Eight Man (aka “Eightman” aka “8 Man“) is a one or two-player scrolling beat ’em up based on Kazumasa Hirai‘s manga and anime character of the same name, who is considered one of the earliest Japanese cyborg superhero characters. The game was developed by Pallas and published exclusively for the Neo Geo by SNK in 1991.

It has fairly simple controls (jump, punch, kick, and joystick directions), and is fairly formulaic in terms of its gameplay, but it is playable and somewhat challenging, so does have something to offer those looking for an arcade fighting game to play for an afternoon.

Eight Man – and his sidekick, Nine Man – are both quite agile and can rain punches and kicks down on their many enemies, as well as fire various beams out of their cyborg hands, and drop bombs. They can slide to avoid attacks, or knock enemies down, but the aim is always the same: to make their enemies stay down.

There are ten different stages, and various boss battles, although frankly there’s little to get too excited about. Eight Man is a competent side-scrolling fighting game, at best, but it’s unlikely to knock your socks off.

If playing Eight Man on a Neo Geo AES (the home version of the Neo Geo), if a memory card is present in the console, you are allowed to save your progress and resume from that point on, which is a rare feature in what is essentially an arcade game.

More: Eight Man on Wikipedia