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Reikai Doushi: Chinese Exorcist (the title loosely translated to "Spiritual Guardian") is a 2D fantasy fighting game developed and released by Home Data for arcades in Japan on September 1988. It received a limited release outside of Japan as The Last Apostle Puppetshow.
Made by a company better known for erotic mahjong arcade games at the time, Reikai Doushi is known for being the first fighting game to use claymation (as well as the first to use digitized sprites in general). Players control an unnamed Taoist priest as he makes his way up a mountain near Beijing, battling numerous wandering ghosts of Chinese folklore.
Rather than standard rounds, the game uses a life-based system where players start with multiple lives and can earn more through higher scores. Unlike most other fighting games, simply depleting their enemy's vitality (or "Power") is not enough to finish the round and players must instead decapitate their opponent by performing certain attacks to the head while avoiding being decapitated themselves.
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