 |
Review: Bloody Roar: Primal Fury |
Being a fuzzy cute and cuddly animal myself, I happen to be a little partial for those that are like myself. But the home boys/girls in Bloody Roar: Primal Fury are not what most would call cute and cuddly. That aside, to fully appreciate this game you must: A) Own a Game Cube and B) Pretend Soul Calibur 2 and Virtua Fighter 4 (and its evolved counterpart) never existed. With those two things in mind you can convert those RPG nerds and FPS junkies to the fighting side of the gaming force with ease.
One of the things I like most about this game is the fact that it’s simple, most characters use the same D-pad motions for their moves. This makes the game perfect for bringing over to a friend’s house if said friend isn’t a massive fighting game freak like myself or maybe even you. You have a punch button, a kick, a button that lets you do a heavy guard and allows one to throw or grapple based on your chosen character and his relative position near his opponent. Not only that but the L and R buttons serve as a sidestep function that sounds handy, but actually isn’t. But this is not all! The last trick up your sleeve is the entire gimmick of the series, the ability to change into a beast and use that beast’s specific moves. You also have a button to change into a ‘hyper beast’, but I’ll get into that later.
So you may be wondering what the difference is between this game and Bloody Roar 3. Actually there’s plenty! First of all the jump to Game Cube has really helped the graphics, characters are detailed and colorful, moves are littered with special effects, and Jenny is high kicking and showing off her thong underoos. Life is good, is it not? While the visuals are less jaggy and dull, there are some nit picky items I must address, such as the fact that water doesn’t show a reflection’EVER. =o-O= The water looks like water but all the characters must be vampires since they don’t show up in puddles that you find laying in some of the arenas. But otherwise the arenas are prettier than flowers in springtime. I especially love the rooftop background with the neon lights, the huge windowed floor and that wonderfully soft glowing moon. But you might not notice that seeing as every female has jell-o for breasts, even the little 12 year old is way too jiggly for humanity’s sake. Character designs are great for the most part, with the exception of Busuzima (who’s’ face looks like a living, breathing chode.) and Chronos (who just out and out looks like a pansy, until he takes his hyper beast form). Everyone seems to have a little bit of that good ol’ badassitude that we all know and love, which is only heightened by their beast forms. Fur looks like fur, scars look like scars, and Jenny’s butt is showing’bla bla bla.
Another difference is the gameplay has been tightened up, I think. The super moves no longer deal the 3/4ths of your life damage that they did in BR:3, but they still deal way more damage than they should. On the plus side they are fun to look at. The fighting is over the top, to say the least. Most attacks knock your opponent clear across the arena and into a wall, lets just say a few people are going to give off the ‘Owwwwwch, ohhhh’whoa” chorus in the sight of some of these moves. Controls are tight and your characters have a shorter hangtime than most 3D fighters, but that does make juggling opponents less apparent in this game. No worries there, you can expect to make a huge really impressive combo with simple button mashing’*shudder* ewwwww’button mashing’That’s the main thing I don’t like about this game, it’s easy to pick up, but it’s even easier to be cheap. All you need to do is keep pressing buttons over and over, not really that good of a thing. Most characters do have combos that don’t involve the mushing of your thumb on the controller, but there’s not much use to them when you can get the same results from pressing the same thing over and over again. You shouldn’t worry though, the AI likes to do that too’*double shudder* I hate the cheap AI. As far as gameplay is related, it’s simple but too simple for most of us hardcore fighting fans, your non-fighting game playing friends might get into it though.
You heard me talk about the ‘hyper beast;’ now you will learn what it is, but first I must explain the basics of the beast. When you’re a human, you only have two attack buttons (punch and kick), and your lifebar has some blue sticking out of the usually green bar when you get damaged. That blue part is life that can be recovered when you’re in beast mode. So you change into beast mode and your life is starting to build back and you have a third attack button; from here, you can either get hit enough times that your beast gauge (that fills with every hit you score on your opponent or every time you block an attack) empties and you turn back into a human or you can unleash a super move and turn back into a human. When you pull off a super move your recoverable life that hasn’t been regained will be instantly filled back up. Now lets say you’re a human, and you press the Z button or the A, B, and X, buttons all at the same time. HOLY CRAP!!!!! =O-O= You get a cool blur effect and lightening and now you’re a ‘hyper beast.” Hyper beasts can use unlimited super moves, run faster, punch harder, and cause some slight slowdown in some situations’ Sweeeeeeeeeeet. (Try saying that five times quickly) Now this does come at a price: based on how much energy was stored in your beast gauge, there will be some life loss in the process of becoming a hyper beast. If the gauge was full there’s no life penalty, but if it was in the negative area you’ll expect to lose a lot of vitality. Whoo! Now that’s done, lets move on.
The music is’ there’ yah. Most of it is light rock guitar and a synth playing in some 80’s-like fashion. Personally, if I wanted to listen to something from the 80’s I’d put on some Duran Duran or Metallica’ and I have done that while playing this game. The only music I like is from that roof top stage I told you about earlier, otherwise it’s boring and cheesy. The punches and kicks, slams and chokes, slashes and other sound effects are great though. You can almost feel the pain with every hit and cut. Oh I do so love the sound effects. Screams and yells are wonderful but the random talking is a little out of place. But what are you going to do? Voice acting is not that bad actually’in fact it could hit that amazingly never reached spot called ’suitable;’ not ‘good, but ’suitable’.
So overall, this game is fun. Stupid fun, but fun nonetheless. The moves are punishing, the graphics are good, and the voice acting is ’suitable’. All the elements for a good game to bring to parties but not good enough to stay on the fighting game freak’s shelf. Although with little fighting game support on Game Cube, you may just have to settle for this if you don’t have a PS2. On the plus side it beats the crap out of most X-Box fighters.
[Thanks to my friend, Misty, for proofreading this]
