Bloody Roar is, for it’s simple button layout, rather simple gameplay, and designed by an alltogether, simple developer, Hudson, an amazing game.

You only have 2 buttons available to you that are used to actually fight. You get access to 3 when you switch to the person’s “alter-ego”. This is where the gameplay comes in, by using the O button, you are able to switch to some type of animal. (Much like some of Tekken/2/3’s characters have half-way bosses that you can gain access to, whereas in Bloody Roar, they are immediately available to you.) The game consists of chaining moves together to form some long combos (I’ve seen a 17-hit). Otherwise, it plays like your standard 3D fighting game, a la Tekken or Soul Blade.

Now graphics is where I get to gripe. The characters seem rather blocky, as if they don’t have enough polygons to form their model. The animation is smooth though, and you quickly forget about the blocky nature of the game. Now, the backgrounds, made me rather sick. On one stage, there was this plane of orange that I just figured was ground. On the final move, you are capable of knocking people right through the arena walls and outside of the fighting area. When I did this, the person hit the orange plane, and disappeared, and these triangular “flames” lept up from it. I was thouroughly disgusted with the graphics after this point.

Well, sound, music, to be honest with you, I didn’t notice the music at all. It might have been there, it might not have been, but it wasn’t anything stellar. The sounds on the otherhand are well sampled and sound good. Not much to say here…

The control, as I sort of explained above is quick and responsive. You don’t hit buttons and wait 2 seconds for your guy to react. You’ll be chaining 17-hit combos in no time flat once you get the hang of how the game moves.

Overall, I’d say Bloody Roar is right beside Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha in the 3D fighting game market. But then again, I love SF. It’s definately worth the import if you can’t find anything else to buy.

- Valium