Bloody Roar: Primal Fury

"The academic proof of how incompetent reviewing is bad for the gaming world"

Hmmm... Bloody Roar Primal Fury... Despite the fact that I absolutely loved the first game of the series on the PSX, I never felt a compelling urge to buy this game. I always saw the very same single copy of it in the store I bought it in. Plus, every review out there gives the game an average or worse score, accusing it of being, and I quote, ''shallow''. Never actually having seen it in movement, it's sadly easy to conclude why wasn't I ''salivating'' to own it. Until the day I bought it. Yes, it was STILL the very same copy that lay in my store for over 1 year. As I played it, I was taught a lesson that I seem to have difficulty in learning: don't let yourself be influenced about a game's value before actually trying it... Everything was spectacular, from the awesome anime intro to the superbly fine-tuned, fast paced fighting engine. Bloody Roar is, without any doubt, one of the (few) 3D fighters worth bothering with.

STORY (5/10) - Who cares, right? Nonetheless, Bloody Roar: PF has a decent story should you fancy these kind of 'gimmicks' in fighting games. A fighting tournament is being held to discover who's the strongest 'zoanthrope' - a half-human, half-monster creature. Highly unoriginal, sure, but each character has an animated ending for you to watch, most of which reasonably hint at why your fighter is here, what are his/her motivations... Not that you care, but there's nothing wrong with a decent story in a fighter, hence the 5/10. Let's not waste more time here.

CHARACTER CAST (10/10) - Here's where the game really starts to shine. As soon as you get to the character select screen, you're treated to some of the most stylish fighting game characters you've ever seen outside of a King of Fighters. You get Yugo, the hard biker who turns into a wolf, Xion, (boss of Bloody Roar 3 on the PSX2) who turns into the ''unborn'' (don't ask me what that is though, direct your doubts towards Hudson, the game creator), Shenlong, the power-mad character whose alternate form is a tiger, just to name the most stylish. As you'd expect, female fighters are here in all their glory: Jenny, the bat (a real fan favorite for a COUPLE of reasons), Shina, who morphs into a leopard, Alice, the... rabbit (perfect for humiliating your friends) and Uriko, the cat girl whose alternate form is (oddly) described as a ''half beast'', whatever that is. Other characters include Busuzima, a CHAMELEON!!!, Stun, the ''insect'', Long, the chinese martial artist tiger, Gado, the lion and Bakuryu, the ninja mole. Bosses and secret characters also contribute into making this one of the best character rosters in a fighting game for ages: you get Ganesha, the ELEPHANT!!!, who has a tendency for using the opponent to wipe the floor, Chronos, the spectacular phoenix (and penguin too), Kohryu, the iron mole (Hudson running out of ideas, maybe???) and Uranus, the chimera, a monstrosity that usually makes fights end quick. The character cast is superb, but if their differences were only aesthetic, the game would be trash. Nothing is farther from the truth, though. Almost every single of the game's 16 characters (33 if you count their alternate beast forms) plays differently, their attacking styles, speed, stamina and special skills are truly diverse, and each one deserves to be learned extensively. Overall, the characters are clearly one of the game's strong points.

GRAPHICS (9/10) - I'm never one who gets into a game due to its graphics. Nevertheless, I can't just ignore the fact that Bloody Roar: PF is one of the best looking games I've ever played. The characters themselves are downright amazing, from their highly detailed faces (Shina, Xion, Bakuryu and Chronos immediately come to mind) to their brilliantly textured bodies. Just look at Xion, Jenny, or Chronos (or everyone else, for that matter) and try not to drool. The beast forms are also graphically complex, and usually detail-loaded. Not in to be outdone by any of its competitors, Hudson also managed to grace Bloody Roar: PR with some nice animation, that shockingly constantly runs at 60 fps. Other aspect worth mentioning are the special effects that the beast forms constantly throw at you. Lightning sparks, blurring, heat waves, rainbowish lights during the super attacks... They're all here and are sure to amaze you, and they should, since from a technical viewpoint, they're ''state-of-the-art'', mind the cliché. The stages, besides being interactive, are beautiful. The Aquarium, the Evil Lab and Indian Palace stages come to mind. Some have uncannilly realistic textures, like the Back Alley, others manage to fully recreate the feel of a city at night (Midnight Rooftop), others have REAL people cheering the fighters, not just the cardboard pixelled crap commonly delivered to gamers. Outside of the fights, the menus and the interface are both well designed, and the anime intro and scenes seen throughout the game are very high quality. The game is technically amazing, and if you want to show off your GC, you can't go wrong here. The only flaws are the absence of blood and the fact that there are no reflection effects, as in the fighters reflected in the water in some stages.

GAMEPLAY/CONTROL (10/10) - This area is where BR: PF really shines and outdoes the competition. The feature that completely distinguishes BR from other games is the capability of turning into a monster to beat your opponent. To do so, there's a ''beastorize'' bar that must filled by attacking the enemy. Yes, ONLY by attacking the enemy, there's no turtling here. While in beast form, you do more damage, take less, recover health and can use super attacks. These aspects combine to make an aggressive, but at the same time strategic fighter: will you remain in human form, and try to avoid a beating while your bar fills, or will you transform now, and face the consequences of a near-empty beast bar?

