Tattoo Game Existed, Aborted

Data East's answer to Mortal Kombat, was in fact, Tattoo Assassins. The main ingredient here was tattoo combatants whose tattoos could be brought to life through special moves and attack the opponent. The game never made it past programming and never saw the dank darkness of an arcade.

The history of the game is chronicled here by a would-be fan.

My favorite lines are from a programmer of the game...

The Indian character, for example, had an eagle on his chest; one of his many fatalities was his eagle tattoo would come off his chest and crap on the other character, who would melt away...Was it bad? Well, I've played worse fighting games out there... It was neat working on it, but I have since moved on to better game testing and designing opportunities.

Hard to imagine.