BLOODY ROAR!!!

a look back at an awesome yet unappreciated PS1 Fighter
On
August 09, 2010
Bloody Roar, in a nutshell, is Transformers replaced with people turning into animals, and if they all beat the hell out of each other instead of working for whatever clique they were in. It was a one on one fighter, where with the press of a button, your typical fighter turned into their own beast with the intent of ferociously tearing their opponent apart.


If i could describe the premise and the game it self in one word : EPIC

It was 1998, and i got my Playstation, for no reason really, except to play some badass games! at first i had Crash Bandicoot 2, Tomb Raider 2 (both fantastic games by the way), and a demo disc. when i wasn't playing those two games to death, i tried out a few of the demos that were on the sampler. one of them happened to be the game Im writing about. it caught my attention, and to say the least i was blown away. Even though i was only able to play as two out of the 8 characters, and i had one stage to fight on, i played it like it was a full game. With a wolf throwing hands with a lion, i was far from bored. The transformation effects, while they look like old now, consisted of what is basically allot of lighting effects, nevertheless they were still impressive. the Fighters would claw each other, take a bite from each other's abdomen and throw them mid bite. For a T rated game, there was quite allot of blood, it got pretty brutal when both players were in their beast form. I remember thinking how awesome it was that some of the blood stayed on the floor for a little while, it was a minor detail that made it that much more badass than it already was. If you pulled off a certain punch to the stomach, they would even throw up!! I always found the Jejunum punch to be kind of funny.



Everything was going good, until one day my mom felt that the demo had too much blood for me to see, and prohibited me from playing anymore. I was 5 at the time, i remember it like it was yesterday, she blocked my view from the TV and hit reset! On a scale of 1 to 10, i was at WTF. after that i moved on and got Tekken 1 & 2, which my mom had no problem with me playing (not that it was a bad thing, I love Tekken, and still play 2 to this day). As much as i loved Tekken, i still wanted to play more Bloody Roar, and it wouldn't be for another year or two that i would get the chance...

I must have been 7 or 8 at the time. I was at my now stepfather's old house. We were playing some hockey game on his playstation, it was okay, nothing special. After that he asked if i wanted to play Bloody Roar. Assuming i would ask what it was, i responded with an immediate yes. By that time my mother warmed up to me playing more violent games, so i was all clear to play! Just seeing the actual disc had me marveled.



The demo was one thing, but playing the complete game was where its at! So we played the game for a little while, and then i had to leave. Like any other kid would do, i asked if i could borrow the game, and he told me to keep it! I was freaking out! Maybe it was because he moved in with us another year after that, but he was totally cool with giving me the game.

Now i had nothing else to do but to play this game. It was great to finally try out all of the fighters, and see how their animal forms worked out against each other. The characters were:
Yugo, the Wolf
Gadou, the Lion
Bakuryu, the Mole
Mitsuko, the Boar
Alice, the Rabbit
Long, the Tiger
Greg, the Gorilla
and finally; Fox..... the Fox.

Excluding Mitsuko, i thought all of the characters were awesome.

There were also allot of features i never noticed in the demo. For one thing, when you would deliver your final blow, you would sometimes bash your opponent through the wall! The wall would fall to pieces, while your opponent flies a good 30 feet into oblivion, or just a floor. To add insult to injury, there were replays of when you defeated your opponent. As you are in the replay, you can press triangle to watch the replay again. So when you would play with your friend and kick him through a wall and send him into a lava pit, your immediate response is to just laugh at him/her, your next response is to put your replay into a continuos loop! These features give you a great sense of inglorious victory, your friend usually ends up either pissed, or a less serious type of pissed. Sometimes, When you would finish your foe off in a certain way, the background would turn white and the game would do 3 replays in fast succession, it was the next best thing compared to a fatality!


Like fighting vipers, punching your opponent through a wall gives you that feeling of self accomplishment that you don't get anywhere else.


When i wasn't pummeling my friends and family to a bloody pulp, i was playing single player. It's like any typical fighter, you fight your way up to a final boss, and you get an ending for your specific character. When i played by myself i almost always used only one certain fighter. My favorite character was Long, the Tiger.



His attacks were fast, some combos lasting over 20 hits. My main reason for using him was to do my favorite attack move in the game. He would launch your opponent in the air with a kick. As your opponent comes back down, you press the same button, and he would just wreck them in mid air with a sort of shoulder charge type of move. This move would make anyone vulnerable, and chances are high that they will crash through the wall of the arena.

During single player, i took everyone out pretty fast, and before i knew it i would end up against the final boss, Uriko.



Uriko's transformation was into a demonic chimaera. It was intimidating as all hell. To me it was like fighting a Rancor, except instead of throwing rocks i had to just fight the damn thing. My first go against it, i didn't know what to expect. We fought in a well lit, bright arena. She started off as a little girl, then transformed herself to be taller, with super powers. At first her super powered form made me think this was going to be easy. I was kicking her ass, right up until she had a second transformation...

Suddenly she was the Chimaera as i have described before. It was amazing when i first saw it. Not only did she transform, but so did the arena. It went from being bright and colorful, to suddenly having this red, demonic tint while having black walls reading "emergency measure" crashing down and enclosing you along with Uriko. The first time i faced her, she relentlessly destroyed me during her final form, as a kid this boss was pretty tough. With enough patience and perseverance, i finally defeated Uriko. I was ecstatic! I achieved what i thought was near impossible (let me remind you i was only 7 or 8!). I just defeated a demon in a quarantined area! in a game. I played the game for another few years until i got a PS2 and packed up all of my ps1 games and put them in a basement.

Now that i am 17, I play my Playstation 3.

A few months ago I read on the internet that the PS3 is backwards compatible with PS1 games. I tested it out on my Tekken 2, and it worked! I suddenly went into a frenzy to find Bloody Roar, after searching in my basement for a while, sure enough i found just the disc. It worked as well as it did 10 years ago, and it is actually as fun as i remembered it. The graphics obviously weren't what they once were, but all that mattered is the game was still fun. Making people throw up still makes me laugh hysterically for some reason. The real difference was the boss, who i killed on my second try, it was alot easier than i remembered it. Nevertheless, bashing people through walls with big head mode turned on remains one of my favorite gaming past times.



There were a few sequels released after, but i stopped after the first one for some reason. If anyone is curious to try the game out, you can buy it online through the playstation network if you have a PS3 or a PSP. It's actually pretty cheap too. For 5.99 you can unleash the beast for the first time in a while, or for the first time!

This is my first article, so please leave feedback. Thanks for reading!
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