If you ever have the good fortune to have the opportunity to play Riding Fight, I'd very much encourage you to avoid reading anything about it and play it without any knowledge of its contents. It's one of the most absurd games I've played in my life.

You play as either Burn Bowie or Keith Jager. A pair of tough hoverboarders, fist fighting their way through the world's most dangerous criminals, their hovercars and their mecha griffons.

Riding Fight is an arcade game with an intoxicating attract mode. There is no chance you're going to walk past a cabinet without putting a coin in out of dumbfounded disbelief. The gameplay is based around a scaling technique, similar to Space Harrier or SNES Mode 7 games, but it's a beat 'em up. You zoom over futuristic highways and endless oceans, punching hoverboarding thugs and vehicles, occasionally picking up a burger or hotdog to recover health.

The game starts out ridiculous and ramps up dramatically with each new level. I don't want to go into any further detail, because I was astonished by what they were having me fight by the end of the game. I would not be able to live with myself if I took that away from you.

Riding Fight is available as part of the new Taito Egret II Mini Arcade Memories Vol. I cartridge - An oddly expensive release - but buying the bundle with the mini arcade cabinet is actually 10,000 yen cheaper than buying the Egret II Mini by itself. It doesn't make any sense, but I guess this is business as performed by the developers of Riding Fight.