Review #483: Bloody Roar 3

 Xion was Dante before Devil May Cry was a thing.

The art isn't as dark as it used to be, but it's still neat.

 Bloody Roar 2 was pretty dope and took the series in a bold new direction with the grittier art-style and cooler character designs. But then came the PS2, and thus a new game was bound to happen harnessing the power of the new consoles. Bloody Roar 3 is everything a fan of the franchise would've wanted.

 As far as modes go, we've got Arcade Mode, now with hand-drawn prologue and ending stills, VS Player(No VS CPU, which sucks), Survival and Practice Mode. Fulfilling certain conditions, most of them involving Survival and Arcade Mode, you can unlock Extra modes, which are hidden beneath the options screens and have the series staples like No walls or everything-cancels-into-everything. Kids mode, big arms and big head modes are gone. The selection of Modes is alright, but man does it suck not having VS CPU. As for the character roster, every character returns, with a few new moves and new designs. There're three new characters, Xion the Unborn(A cockroach looking thing), Kohryu the Iron Mole(Bakuryu from the first game, plays very similarly to the new Bakuryu) and Uranus the Chimera.

Characters have three different costumes and/or colors to pick from.

 The gameplay remains the same, two attack buttons(Punch and Kick) as well as the beast button that turns you into a beast as well as doubling as another attack button while in beast mode. Beast Drives, AKA Super Moves, return, but now with universal motions for every character as well as two of them for each. Sidesteps are turned on by default now, and the game plays way faster than before, something I welcome quite a lot. The biggest game changer is Hyper Beast mode, once your beast gauge is full, press R1+O+Square to enter Hyper Beast Mode, which lasts 12 seconds and once time runs out you lose your beast gauge, but makes you incredibly overpowered for 12 seconds, letting you spam Beast Drives non-stop, yes, the supers that normally should turn you back into a human and heal some of your health back.

 While Hyper Beast Mode makes every character overpowered, there's no escaping the fact that the game, as a whole, isn't very balanced. Long, Xion and Uranus are simply too strong when compared to the rest of the cast, although I've heard that every character has access to some very simple infinites...

That's not Guyver... I think.

 Bloody Roar 3 is the culmination of the beautiful mess that the series is. Any attempt of being a balanced fighter is gone out the window in favor of offering fast-paced button mashing action. It's the most markedly unbalanced it's ever been, but it's also the most fun it's ever been. The series will never appeal to some people, and that's fine, because there's definitely a place for this game.... but it'd be nice if they could tone down a few characters, yes?
 8.5 out of 10