Bloody Roar Extreme
Want more movies of Hudson's 3D GameCube
fighter in action? Don't worry -- we've got them for you.
October 17, 2001
You may not know it like you do the Soul Calibur, Street Fighter
or Tekken franchises, but developer Eighting's Bloody Roar
series has made a name for itself among hardcore fighting fans.
The brand was born to life on the original PlayStation as a 3D
brawler that enabled players to transform in-battle from human
characters to beasts and execute new, more powerful moves. A
sequel arrived with some improvements, and earlier this year
Bloody Roar 3 hit PlayStation with impressive new visuals and more
depth to boot. The title was favored as "solid" and
"not to be overlooked" by critics, but again -- perhaps
due to a lack of polish or possibly because of simple bad luck --
Hudson's fighting monster was tossed to the side by gamers in
favor of Namco and Capcom offerings.
However, the company hopes to change that forever with the
release of Bloody Roar Extreme for GameCube. The title
seems to be the evolution of Bloody Roar 3 complete with
noticeably improved graphics and more playable characters.
Features
- Battle with more than 14+ characters
- Players can morph into "beast form" with a whole
new set of moves
- Brawl in 12 gameplay modes in nine immersive 3D environments
- Throw foes through destructible walls or crash through
floors and continue fighting
- GameCube title features noticeable improvements in polygon
model detail, texturing and lighting
- Runs at 60 frames per second
- Enjoy multiplayer battles with friends
Gameplay
Compared most often to the series Fighting Vipers, Bloody
Roar Extreme is a 3D brawler with a traditional gameplay style
centered on a host of close-combat executables, combinations and
fast action. Except there is a twist: each of the title's 15+
playable human characters can transform into hulking, beast
versions of their former selves complete with a whole list of new
moves. Morphing into the animals is an enormous part of the battle
strategy, for plainly: the humans are somewhat ill equipped whilst
the beasts are truly powerful and therein quite the bad-asses.
The characters are unique and varied. Yugo, for example,
is part man and part wolf and -- you guessed it, can transform
into a wolf-beast when the situation calls for it. Alice, a friend
of Yugo, changes into a full-blown, hopping rabbit when her beast
powers are highest. Busuzima -- a green-haired punk rocker,
meanwhile, morphs into a lizard chameleon when beast-ized. Stun, a
dedicated genetics worker, ironically shifts into an insect-beast
during battle. And there are quite a few others -- from tigers to
bat animals -- for gamers to choose from. All in all, there are 14
playable characters, with at least one exclusive to GameCube. The
list of characters and their beast counterparts as we know it so
far:
- Yugo / Wolf
- Alice / Rabbit
- Uriko / Half-beast
- Long / Tiger
- Gado / Lion
- Shina / Leopard
- Bakuryu / Mole
- Busuzima / Chameleon
- Stun / Insect
- Jenny / Bat
- Shenlong / Tiger
- Xion / Unborn
- Kohryu / Iron Mole
- Uranus / Chimera
According to developer Eighting, there are nine playable
environments in the game and we've already had the chance to
witness some of them. The arenas range from local village to city
backdrops, as well as icy tops and cage-like domes. Most of the
areas are destructible so that players can actually throw enemies
through walls or collapse the floor, fall below and continue the
fight.
Graphics and Technology
Bloody Roar Extreme is essentially an upgrade to the PlayStation 2
Bloody Roar 3 so both look very similar in the end. But with that
noted, the game does feature higher polygon models, and the
textures -- both on characters and background environments -- are
visibly more detailed. But that's roughly where the change ends.
The animation is pretty much identical to the PS2 game and even
breaking environments crash and snap in the same fashion as they
did before. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
As you can see, each character looks notably different from the
other, and the backgrounds are varied. There is an ever-present
style in the game's mix of human and beast characters that
uniquely separates it from the pack.
Outlook
We certainly can't complain. This 3D-fighter franchise has always
been considered "good," but not great. There is the
possibility that if developer Eighting spruces up the visuals and
polishes the gameplay enough over the PS2 version, what was once
deemed merely good could very well turn out a classic. And
regardless, it's a healthy beginning for GameCube owners to be
sure and it's certainly more than fighting-starved Nintendo 64
owners ever received.
There is no scheduled Japanese or US release date for Bloody
Roar Extreme yet. Our guess is that it will debut early next year
for Nintendo's next-generation console and that Activision will
publish it in the US a few months later.
Note: all screenshots and movies featured are from the
GameCube title
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