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Review: Bloody Roar (alternate) |
This isn’t as much a full blown review, but rather an objective second opinion to Dark Schneider’s review. Frankly, Bloody Roar is nowhere near as mediocre as D. Schneider put it, and while it is no Namco-killer, it is still a pretty darn good game.
The graphics not up to snuff? I don’t think so! I’ve been pretty spoiled by Namco’s Tekken and Soul Edge games to the point where I will not even touch another 3D fighter if it does not have a 2 minute SG lifelike rendered intro and killer graphics. And up against those, I’d say Bloody Roar still looks pretty good. The intro is not of Namco’s incredible quality, (being average and al)l but still does the job adequately. The in-game graphics themselves are far above average. After playing those games, I was still pretty impressed with the quality and effort Hudson Soft presented. Characters animate smoothly and brilliantly. Lots of sparkle effects abound (some even translucent), characters go flying, morph from beast to human effortlessly. But wait there is more! There are special knockout silhouettes ala Rival Schools Justice (Bloody Roar did it FIRST so there!) and I can say I was amazed. To amaze me (and anyone else for that matter these days!) and NOT be a Namco or Squaresoft game is doing pretty damn well indeed! The frame rate is always at a high level, animation does not lag behind keypresses, there are even some cool polygon blurs. Dark Schneider mentioned in his review that some characters look blocky and appealing. Yes some characters look a TAD blocky, but most won’t notice and its bad enough to ruin the game. Unappealing? Well that just comes down to flawed character design which Bloody Roar DOES suffer from.
The voices and sound FX are all generally average I agree, EXCEPT for the impact sounds. Compare the thick meaty sounds of Sega fighters to Namco fighters. Sega’s fighters sound like “BOOM!” “BOOM!” “THUD!” “CRACK!”, Tekken sounds like “dish” “dish” “boof”. Bloody Roar is the first Playstation game that has satisfied me in that department. Where the hits really sound like they’re hitting, and are painful. The sounds when characters come crashing to the ground after a throw I guarantee are not average. The sounds when characters are flung from one end of the ring to the other careening through metal and concrete, which have just been smashed into smithereens and are now crashing to the ground or the floor below, I guarantee will not disappoint. Come on D.Schneider!
Okay. The morphing into animals… a gimmick? Nah! Well, sure it’s THE major selling point of the game, but it is the FIRST ORIGINAL thing to happen to fighting games in AGES! In an age where non-technological innovation in video games is near extinct, the idea for fighters to transform into larger, faster, and more powerful bestial alter-egos of themselves is excellent! Originality is what we need! Who can say that they are not getting at least a *little* tired of the countless SF games or MK4 which really did not offer anything new at all? Or even the third incarnation of Tekken and VF, which besides jaw-dropping graphics and additional new characters, have not *really* evolved that much at all (but then again what could you possibly do? Don’t answer that Namco :D ). It WOULD be a gimmick if it was useless. But no, surprise surprise, turning into an animal has its uses and is an integral part of the strategy in Bloody Roar. Changing into an animal can do any or all of the following things: (1) blast away your opponent when they’re close but not enough to inflict too much damage. Damn useful in the corner; (2) while in animal form your lifebar will start to regenerate but only to a certain limit depending on how much you’ve had the crap kicked out of you ala. Xmen vs SF; (3) you can get Rave/Cheap mode :) in animal form if the Rave option is even turned on; (4) it looks pretty damn cool; (5) you do a helluva lot more damage; :) (6) you have access to all the beast fighting moves, and there are enough to be a completely new fighting style. New throws, attacks, juggles are possible, and your characters’ “human” moves are enhanced while in their beast form. Turning into a beast is by far a gimmick and has often snatched victory from the largest jaws of defeat. For example on a tiny mm of energy I had barely enough “beast” meter to transform. Doing so blew away the computer who was pounding me in the corner, bought me enough time to get back a little energy, then go in and kick the crap out of him in beast mode inflicting just that *little* bit more damage that allowed me to win with 4mm of energy :)
Next on the agenda, two attack buttons. Well, actually that’s wrong. There is a punch button, a kick button, a beast button, and the button to activate rave mode when you are in beast form. Once you have transformed into a beast (and you can at the very start if you want to), the beast button becomes an attack button, for all the beast attacks, throws and specials you can also combine in with regular combos. Speaking of combos, unlike Tekken’s tap, tap system and tenstrings, there is every opportunity to evade, intercept or instantly retaliate and punish the opponent whereas in Tekken, combos are long winded with few (preset) opportunities to do so. Bloody Roar allows you to do so almost any time. Unlike VF, Tekken, and MK where being juggled means instant death, Bloody Roar is the ONLY game that allows juggle reversals where if you are knocked high enough and have enough time (and skill) to flip into a recovery position, you can not only escape, but hit the other guy back as well. There IS opportunity to do 10 or so hits, but most players will opt to go for the VF style 1-5 hits and get out because the other player has got to be pretty slow not to have hit you back by then. The arena is also wider and allows movement everywhere much like Tobal. Strategy is also big part of the game (although not as much as in Tobal 2). There are no ring outs unless you allow for the walls to be destroyed early. Also, those wanting to play a real hard hitting Fighting Vipers type game and looked on in envy at their now defunct Saturn-owning friends, this is THE game to get. It is FAR better than Fighting Vipers, and looks a lot more painful :)
There are quite a few options to play around with that do lengthen your interest a tiny bit. Unlike Sega who make a whole new game out of ONE option *cough* VF Kids *cough* both kids and big head modes are built in, blood could be turned on or off, walls can be customized to shatter after repeated abuse, not shatter at all, or only shatter during finishes, ring size can be customized. There are turbo speeds (I think) and well, I’m pulling all this off the top of my head, but there is definitely an extra half hour of fun to be had playing around with it all.
Graphics are not everything. Hudson has noticed that they cannot compete with Namco in visual extravagance, so they did the “next” best thing, Gameplay! DAMN good gameplay! This game really suffers from the poor character design, which are uninspired, bland, boring and bring on an attitude of… “who cares”. The rave mode I agree is a little stupid, but its an option that can be disabled. Which is a good thing considering if you corner someone and turn on rave, you effectively have a button smashing infinite! There isn’t really much to keep you playing once the gameplay gets tiring (not as soon as you might think) the endings are pretty lame, and so are the storylines and characters. If you have a few fighting game aficionado siblings or friends then this is the ultimate game to get at the moment. Gameplay is fast, fun, frenzied.. erm.. frumpish? Well it just kicks ass! Some of the beast moves, especially the throws are really feral. How about tackling someone down, eating their face and biting the throat off? Or how about impaling someone with a huge pincer-like claw, then tearing it right across their stomach and ripping open the gut with blood spilling everywhere? There is actually quite a “shock” factor when you first see them followed by “WOOOAH DUDE! COOOOL!” ;)) but they get less spectacular as you they are repeated. Ah desensitizing! :)
My ratings do not deviate from D.Schneider’s as much, but I feel that for what he awarded this game, his criticisms were far too harsh and detrimental. Yes, Hudson Soft was very conservative in the making of Bloody Roar; well nothing short of giving fighters lycanthropic abilities! But I’d take a good solid, well designed, and fun game over an experimental, airy fairy, lagged, shoddily designed and programmed cash cow *cough* Dragonball Final Bout *cough* any day :) Hey! This DID turn out to be a full blown review! DOH!
- Fansta