This is a fighting game, so the goal is to deplete your opponent's life gauge, while trying to avoid that he does the same to you. There are 3 attack buttons: the punch, the kick, and the beast button that only becomes available after you beastorize. Most moves are completed by inputting chain commands, like B(east), P, P, K. There are, however, special attacks for all the characters, and these are accessed by inputting SFesque motions like the well known qcf+punch. Aside from these, every character features throws and command throws, which can be especially useful in guard breaking, move countering and juggling. Speaking of guarding, or blocking as it's more commonly referred, BR: PF features a system designed to help new players. Blocking is divided in light blocking and heavy blocking. The first can be done by keeping the stick in neutral position, as sort of an ''auto-block'' function. The downside? It won't defend you against block breakers, moves that cause the character to flash briefly, tend to beat non block breaking moves and smash light guards. So you should hold back in the joystick to perform the hard block, which is quickly second nature anyway. For the most exquisite, you can even guard by pressing a button instead of holding back, if you so wish. The game also includes block attacks, that allow you to attack while light guarding, something that can't be abused due to the before mentioned block breakers. And, unlike many other 3D fighters, BR: PF features super attacks, the main source of the game's ''flashiness''. These moves are instant turnovers, as getting hit by them usually costs around half life bar. You can also sidestep, which really gives BR: PF that great 3rd dimension. For the more advanced players, there is an evade button, that, with the correct timing, can enable you to dodge moves, prompting you to quickly retaliate, there's an air recovery feature to prevent juggling and there are cancel points aplenty, especially during beast forms and hyper beast forms. Speaking of which, during a hyper beast form, that must be activated with a full beast bar or at the cost of some health gauge, you get even more powerful, time stops, you regain energy even faster and most characters gain special abilities: Buzusima turns invisible, Stun becomes super fast, almost all Gado's moves become block breakers, Chronos turns into a phoenix instead of a penguin... And I'll stop here. I say this because if I wanted to, there would be much more to talk about. In the face of all these features and intricate gameplay elements, it's hard to conceive how can this game be deemed ''shallow'' by so many reviewers. BR: PF is, without a doubt, the only 3D fighter comparable to a good 2D fighter, and light years ahead of stuff like Soul Calibur 2, also available for the GC.

AUDIO (9/10) - Can this game get any better? Certainly yes, by providing great audio. Not that surprisingly, it's also delivered here. The character's voices have been dubbed into English, and are mostly good. The music is also very well composed, and after a few plays, some are sure to stick in your head for a long time (Indian Palace's, Aquarium's, Evil Laboratory's more specifically). Nothing to complaint about here.

CHALLENGE (7/10) - 'max difficulty' setting - There are many people who don't have human competition. Knowing this, Hudson (shock!) actually bothered programming AI. And if you're not a half-decent player, prepare to ''get your ass handed'' even by stage 1 characters, as the AI certainly knows when to attack, when to transform, when to block and when to evade. Expect expert stuff like cpu cancelling block attacks, faking moves into throws (Ganesha), evading back attacks by ducking, keeping you in block stun almost forever (Yugo), making use of the many cancel points provided by the hyper beast form and many other maneuvers of the sort. Sadly though, the AI has 2 big flaws: it doesn't sidestep, so you can launch a lot of sneaky attacks if you want, and it is apparently unable to block super attacks. The bosses are also a disappointment, in the sense that if you are expecting an even greater challenge, forget it. Chronos and Uranus fight as good as everyone else. They could be almost invincible with the right AI. Aside from these flaws, the AI is astounding. Unfortunately for Hudson, this seems to be the biggest gripe most reviewers have with the game, and it was constantly given ridiculous scores because of ''how frustrating it is''. Sure, this isn't Soul Calibur 2, where you can beat the game on 'Ultra Hard' (hahahah) without continuing during your FIRST time through, but you can always lower the difficulty in the options. And there's always this cool little thing called ''improving your skills''...

REPLAY (10/10) - Infinite. Being able to fight at a decent level with a single character can take long, now imagine managing to do so with the 16 characters!!! Also you get lots of modes to play: Arcade, Versus, Time Attack (same as Arcade but with a time based ranking), Survival, Team Battle (not the usual crap other 3D fighters offer, here you can play with your team THROUGH the stages, like if you were playing a King of Fighters game; plus with the ability of choosing between a 3 or 5 character team), Team Versus Battle and Training Mode. You can also unlock 4 characters, 2 stages, 1 cpu battle mode and lots of 'cheats' (between them is the before mentioned 'max difficulty' setting). As you can see, maybe the only fighter with better 1P modes in the GC is Super Smash Brothers Melee. If you have a friend, the offered play modes for human competition are more than competent. As I said, the replay value practically goes through the roof in this game.

PROS
- amazing graphics
- superb fighting engine, that will take you forever to master

CONS
- I tried to come up with something, I swear I tried...

OVERALL - BR: PF is a spectacular game I regret not having bought sooner. So stop listening to non-fighting game fans, and go buy it! It's not the fact that it is 'flashy' that makes it shallow. In fact, BR presently stands as one of the (rare) examples of how technical a 'flashy' fighter can get.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/28/04, Updated 03/02/04