YMMV / Hong Kong '97

• Accidental Innuendo: The "...so please send us your floppy." in the "GAMES WANTED" section.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Tong Shao Ping is very easy to defeat as he only has one move that is super easy to dodge and doesn't take that many hits to kill. The enemies you fight before are harder than him.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The game's premise is to provide satirical commentary on the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China. However the execution ended up too tasteless to be taken seriously outside of the gaming community. That said, this was intentional on the creator’s part, as he intentionally strived to create the worst game possible.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The "GAMES WANTED" bit at the very start of the game that has nothing to do with the rest of it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The goal of single-handedly wiping out the entire population of China would be extremely offensive if it wasn't so outlandish.
• Cult Classic: The game garnered a cult following in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan for its ludicrousness (especially concerning the use of copyrighted images and the game's premise), and earned the reputation of being So Bad, It's Good.
• Designated Hero: Chin. What does one do after "crime rate skyrockeded?" Why, commit genocide on all 1.2 billion people who moved in from the mainland of course! While all the enemies appear to be adults (the sprites are very limited in quality, but they have that height), chances are this also includes children.
• Funny Moments: The opening "story". Your aim is to annihilate the entirety of Mainland China as well as their so-called Pointless Doomsday Device on behalf of the Hong Kong government; what more could you ask for?
• Harsher in Hindsight: Deng Xiaoping, portrayed in-game by a badly-pixelated screencap of his head named "Tong Shau Ping", was still alive when the game was released in 1995. He died in 1997, the year the game takes place in. Tong is stated to have died and been resurrected as an ultimate weapon. The game stated that he was dead prior to this, and his "actor" actually did die in this year.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The game claims after the mainland Chinese people, or "fuckin' ugly reds" swarmed to Hong Kong, the crime rate "skyrockeded". As of 2023, nearly 30 years after this game was made, the crime rate there is actually one of the world's lowest, at least as far as murder goes.
  • There was indeed quite a bit of uncertainty throughout The '90s regarding the scheduled transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule; many feared that economic and personal freedoms would become restricted as they were on the mainland at the time, a view this game shamelessly exploits. By the early 2020s, the Chinese government ended up keeping the economy largely the same as they were, mainly for the HUGE amounts of money the Hong Kong economy generates, in spite of the city's large wealth gap and class divide. Doubles as Harsher in Hindsight however due to the restrictions on personal freedoms imposed upon Hong Kong by the Chinese government in 2020, after the city was rocked by protests that often turned violent.
  • In spite of his depiction in the game, Jackie Chan himself is known to be very supportive of the Chinese government.
• Memetic Badass: Chin. Who else can destroy a herd of fuckin' ugly reds and the mainland's ultimate weapon?
  The Angry Video Game Nerd: "Wipe out 1.2 billion people!" And if I'm not mistaken, in 1995, that would have been the ENTIRE POPULATION OF CHINA! Bruce Lee's relative is so powerful, he's the equivalent of a thousand nukes! He's gonna murder the entire population of China by breaking their necks! Even when Bruce Lee would take down 20 people, it took him a little bit of time. But now comes Chin! You don't fuck with Chin!
• Memetic Mutation: Some of the phrases have become popular thanks to The Angry Video Game Nerd.
  • "1.2 billion fuckin' ugly reds!"
  • "You don't FUCK with Chin!"^Explanation As he has the potential to kill 1.2 billion people. Emphasis on potential.
  • "Why is the background Coca-Cola!?"
  • New York 2017!^Explanation The Nerd compares the plot of the game to a hypothetical New York 2017, with an even more absurd story about 2.5 octodecillion "motherfuckin' demons from the planet Jupiter"— led by the Astro-Demonoid-Mecha-Doomsday-Machine Dil Clyntyn— invading the city of New York and being battled by Master Joe, John Wayne's half-cousin's stepson ("played" by Clint Eastwood).
  • Many people posted comments about their misheard versions of the title song's catchy lyrics on YouTube. Some of them even parodied the game's "story".
  • Parodies of the opening text are becoming increasingly popular.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Some of the game's imagery can be this. Most famous is the Game Over screen and death sprite of all enemies, which is a lo-res image of a victim of the Bosnian genocide from a shock documentary, but often overlooked is a picture of victims of The Holocaust in the game's opening.
  • The floating head of "Tong Shau Ping." Blood drips from his neck as he flies around.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Try finding someone outside of mainland China who can hear "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" and not immediately think of this game.
• Quirky Work: Who thought making a game about annihilating 1.2 billion mainland Chinese people and resurrecting a Chinese leader as an ultimate weapon was a good idea? At the time the game was being made, 1.2 billion was approximately the entire population of China, and the leader in question was based on a Real Life Chinese leader who was still alive at the time.
• So Bad, It's Good: The game has managed to reach this status due to its poor quality, especially among Hongkongers, Japanese and Taiwanese.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The plot covers the then upcoming 1997 transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China. There is also a brief allusion to Chris Patten being governor of Hong Kong, and the "Games Wanted" text asks for games to be sent in on a floppy disk.

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