Spearheaded by Bob Gale and Joe Kaminkow, Tattoo Assassins was designed to be Data East's answer to Mortal Kombat.

Mullah Abah, spiritual leader of a group known as the "Order of Colors", discovers a secret known as "Ink of Ghize", a tattoo ink-like fluid that can transform into other objects when applied to humans.

In late 1994, when time and development funds were running out, Sega bought Data East and its subsidiaries, and eventually had the game cancelled and most of its arcade machines destroyed.

Next Generation panned the game for poor synchronization between controls and characters, "slow and choppy" animation, and an "extraordinary lack of any real innovation" compared to Mortal Kombat II.

[6] Felipe Rojas of La Tercera criticized the stages as flat, the music as repetitive, the gameplay as crude, the animations as poorly digitized, and the characters as derivative and lacking in identity, commenting that the game felt unfinished.

[9] Gavin Jasper from Den of Geek compared it to Plan 9 from Outer Space, stating that "There are worse games out there, but this one gets the attention because it's too weird to exist... and it kind of doesn't."