Review #453: Bloody Roar

 Finally a good fighting game for a change!

 Bloody Roar's a furry's dream come true, in this 1 on 1 3-D fighting game you play as humans that can morph into animals, anything from wolves to moles. It's a lot simpler than your average fighter, going for the mantra of pressin' them buttons to make flashy stuff happen.

 The game has the usual assortment of modes: An Arcade Ladder, VS CPU or Player, Time Attack, Training and Survival. There're 8 different characters, a few that never returned to the franchise like Mitsuko the Boar, Greg the Gorilla and Fox the, erm, Fox. While it's a relatively small character roster, it's pretty much up to the standards of the era, plus, all 8 characters have two different models, human and animal, as well as a few different costumes.

 There's a single punch button and a single kick button, but filling the Beast gauge lets you temporarily transform into your beast form with the circle button, once in beast mode the circle button turns into a third attack button. Beast mode reverts once the Beast gauge reaches to 0, which decreases as you get hit, and then receiving a hard hit, but how much damage you can take in beast mode depends on how much you charged the Beast gauge before pressing circle. Beast form has a few other perks, besides a third attack button, like regenerating some missing health and better juggling ability.

 Attack strings are relatively smooth for the era, making the combat feel fluid and fast. Being a 3-D game you'd expect a side-step, and there is one, but it's turned off by default. The final mechanic is Beast Rave, by pressing Triangle while in Beast form you'll gain more speed, allowing for more combo opportunities, but at the cost of having the beast gauge constantly decreasing. As previously stated, it's not the deepest of fighters, but it's fun, and the simple and few mechanics make it easy to pick up and play.

 While there're no characters to be unlocked, beating the game with the various characters unlocks a ton of different modifiers. No Walls, No lighting, hidden gauge, large arms, plus, you can play with deformed, big-headed characters from the get-go. It's nothing major, but at least it's something.

 While future games in the franchise left this one far behind, Bloody Roar 1 has all the basic elements that made the franchise what it is. Which means that while future games would add a lot of welcome mechanics, this one doesn't feel all that obsolete, add to that the fact that this game features three characters that never made into future games, so there's something of interest for fans of the franchise.
 7.0 out of 10