- "Fight like an animal"
- — Official tagline
Bloody Roar: Primal Fury, also known as Bloody Roar: Extreme (ブラッディロア エクストリーム) in Japan, is a fighting video game developed by Eighting in 2002. It is a side story set between Bloody Roar 3 and 4.
It features a new artistic direction, in particular in the design of the fighters which has done away the urban style from previous installments for modern and sporty looks.
Plot[]
"During the Age of Feuding between humans and Zoanthropes, a new kingdom was born.
Founded upon and dream of peace and equality, for both, the new land attracted scores of Zoanthropes from far and wide. However, the kingdom was young, and heavily relied upon its Zoanthrope army for security and on its special brigade of Zoanthrope mercenaries for income. Even more troublesome for the infant nation were rumors of cruel experiments being carried out on Zoanthropes to uncover the secret behind their ability to transform into fighting beasts. Though nearly everyone, both Zoanthrope and human alike, strongly opposed these experiments, no one could prove that they were actually taking place, much less who was responsible for them.
In an effort to bring the nation together and show off the power of their Zoanthrope army and mercenary brigade, the kingdom decided to sponsor the ultimate Zoanthrope fighting tournament. The winner would not only earn the title "Zoanthrope Champion," but also take home a handsome cash prize. If only the participants knew what was really awaiting them..."
Because of the ongoing tension between humans and Zoanthropes, the W.O.C. once a small volunteer group has now grown into a commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, this is not enough to make the Zoanthropes feel safe among humans, this is why lot of them around the world get reunited to create their own kingdom, the Zoanthrope Kingdom. As a nation of its own, the kingdom is looking to protect its population but also working with the rest of humanity to create a place of peace and equality between humans and Zoanthropes.
On the eve of a new treaty between the Zoanthrope Kingdom and the United Nations to assure military security to the kingdom, an army where Gado would be in charge of, the chief of the kingdom, King Orion, decides to launch the first Zoanthrope fighting tournament. The tournament cash prize gets the attention of a lot of Zoanthropes around the world, especially the members, but they don't expect the participation of a powerful Zoanthrope, Cronos, King's Orion son.
Not all the participants are here for the money, some of them hope to investigate about potential shady businesses in the kingdom as the hiring of mercenaries and secret and cruel experiments on Zoanthropes. Among them there is Jenny, contracted to find the research facility, and Gado himself decided to make it "his last operation" before retiring from being a mercenary.
This experiments and the facility research appear to be real and leaded by King Orion himself. At the end, not much it's known about them despite King Orion believes that they are necessary for his people, and the Prince Cronos, subject of this experiments, has eventually lost his control in the past, burning villages because of it. The tournament itself was a ploy to divert the attention to the King's research.
The tournament over, the peace conference is taking place and the treaty is signed by King Orion and Gado. They don't see, behind one of the pillars, a man evilly smiles before sneaking away.
Gameplay[]
Bloody Roar: Primal Fury includes most of the gameplay of its predecessor, Bloody Roar 3, as the Beast Form and their Beast Drives are still at the center of the fighting system as well as the previous six-buttons commands: Punch, Kick, Throw, Beast Transformation, Side-step with the addition of a seventh command: Hyper Beast Transformation.
Compared to the last entry, the combos of Bloody Roar: Primal Fury were changed slightly to remove the necessity of pressing two buttons at once.
The arenas are also much more interactive, with multiple fighting rings and walls that can break at any time during a match.
One of the most notorious new abilities is to morph into Hyper Beast Form at any time but with the cost of losing health if your Beast Gauge is not full.
Development[]
With the game director Kenji Fukuya as its charge, the development of Primal Fury began shortly after Bloody Roar 3, in 2001. They were a team of 20 programmers and 3D artists. In an interview following the launch of Bloody Roar 3[1], Fukuya announced they will go further with the Hyper Beast Form mechanics in the next installment. He also shared his desire to use Bloody Roar 3 as a foundation for the sequel giving, admitting that some ideas that were scrapped for various reasons had now the opportunity to be completed.
The company chose the GameCube, for their first entry of the series on a Nintendo game console, because the hardware itself praising the advanced lighting abilities, complex shading schemes, and pure graphics.[2]
Hoping to make the most visually beautiful entry to date, all 14 characters from Bloody Roar 3 have been completely remodeled with some arenas from the same game.
