Introduction
The Bloody Roar series has been overlooked in the past. It was never a contender against the likes of Tekken or Virtua Fighter. Having never played these games before, I wasn’t sure what to expect when first getting the chance to play. But the latest installment, Bloody Roar: Primal Fury, for the Nintendo Gamecube, shows us why it’s not be taken lightly.

Gameplay
There’s a short animated clip that plays at the beginning of the game, just shows the characters and whatnot. Even though the only sound is the music, it’s still pretty cool to watch. Primal Fury gives the player many different modes of play right from the start. Arcade, Versus, Time Attack, Survival, Team Battle, Training, and Options (not really a mode of play but you can still chose it) are the starting choices.

Story
Bloody Roar: Primal Fury is a 3D fighting game with a twist. The characters can transform into beasts in the middle of a fight to rip their opponents throat out, literally. There seems to be a story of some kind behind the Bloody Roar series and it’s characters. What the story is, I don’t know. Bloody Roar: Primal Fury has little in the way of character development and an overall storyline. When starting a game, it gives a short explanation of what’s going on. It’s the usual, different kinds people are fighting, humans and Zoanthropes, the ones that can transform. The Zoanthrope kingdom decides to hold a tournament to show how great its people are and this is why we find the characters trying to kill each other. But that doesn’t tell us anything about the characters past. And it’s some past they must have. This lack of story started to get to me after I’d finish a game and see the ending anime clip, they would leave so many questions. It’s obvious that many characters have prior history; it’s just not clear what that history is.

Graphics
Arcade lets you play through seven stages before having to fight the boss, making the total eight. Each boss is different depending on the character you choose to play as. I’m sure this has to do with each characters story, but we don’t know anything about that. Playing through the Arcade mode will unlock new characters, modes of play, and cheats. You even unlock a mode that allows you to view all the movies you have seen already. The Versus Mode is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a multiplayer mode. Here’s where you battle your friends in singles competition. Time Attack sets you loose to see how quickly you can beat the game. The changes you might have done in the options to make the game easier won’t affect anything here. The computer isn’t just challenging on the higher stages, but it’s also very cheap. Learn to block and counter efficiently and you should be able to defeat it. Survival Mode is nothing out of the ordinary. Just fight as long as you can without being defeated. Nice way to get some quick fights in, as the earlier stages are quick kills but the later ones are quick to kill you. Team Battle is a nice change of pace. It allows you to choose three fighters and play through the game against computer teams of three. Most games where I have seen Team Battles would only allow for one fight to be played at a time. Bloody Roar does achieve here allowing you to play so many matches. The Training mode is a lot of fun. Training allows for two players to just beat on each other for eternity. Options can be set to have the Beast Gauge recover immediately so countless Beast Drives can be performed. This Training Mode also has something that makes it very unique, a recording feature. With this you can record what the dummy will perform for a limited time. It’s almost like fighting yourself. This is tons of fun, provides limitless possibilities for training. Players will definitely want to experiment with this option.

Sound
Bloody Roar: Primal Fury is so easy to get the hang of. The “A” button is for kick, “B” for punch, “Y” for block/grab, and the “X” is for beast mode. There are also side-step buttons, “L” and “R” triggers, and a hyper beast mode, “Z”. You have the ability to configure these anyway you want, but the default setting works fine. You can use either the joystick or D-pad or like me, a combination of both. Combos and special moves are easy to execute and will flow from the newest of players, button mashing will see to that. For players who want to get more depth out of the fighting, I suggest using the Training Mode to figure out exactly what button combination does what combo. The book helps a little, but it’s only tells so much. There’s a little bar, Beast Gauge, at the bottom of the screen that dictates when you can transform into a beast. It increases with the more damage you deal or receive. Once in Beast Mode, you will stay in Beast mode until you perform a Beast Drive or are beaten out of it. There’s also a Hyper Beast Mode that you can use at anytime. Only thing is it uses some health and will be brought out of it after a certain amount of time. On the plus side, you can perform as many Beast Drives as you can in the time limit. In either beast mode, your health slowly fills back up. Can lead to some long fights and create amazing comebacks. Sometimes I wish the game didn’t have the beast mode as I found fighting in the human form to be more enjoyable (luckily, there’s a cheat that allows this).

Conclusion
The graphics are nice and smooth and come off without a hitch. Some of the details put into the beasts are quite impressive; note the textures on Ganesha’s trunk. Aside from the details, the characters and beast modes look really cool in general. Some of the ladies could even rival the DOA girls. Well, only Jenny has any bounce to her, but the others are cute. The Beast Drives look cool enough that you and your friends might take turns performing them on each other. The arenas also had a deal of effort put into them. The barriers can be damaged over time and show signs of this damage, especially the glass. The city levels seem like they go on forever, with nice detail in the buildings. But one has to wonder why a tournament is being fought on an aircraft carrier or in between two busy streets. The box warns of blood, but the only things close to resembling blood were some sparks. Not even a common occurrence either. The endings movies look really cool. And with sound, they might have been enjoyable. Instead they just added to the mystery that is the characters’ stories.

  The sound seems to be Primal Fury’s biggest weakness. Some of the music played during a fight reminded me of Streets Of Rage’s music. Just an overwhelming 80’s feel to it. Some of the beasts sound weird when fighting. Not normal sounds that an animal would make. Also, there are times when the blows exchanged will sound like electric drill. The total lack of voices and sound effects during the movies really ruins the experience of having animated clips. The characters have voices while fighting, they do little taunts and such, so why not just dub in some voices? Only explanation I can think of is they forgot. There’s really no excuse for it otherwise.

  Looking past the sound and lack of story, Bloody Roar: Primal Fury is a must have, especially for a system that is lacking in this genre of games. Even if it was on any other system, I’d still recommend it, this game is just a lot of fun to play. Activision has delivered here with great game and the future can only bring superior sequels to this series.