer fighting games that you see in tons of indie games except done like 20 years prior, how ahead of its time this game was is absurd. Guess gamers just weren't ready for it yet. There are a handful of characters that all control differently and a ton of stages that all have their own items and hazards to use as you jump around trying to KILL YOUR ENEMY BY ANY MEANS. It just has the same freeform gameplay concepts that would later be used in games like smash bros and the aforementioned billions of indie multiplayer platform party fighters. The fact that this game has never been rereleased and is stuck in the arcades should be considered a international criminal offense. Arcade Archives better deliver the goods....

What if an obscure arcade game accidentally invented an entire genre and nobody noticed? Often described as a proto-Smash Bros, Outfoxies is a completely different take on the same basic blueprint, where items and environmental hazards are the only way to deal significant damage, and basic attacks are a stopgap measure at best. In that way, it's actually more of a 2D proto-Power Stone, but let's not split hairs. As an 1v1 arcade game, Outfoxies is much more focused on engaging mayhem and bizarre weapons than competitive balance, so you need to come in with the right expectations. That said, it's a tremendously fun game by basically any standard, and I highly recommend checking it out via the Usual Channels. Shout out to Lost Ark Games in Greensboro, NC for giving me a chance to play it on a real Astro City, that was a fun experience.