Nightshadow's Comments
Bloody Roar makes a decent appearance into the world of
fighting games. It comes equipped with nice graphics
reminiscent of fighting vipers, fluid movement, 3d
backgrounds, and ways to knock your opponent out with
style. Sounds good right?
Well it isn't quite enough to
put the game up there with the top fighters. Although
Bloody
Roar has all the right looks and appeal to draw you in at
first, it is missing some important things. One thing
Bloody Roar has is a lack of characters. There are only 8.
Ordinarily this is something that can be overlooked, but
the 8 characters lack variety, so when you find yourself
wanting something different out of the characters, this
game just doesn't deliver. Secondly is the somewhat
primitive gameplay. The fighting doesn't take much brains
compared to most. Anyone with any past knowledge of
fighting games will find themselves doing 20 and 30+ hits
with no problem. One annoyance is the fact that you can't
really perform any combos of significance until you have
turned into a beast. Lots of times the beast will clearly
dominate the battle if he/she is fighting another human,
but if you have skill, you can
probably overcome this.
Another thing is Rave mode. Once you are in beast, you
can activate rave mode, which basically gives you losts of
speed and strength to perform the really high combos. The
downside to all of this, is that charging up your "beast"
bar to get these options takes a while. And if you really
want rave mode to be effective, you must wait a while for
your bar to max, which a lot of times waists the first
round while you save your beast bar. You can jump into
beast as soon as round 1 starts, but your rave mode will
run out quickly if you try to use it. You can't even do a
"2 in 1" unless your are a beast, which limits you a lot
when you are human. I understand that they were trying to
make a difference between the beast and the human, but
where is the gameplay? Pretty much this game is all about
beast. But that is probably why most of you will buy it.
The soundtrack isn't too impressive, and some of you will
turn the music off so that you can enjoy the good sounding
sound affects, which compliments the game well. If you are
looking for something to hold you over till say, Tekken 3,
than you might find yourself considering this game, but it
lacks addictive gameplay and variety, which is what
fighting games need to stay alive in this industry. If you
ask me, Street Fighter EX will do just fine, but this game
still makes a solid appearance, and can be worth the money.
After all, unleashing the beast is a neat concept, and if
you can get involved with one of the characters, then
Bloody Roar is a solid game.
Nightshadow's Rating: 7.0
Ash's Comments
When I first heard of this game, I also saw it at the same time. Key word though, I SAW it. I didin't play it. I was really excited about this game. I thought that it looked original and like it would be fun. So, when the demo came out, I bought it; and I liked it. Little did I know, that when I bought the game, I would not be too pleased. Unlike Nightshadow, I own the game, so I don't think he can really grasp the repetitiveness as I can. The gameplay mainly consists of firstly, fighting as a puny, not to mention crappy ( design wise ), human, charging your beast bar up. Before I go further, I want to mention, generally speaking, that I DO NOT LIKE bars that you HAVE TO charge up inorder to win or do the majority of combos, etc, i.e Street Fighter EX. Anyway, this is the case in Bloody Roar. The gameplay is bogged down as you try to charge up the bar with your human form, and then, when it is charged up, even the slightest bit, you may turn into a beast at the press of the circle button. This is where some strategy comes into effect. If you manage your beast bar correctly, and morph into a beast when the time is ripe, then you can shred your opponent apart in a matter of seconds...literally. This game is purely about beast. It would've been alot cooler if they made it so that there were like 13 beast characters, instead of wasting up sprites for humans. In total, this game has only 8 characters, a huge complaint by me. With only eight characters, I couldn't "identify" with one of them, due to the lack of variety in there designs. They all look like someting out of Fighting Vipers, except some of them look worse! All the characters designs are either average or below average, or way below average. Some of the beasts are pretty smooth, but still, there's about 2 beasts that look like crap.
Okay, so now you have my opinion on the characters, but wat about gameplay? This game falls short there as well. As I mentioned before, the fights start off rather slow as you mindlessly press the buttons to charge up your beast bar. Then when you turn into a beast, it is hugely different. You can now 2-in-1 and perform juggles/combos. When in the uman form you can't do anything except a few moves. The combos average about 15 hits, which are done with ease. This eliminates any skill factor to the game. When you get into Rave mode, a feature that, when in beast mode, enhances your abilities and enables you to do massive juggles. I'm talking MASSIVE. In practice mode, I got a 237 hit combo! That's right, a 237 hit. Come on! That's a bit on the ridiculous side. Oh yeah, and all the combos are juggles that look really stupid. The highest ground combo I got was a 6-hit while in beast rave.
Graphics and sound are where this game shines though...dimly. The sounds are slightly above average. Every crunch and slash will impress you, especially when a Gado, ( the lion ), bites your throat out. But even more impressive then the sound effects are the grahics and animation. This game plays fluidly at a whopping 60 fps, with little slowdown at times. The graphical detail is awsome too. The blood was pretty good too. Maybe the best since Killer Instinct's. I didn't like the backgrounds though, and they seemed too much like Fighting Vipers' walls. With that said, when you are fighing as humans, this whole game seems like FV.
Good graphics and good sound just don't make a good game.
With lack of characters, poor character design, and a rather easy, not to mention nothing special visually,
combo system, this game doesn't even compare with big boyz like Tekken 3. For that matter, it
doesn't even rival many older games. If you are looking fo somehting to hold you over until Tekken, or just another fighting game, I wouldn't
recommend this game due to it's repetiveness and sometimes slow gameplay.
