There are 13 fighters in this game: Asad, Vittoria, Sabre, J.D. Stone, Rena, Kahn, Crusher Ramirez, Shadow, Roxy, Reiji, Vegard, Yin Kai Li, and Daeva. They are assembled for a fighting tournament named the Fist of Fire Tournament, sponsored by an evil organization called the Maladinia.
This game exhibits the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Religion: Asad is supposedly a Muslim extremist, but is covered in tattoos, which are considered haram in Sunni Islam.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: After discovering that Asad's theme music used Quranic verses as a component, Microsoft had the vocals replaced with vaguely foreign-sounding gibberish.
- Bruce Lee Clone: Reiji sports the slender muscular torso, the acrobatic moves, and the high-pitched screams although he is a Japanese Tomonobu Itagaki lookalike with massive scars all over his body.
- Dance Battler: Rena uses Capoeira as her fighting style.
- The Fundamentalist: Asad is an Muslim extremist from Somalia who is waging his own private Jihad.
- Ms. Fanservice: Vittoria, Rena and Roxy all wear revealing outfits and possess copious amounts of jiggling while moving. Vittoria and Roxy also are blessed with large breasts to go with said jiggling.
