Evolution Is a Slow Process - Bloody Roar Review.
Developed by Hudson Soft.
Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Playstation[PS3 used to capture footage].
Released October 31st, 1997.
Purchased copy.
The Law of Nature
Bloody Roar is a 3D fighter, in the sense that it uses 3D polygons instead of sprites, not in the sense that the camera is locked behind the fighter.
Both fighters are placed in a 3D arena with walls, but the movement of both fighters is locked in a 2D plane, relative to the movement of the other fighter.
Fights can only be 1 vs. 1 bouts, there’s no team-based or tag-based options.
The player will still have to account for the 3D space their fighter is in, as the camera angle might change in between rounds, their character might end up with their back facing their opponent, or they may side step an attack and end up on the other fighters periphery, forcing the camera to recenter.
Bloody Roar is set up with matches, consisting of 1-4 rounds, and there are a few different win states.
Winning by KO requires one fighter to deplete the other’s health, its the basic concept behind the entire genre, and few games stray away from this.
The player can win a round and/or match by Time Out; having more health than their opponent when the clock runs out.
The player can also win by Ring Out, because the walls can be broken by launching the other fighter with a hard-hitting attack, thus depleting all of their health.
Many of Bloody Roar’s contemporaries have rule sets similar to this, but the fighting game genre has always been built on what works.
These rules are consistent and easy to understand, and the reader will see how this games manages to stand out.
Fury Swipes
Fighting games are all about movement, positioning, and timing.
Though Bloody Roar is a 3D fighting game, its movement is handled with the Playstation’s D-Pad.
Movement is handled like a 2D fighter, but keep in mind, the player still has to account for 3D space and movement on occasion.
Every fighter has the exact same movement controls, but their actual movement in-game varies.
The LEFT & RIGHT buttons move the character left and right, but these can be inverted if the fighter’s positions are reversed.
Double-tapping a direction towards the opponent causes the fighter to sprint, and double-tapping away from the opponent causes the fighter to dash backwards.
Pressing UP on the d-pad causes the fighter to leap, and combing that directional input in mid-air (UP + LEFT/RIGHT) causes the fighter to leap in an arc.
Pressing DOWN in the d-pad causes the fighter to duck or kneel.
When facing away from the opponent, holding the d-pad toward the opponent, will slowly turn the fighter around.
The movement in this game works, and is very intuitive, as the player can easy discern that they need to move towards and away from their opponent as needed, and all movement/player actions are tied to the opponent, at all times.
The player won’t just be moving around the arena, they need to land hits, and Bloody Roar has very straightforward attacking options.
Every fighter has a dedicated PUNCH and KICK button, but their individual combos and move sets differ drastically.
Punches are usually fast jabs that have high priority with a lower damage output, whereas kicks have a bit of wind-up, but they have longer reach and cause more damage.
I tend to favor characters that can pull off plenty of quick jabs, because this game has a bit of input-lag.
Sometimes it feels as if the fighter I’m controlling needs to receive a post card of my commands before they will execute them.
This allows me to buffer my next attacks in while what’s happening on screen is animating, but this input-delay is quite crippling in a genre that forces the player to readjust their strategy in a split-second.
Bloody Roar has an elementary combo-system where the player has to properly combine directional inputs and attack inputs to create combos.
Most of the fighters share many of the same moves, such as combing a sprint with a punch to create a charging tackle, or combining a punch and kick together to create a grab move.
Each fighter still has their own unique moves, but these universal moves help one quickly learn any character they find interesting.
It should be very manageable for any player to figure out that a quarter-circle motion from a ducking position combined with a punch, would translate to a rising uppercut.
And that’s why I love this combo system, it’s easy to get into and master a character that one finds appealing, not every fighter needs to be EVO or E-Sports ready to be good.
Fangs and Claws
The main draw of Bloody Roar is that every playable fighter can transform into a different animal/human hybrid.
The retain their humanoid shape, but gain promienent features of their particular animal, and a larger hitbox(making them bigger targets).
When a fighter can transform is determined by their “Beast Meter”, it’s increased by dealing and taking damage in a fight, the player will earn more meter, faster, by playing well, but a less skilled player can transform to get themselves out of a bind.
There is a dedicated transformation button, that then becomes an additional attack button when transformed.
The fighter’s health regenerates while transformed to a certain point, indicated by a white bar following the player’s current HP.
This health replenishment doesn’t go away until the fighter’s transformation goes away.
A fighter can be knocked out of their transformed state, by getting struck with a strong attack, when their beast meter is completely drained.
The fighter can only transform again, when their meter fills back up and displays the text; “BEAST”.
In the main menu there’s an option called RAVE OFF/RAVE ON, which determines how much meter each fighter starts every match with; OFF means both fighter have to build their meter through fighting, and ON means both fighters can transform as soon as the match starts.
During a match, the player has access to a dedicated RAVE mode button while transformed.
This quickly drains the beast meter, but increases the attacking/movement speed of the fighter, so the player is trading consistent healing for more damage.
This is my favorite part of Bloody Roar because it adds a whole new layer to the fighting system, giving the player more options and even more combo potential, as the 3rd attacking button can be used to extend combos even further.
It’s just a really cool concept, and the animal kingdom is full of inspiration, so this series could go on forever, and potentially never run out of characters.
The Zoanthropes
Choosing a fighter in an unfamiliar franchise seems like an impossible task, but would you like some advice?
Just choose the character that looks the most appealing to you, then learn their moves.