In the process of adapting the series to a new console, the combo system was simplified slightly to remove any cases where the player would have to press two buttons at once. A system for handling sloppy input was also incorporated to make the game more playable with the analog stick.
Xbox Port[]
In 2003, Eighting/Hudson ports Bloody Roar: Primal Fury on Xbox, with adjustments: Updated graphic engine, CGI opening and ending, and a new character for the Western market: Fang the Wolf.
In this version, Cronos and Ganesha are accessible since the very beginning of the game.
Some light gameplay changes have been made especially toward the side-step system that can't be used as an evasive move anymore in the Extreme version (Xbox Port and Japanese version of the Gamecube game).
There are also some glitches present in Primal Fury that were fixed in Extreme. For example, if Yugo uses his counter move with really low health and he gets attacked, he will get KO'd but he will still counter-punch the other player, and will KO the other player if it also has really low health. But this doesn't happen in Extreme, with Yugo only getting KO'd and he won't counter-punch.
Game Features[]
- Arcade
- Versus
- Time Attack
- Survival
- Team Battle
- VS Team Battle
- Training
- Com Battle
- Movie Player
- Extra Option
- Option
Characters & Locations[]
|
  Roster |
Reception[]
| Aggregate score | ||
|---|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score GC | Score Xbox |
| Metacritics | 75% [3] | 61% [4] |
| Review scores | ||
| Publication | Score GC | Score Xbox |
| GameSpot | 7.2/10 [5] | 6.5/10 [6] |
| GameSpy | 3/5 [7] | |
| Gaming Trend | 78/100 [8] | 73/100 [9] |
| IGN | 7.7/10 [10] | 7.3/10 [11] |
| Jeuxvideo.com | 15/20 [12] | 15/20 [13] |
| The Fighters Generation | 6.1/10[14] | |
| ZTGD | 9.5/10[15] | |
Bloody Roar : Primal Fury received the most positive reviews for the series from the critics. On Metacritic, Primal Fury holds a rating of 75%, based on 27 reviews [3].
Primal Fury has sold 180 000 copies around the world outside Japan and Extreme 40 000 copies [16] [17]. His biggest competitor around it release date, Tekken 4, has sold 3.44 millions of copies [18].
Matt Casamissa from IGN [10] wrote that Primal Fury is " a lot of fun to play -- tight control mixed with a fair amount of moves and combos (but not enough), and then the strategic element of beast transformations, proves very addictive." He congratulated the visual updates but, like he said: "still not on the level of Soul Calibur 2 or Dead or Alive 3." He also specifies that compared to all the fighting games ever released on Nintendo 64, is a superior entry and a good start for the Nintendo GameCube.
The Xbox port, Extreme, was less well-welcomed with a rating of 61% based on 22 reviews on Metacritic [4]. Despite being "easily the best version of the game yet", as told by Justin Thompson from IGN [11], with its "extra character over the GameCube version, improved graphics and the addition of CG endings for each of the characters", the game suffers of the comparison with other fighting games available on Xbox.
Promotion[]
On April 27th, 2002, few days after its release in Japan. A tournament called Shibuya Beast Battle was organized, where the participants would receive limited Bloody Roar goods. Kenji Fukuya, director of the Bloody Roar series, was present and even participated in the exhibition matches.
Packaging Artwork[]
Official Artworks[]
See: Bloody Roar : Primal Fury/Extreme (official artwork)
Unlockables[]
- Ganesha - Beat the arcade mode once.
- Indian Palace Stage - Beat the arcade mode once.
- Cronos - Beat the arcade mode twice.
- Evil Laboratory Stage - Beat the arcade mode twice.
- Com Battle - Beat the arcade mode twice.
- Kohryu - Get to Stage 5 in arcade mode without continuing. Then you'll face him. Beat the rest of Arcade Mode.
- Uranus - Beat Uranus in Survival Mode. She's always the 16th opponent.
- Chaos Laboratory Stage - Beat Uranus in Survival Mode. She's always the 16th opponent.
- Yugo's Fang costume - Beat arcade mode with All characters (Uranus and Kohryu included). After you're done go to the Character selection screen on Yugo and changes the costume until you get him.
- Kid mode - Beat the arcade mode 3 times.
- Big Head mode - Beat the arcade mode 4 times.
- Big Arms mode - Beat the arcade mode 5 times.
- No Wall mode - Beat the arcade mode 6 times.
