Decap Attack

Decap Attack was a weird Platform Game released for Sega Genesis/Megadrive in 1991, and probably the only game in existence which starred a headless mummy. However, it began its life as a totally unrelated Japanese game called Magical Hat Flying Turbo Adventure, based upon the Anime Magical Hat. It received a total uplifting before coming to US and Europe, and became a wacky horror adventure set in an island shaped like a human body.

The story is, as always, pretty simple: the demon Max D. Cap emerges from the underworld and breaks Body Island into seven parts. Mad Scientist Frank N. Stein creates a headless mummy named Chuck for the sole purpose to try and defeat Max and rescue the island.

Decap Attack was adapted into a long-running comic strip in British magazine Sonic the Comic, which brought the zaniness of the game Up to Eleven.


 * Advancing Wall of Doom: One in the form of a totem pole in Stage 3-1.
 * Bedsheet Ghost: Some enemies.
 * Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The sixth boss is a big, friendly-looking yeti.
 * Chain-Reaction Destruction: How are bosses destroyed? By having multiple small red explosions cover their nonexistent body after flashing a lot.
 * Contractual Boss Immunity: The potions that destroy every enemy on screen don't work on the bosses.
 * Dem Bones: Among the enemies there are living fishbones.
 * Expy: Max D. Cap is essentially Satan.
 * Goomba Stomp: Your main method of attack besides punching and using potions.
 * Hearts Are Health: Played with: your health meter is comprised of actual, realistic beating hearts.
 * The Igor: Dr. Stein has a green faced hunchbacked assistant.
 * Mad Scientist: Dr. Stein, Chuck's creator, complete with hunchbacked assistant.
 * Ominous Pipe Organ: Whenever you die.
 * Punny Name: Almost every name in this game is a pun of some sort. Main character is called "Chuck D. Head" ('coz he kills enemies by throwing a head at them!), his creator is named "Frank N. Stein" and the Big Bad is "Max D. Cap". The names of the various locations are all puns on the name of the body part they resemble, such as "Armington", "El Beau (elbow) Island", "Tibuland" and so on.
 * Skippable Boss: You can avoid the second boss altogether after having found the object, by jumping on certain platforms.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Stage 6, "Last Leg Land".
 * Spiritual Successor: To Psycho Fox for the Master System.
 * Stock Femur Bone: Enemies die, two of those fly off of them.
 * Technicolor Death: When the bosses die, they flash like strobe lights, and stars appear.