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Retro|Spective 047: Bloody Roar

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    Retro|Spective 047: Bloody Roar

    In what is effectively the first instance of an RS request thread, this week we take a look at another fighter franchise with...




    Mainline Entry 01 - Bloody Roar
    Formats: Arcade and Playstation 1
    First released in arcades under the name Beasterizer. The fighter came to PS1 with a new name and brought its Beast Mode infused combat to a growing 3D fighter market. Able to transform into various animal forms, the transformation expands the players move set and gives several boosts but is charged by a meter meaning the player must time and plan their unleashing of the form carefully. The game proved to be one of the success stories for new fighters on Sony's console and a sequel wasn't far behind.



    Mainline Entry 02 - Bloody Roar 2
    Formats: Arcade and Playstation 1
    Set five years later, the sequel followed in traditional form by improving the graphics quality over the original and expanding the character roster. In such a competitive market the game had a softer critical reaction than the first game but still proved to be popular with fans.



    Mainline Entry 03 - Bloody Roar 3
    Formats: Arcade, Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube
    With the next generation of consoles the series saw a big push made for its third outing. Once again an expanded fighter roster came with a range of Beast mode unleashed animal forms and following the initial launch altered ports came to other formats. First under the amended name of Primal Fury, which featured an altered art style and fighter additions, and then as Primal Fury Extreme that altered the intros along with an additional fighter and tweaked graphics engine.



    Mainline Entry 04 - Bloody Roar 4
    Formats: Playstation 2
    The fourth game arrived again on PS2 but would prove to the be the franchises end. The beast bar was changed to be its own energy bar of sorts but that would be the biggest change in a fairly standard sequel. As such reviews were weaker for this entry and by now the public had lost interest in the repeated iterative nature of the series. When consoles made the jump to the next gen again, the series would fail to survive that jump.



    Share your thoughts and memories of the series

    #2
    I think I played the demo of the first game on one of those Official PlayStation mags, but it felt sluggish to play and didn't stand a chance next to Tekken, for me.

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      #3
      The first one is among my favourite PS1 games; I just love how it plays. Visually it's a bit ropey now, but it's a real blast. I feel it borrowed a great deal of Fighting Vipers (all the snappy, blowback moves) and it moved at a great pace. It was also cleverer than people gave it credit. It has a superb dodge system. Also, one thing not immediately apparent is that the beast mode transformation doesn't make the characters stronger; it just gives them access to moves that they can't access in their human form.

      The second was fun too, but I prefer the first. I don't remember exactly why; it has been a while since I played it.

      Still, after 2, I felt the series lost something. 3 and 4 just never felt like particularly good games compared to the first two. Fighting games in general seemed to split between a top tier (basically VF, Tekken, Soul Calibur and DoA) and "everything else" - and unfortunately Bloody Roar got lost among "everything else".

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        #4
        I remember really liking the PS1 version when it first came out. The graphics and overall design really grabbed me. I also enjoyed how it played. After that, I've played #3 on the Xbox but didn't get into it. It's definitely a series I need to delve into more.

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          #5
          More than anything I remember the intro to the original:



          I enjoyed the first entry for what it was, more importantly than anything was that it was a competent 3D fighter at a time when so few managed even that including Street Fighter. The sequel was solid but never quite appealed as much. After that the series lost me quick, there was something ugly about the later games.

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            #6
            I picked it up after playing it with the official Playstation magazine's demo. I also thought the anime cover was pretty cool at the time.

            Is it playable on PSN by chance?


            "Unleash the beast within." — Official tagline Bloody Roar (ブラッディロア), known as Bloody Roar: Hyper Beast Duel in Europe, is a fighting game developed by Eighting/Raizing, and released on July 7, 1997. It started out as an arcade game, released under the name Beastorizer in North America. After popularity grew with console games, Hudson Soft ported Bloody Roar to the Playstation 1 on November 6, 1997. A North American version was released and received the original Japanese title instead of its Ame

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              #7
              We reach the 48th RS next week, here's the clue:

              Clue - Saturn on your back

              Comment


                #8
                On a whim I picked up a copy of Bloody Roar 3, as I think that was the only one I'd never really played.

                In retrospect, it's easy to see why this series faltered. Putting aside that 3 on PS2 has a terrible PAL conversion (it plays in letterbox and is clearly squashed to that ratio; may even be slower too but not sure), I just had a quick run through the arcade mode. It's just not inspiring; it feels like a less dynamic version of the original, where the characters have more moves but they don't feel like you'd use them more than the first game's.

                I dunno... What is said above about it being "iterative" is correct. They're all consistently decent fighters, fine in 2p and the gimmick is fun, but they're just not great. As a result I still believe that Bloody Roar 1 is the best of the series, because it was bold and interesting.

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