- Weak Wall mode - Beat the arcade mode 7 times.
- Breakable walls in the Final Round - Beat the arcade mode 8 times.
- Slow motion mode - Beat the arcade mode 9 times.
- Speedy Game mode - Beat the arcade mode 10 times.
Trivia[]
- Though Bloody Roar : Primal Fury on Nintendo GameCube is compatible with the Wii, Bloody Roar Extreme on Xbox isn't compatible with the Xbox 360, unless installed with Backward compatibility.
- The Fang outfit for Yugo was included but not utilized in the western Nintendo GameCube release though he was included and utilized in the Japanese version and the Xbox releases.
- It was the first game of the series to release in the North American market before the Japanese one and to not have an arcade version.
- In April 2001, the Bloody Roar Official Japanese site launch a poll where fans were asked what Beast form they like to see [19]. Among the top ten result number 4 was a Penguin and number 7 an Elephant. The poll can be assimilated to the origin of Cronos and Ganesha. Top ten : a Dragon, a Bird, the Four Symbol (Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger & Black Turtle), a Penguin, a Fox, a Bear, an Elephant (or a Mammoth), a Kangaroo, a Dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus) and a Snake.
- A voice can be heard saying "Bloody Roar Extreme" in the Japanese versions of Extreme, while Primal Fury doesn't play any sound (despite that one exists unused in the files), and neither do the international versions of Extreme in the Xbox.
- Among the fan community, Bloody Roar: Primal Fury inspires a debate if the game is a sequel or a port of Bloody Roar 3, despite both games being notably different. This debate seems to originate from an IGN review stating that the game was "a slightly enhanced port of the PS2 version of the game, Bloody Roar 3."[11].
- The movie sequence for GameCube and Xbox are different. In GameCube version, it was drawn in 2D anime style. Meanwhile in Xbox version, it was using 3D in-game model
External Links[]
Citations[]
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040917161101/http://www.bloody-roar.com/event/interview.html
- ↑ http://ca.ign.com/articles/2002/02/15/interview-bloody-roar-primal-fury
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.metacritic.com/game/gamecube/bloody-roar-primal-fury
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox/bloody-roar-extreme
- ↑ https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bloody-roar-primal-fury-review/1900-2857550/
- ↑ https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bloody-roar-extreme-review/1900-6029018/
- ↑ http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/bloody-roar-extreme/5887p1.html
- ↑ http://gamingtrend.com/feature/reviews/bloody-roar-primal-fury-review/
- ↑ http://gamingtrend.com/feature/reviews/bloody-roar-extreme-review/
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 http://uk.ign.com/articles/2002/03/14/bloody-roar-primal-fury
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 https://ca.ign.com/articles/2003/05/27/bloody-roar-extreme-review
- ↑ http://www.jeuxvideo.com/articles/0000/00002123_test.htm
- ↑ http://www.jeuxvideo.com/articles/0000/00003804_test.htm
- ↑ http://www.fightersgeneration.com/games/bloodyroar-primalfury.html
- ↑ http://www.ztgd.com/reviews/bloody-roar-primal-fury/
- ↑ http://www.vgchartz.com/game/223/bloody-roar-primal-fury
- ↑ http://www.vgchartz.com/game/222/bloody-roar-extreme/?region=All
- ↑ http://www.vgchartz.com/game/2345/tekken-4/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040719015940/http://www.bloody-roar.com/event/jujin_idea.html
| Bloody Roar Series | |
| Main Series | Bloody Roar • Bloody Roar 2 • Bloody Roar 3 • Bloody Roar 4 |
| Related Games | Bloody Roar: Extreme/Primal Fury • DreamMix TV World Fighters |
| Characters | Alice the Rabbit • Bakuryu (Ryuzo) the Mole • Bakuryu (Kenji) the Mole • Busuzima the Chameleon • Cronos the Penguin • Fang the Wolf • Gado the Lion • Ganesha the Elephant • Greg the Gorilla • Hans the Fox • Jenny the Bat • Kohryu the Iron Mole • Long the Tiger • Mana the Ninetail • Mitsuko the Boar • Nagi the Spurious • Reiji the Crow • Ryoho the Dragon • Shenlong the Tiger • Shina the Leopard • Stun the Insect • Uranus the Chimera • Uriko the Half-Beast • Xion the Unborn • Yugo the Wolf |
| Other Media | Bloody Roar: The Fang (manga) |