Review #482: Bloody Roar 2

Furries rejoice!

Hey, there, Gado, I heard you are the new final Boss now?

 Bloody Roar 1 was a very original fighting game back in the day, I mean, you could turn your humans into furries versions of themselves. It was definitely a button masher, not much depth to it, but it was fun to play thanks to the long combo strings each character had and the simplicity of it all. Bloody Roar 2 is exactly the same in that regard, it's not deep, it's very simple... but it's also a load of fun.

 The game offers these modes: Arcade, an 8-man ladder, Story, a 6-to-8 fight ladder accompanied by fantastic hand-drawn stills, Survival, self explanatory, VS Player and Custom VS. Custom VS can be played against another player or another CPU, and it's a mode in which you can alter a few mechanics, like turning on side-stepping, making everything cancel into everything or having characters look super deformed, these options must be unlocked, however, by fulfilling a few conditions like clearing Arcade without using a continue. As for characters, Yugo the Wolf, Alice the Rabbit, Gado the Lion and Long the Tiger return, Jenny the Bat takes Fox the Fox's place, while Stun the Insect and Busuzima the Chamaeleon borrowed some moves from Greg the Gorilla and Mitsuko the Boear, then there's a teenage Bakuryu the Mole, the successor to Bloody Roar 1's Bakuryu. There're three other new charactes with new moves, kinda, Shina the Leopard, Uriko the Half-beast and Shenlong the Tiger, who actually uses Long's BR1 moveset. It's a neat 11-character roster

This game's aesthetics are fantastic.

 Bloody Roar 2 plays pretty much exactly like the previous game, there's a punch and a kick button, while circle is used to turn into your beast form, and then acts as a third attack button. Beast Mode lasts as long as your beast gauge has some energy in it, but you lose it as you get hit, once out of Beast Mode you must fill the entire gauge again, by landing hits, in order to transform again. Beast Rave has been removed entirely, and in its place are Beast Drives, devastating super moves that drain your gauge completely and turn you back into a human. Beast Drives are much better than Beast Rave, if you ask me.

 Bloody Roar 2 looks much better than the first one, animations are smoother and the character models are prettier. Moves flow much better into each other, and it feels like a faster game. The character designs are much better too, I don't miss any of the characters that didn't return since their successors are much cooler or interesting.

Japanese fighting games don't tend to have this much blood in them.

 Bloody Roar 2 is so much better and polished than the first game that it makes it hard to go back to 1. Sure, it's missing a few characters, but I'd rather play as any of the newcomers from the sequel, plus, Beast Rave didn't work too well while Beast Drives are an interesting new mechanic. The game is still a button-masher, however, so people looking for something deep should look elsewhere.
 8.0 out of 10