If you still can’t decide go with the “face” of the franchise, these are “main characters” that represent a series, and whose stories are the most prominent or canon.
Examples include Ryu(Street Fighter), Jin Kazama(Tekken), Akira(Virtua Fighter), and Kasumi(Dead or Alive).
The poster boy for Bloody Roar is Yugo the Wolf: Werewolves embody the mythology around people changing into animals in popular culture.
Bloody Roar has a very balanced roster of 8 playable fighters, which is a great number for a 1st entry in a series.
It might seem as if it’s too small, but it eliminates an overwhelming amount of choices, and allows the developers to focus on the core aspects of the game, thee actual fighting, without having to balance a huge roster of characters.
A new player can quickly decide which of these 8 characters they like, because they’re easy to learn.
This means the player will know what to expect from every character.
There may be universal moves shared among all the fighters, but Bloody Roar has no clones and no filler.
The downside is there’s no unlockable fighters, not even the arcade boss is playable.
There are 9 characters in the game, they didn’t even add unplayable bosses, or anything to spice up the arcade mode.
My personal favorite character is Alice the rabbit, she has the fastest jabs in the game, and the reach with her long ass legs is ridiculous.
It’s easy for me to pull off her combos and I love how easy it is to control her positioning in the arena.
Her bunny form is great, but she’s the only character I played as that doesn’t need to transform to have a good move set, I only really transformed for the steady healing ability.
I never felt helpless in human form, and didn’t need to use the transformation as a crutch.
She looks awesome, and her speed and easy combos make her the best character in this game!
Apex Predator
Oh that 9th character I mentioned, the arcade boss, her name is Uriko; like most final bosses in these types of games she suffers from “SNK Boss” syndrome.
Her human form is absurdly fast, and can clear the distance between both fighters in no-time-flat.
Her attacks have priority over the player’s moves, with hardly any exceptions(except grabs, which can be blocked).
Her limbs have unreasonable reach, and she blocks or side-steps everything thrown at her.
She doesn’t take any shit from the player, and their only salvation is her beast form.
Her transformed state can launch moves that take out 1/3 of the player’s health bar, and its reach goes even further, but its slow and predictable by comparison.
I suffered far too many defeats against this boss, and the player doesn’t even get the satisfaction of playing as Uriko!
2 Player Experience
It’s a clique thing to say but, playing against an actual person is far more enjoyable than the computer players.
I swear the A.I. has some adaptive learning programming, where the game learns how I play, then adjusts the COM fighter’s strategy to counter whatever I’m doing.
Against another player, it’s more about outsmarting your opponent and managing your beast meter, than exploiting an A.I.’s weaknesses.
I never want to resort to cheap tomfuckery like, ducking and poking my opponent’s ankles with my big toe until they fall over, and I win.
Omnivorous Diet
Bloody Roar comes packaged with standard console fighting game extras; VS mode, Practice Mode, Time Attack, and Survival Mode.
All of these work as one would expect, VS mode for playing with friends, Practice for honing one’s skills, getting the best time in Time Attack, and beating as many opponents as possible until you’re defeated in Survival.
I think every fighting game should have extra modes like these, many challenges here unlock even more extras, and it’s an opportunity to get better at the game.
One uncommon feature is a mode that let’s the player watch a COM battle, and I don’t think I see that in many fighting games.
There are a handful of ways the player can customize and tweak matches, stages, and even the characters themselves.
The player can set the difficulty and skill level of the COM fighters, the amount of rounds in a match, the attacking power of the characters, and even the time limit of each round.
The polygons of the fighters can be modded with kid versions, big heads, or beefy arms.
The T-Rated violence can be toned down by turning of the blood and vomit particle effects: Because socking people in the stomach never causes nausea, and clawing and biting at other animals never draws any blood.
The player can even tweak the button configuration to their liking, but changes affect both players, so some negotiating will take place.
The player can even customize the look of the character select screen; a minimal version for speed and convenience, the arcade version for those who like the late 90s anime art style, or the default C.G. Version.
Every song in the game’s hard rock soundtrack can be played back in the sound options menu.
There’s a ton of cool little bonuses pretty much available from the moment the player boots up the game, even if future games are better, I will always find it easy to replay this one.
Adapt to Survive
Hudson must have assumed anyone who bought this was already a fan of the arcade version, because a majority of the artwork is unlocked, but the cinematics are earned through beating the arcade mode.
There are even more bonuses that further tweak the game, if the player has the skill to complete a few challenges.
The User Interface displayed during fights can be removed, the camera angle can be changed to a first-person perspective, or the stage size can be altered.
The toughest challenge, unlocking Alice’s 4th costume, requires the player to beat 16 increasingly difficult opponent in Time Attack, in under ten minutes.
It took me 3.5 hours to accomplish, and I gotta say, it wasn’t worth it; it looks worse than her other costumes, but I will say that I felt like a badass after beating Time Attack though.
Conclusion
The game is pretty bare bones compared to its contemporaries like Tekken 2/3 or Virtua Fighter 2/3, but it offers a few extras to keep a single person occupied for at least 15 hours.
It’s got a moderately sized, balanced character roster, but has no unlockable fighters to keep things fresh.
What this game does really well, is set itself apart with its zoanthrope concept, and features and easy to learn and execute combo system.
No 1st entry in ANY fighting game franchise is ever anyone’s favorite, but this game has me pumped for the other games in the franchise.
Bloody Roar is a game I could pick up and play at any time, and I’d highly recommend it to casual 3D fighting game fans in a heart-beat!
RATING:
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