Who says that this feature has to be just recent games, I've been gaming for decades and there are way more games that make you ask WTF am I Playing? All three are N64 titles and all fighting games.

Fighters Destiny
Fighters Destiny is unique in that you could pretty much finish each match with one attack, instead of traditional defeat you get scored on how you defeat your opponent whether it be throwdown, ringout, counter or special, perhaps the reason it didn't come back was that you could cheese the game with one move if you were skilled enough, it's fighting roster highlights include a French clown with a giant nose, a old master whose outfit and hairstyle sort of makes him look like a rapper and a fighting cow, the style may not be up to much but the music is fantastic.
B-Tier Game

Clayfighter 63 1/3
A Mortal Kombat game if it were entirely made of clay, clayfighter takes a variety of unique and now very offensive looking characters considering that at least two of them are a witch doctor and a kung fu guy with exaggerated accents and puts them in a fighting game, the game is janky, slow and disgusting in places, any wonder when you've got Sumo Santa and Boogerman who use farts as a fatality, Santa's one being particularly nasty.
D-Tier Game

Mace The Dark Age

I'm baffled why this didn't catch on, Soul Calibur was still at least a year or two off and Samurai Spirits was hardly going to fill the void, so why didn't Mace catch on? It had Mortal Kombat's team.
Might be because it's notoriously hard, the object is to obtain the Mace of Tanis by defeating Asmodeus (knowing what I know about Asmodeus in demon lore, this is a far cry compared to other versions) the cast includes the likes of Lord Deimos an overlord in fancy red armour and a large sword fighting against, samurai, vikings, sorceresses, ninja, monks, undead soldiers from the crusade and my personal favourites a dwarf in a wooden mecha and a chicken. Lots of fun even if the lore can be exhausting to follow.
A-Tier Game