Geekatana Game Review: Bloody Roar 4

My first introduction to the Bloody Roar franchise was with Bloody Roar 2 for the PS1. I was already into 3d fighting games like Virtua Fighter, Toshinden, Tekken and the likes in the arcade. Although admittedly not a hardcore fighting game player I do enjoy a decent scuffle even if I probably lose half of the matches. It's one of those simple guilty pleasures back then.

It took me some time to get a PS2 and by the time I got it the franchise is already up to Bloody Roar 4 for the PS2. So like any fan of the series I bought a copy and played the living daylights out of it until I need to replace my controller due to over use.

Bloody Roar 4 is a fighting game developed by Eighting and Hudson Soft back in 2003. It is the fifth and final Bloody Roar game and the second game to appear on the PlayStation 2. It received an M rating by due to the blood effects. The story revolves around Nagi and Xion and their involvement about a dragon zoanthrope. The other characters from the previous Bloody Roar game also gets involved specially Hugo who is a friend of Nagi.

As interesting as the plot sound it's a fighting game so it follows the usual fight a bunch of random characters until you get to the final boss. Sure there's certain scenes with a bit of dialogue between characters to make some sort of story to each of them but they all end up fighting the same big boss in the end.

Unlike previous games of this franchise it does pumps up the roster count to more than 12 characters although regrettably some of the characters sharing the same moveset..namely the two Mole characters. Also the game is crazily unbalanced as some characters are pretty OP and have certain unblock-able attacks.

Fancy as the moves look on screen there's really not much strategy involved in the game since the moves and combos involved button smashing or alternating one to three buttons along with the direction pad. In fact the only way you can get a counter in is if the other player drops a combo and good luck in that when you fight a computer controlled character.

The stages are small and bland with very little going on in them. There are layered stages but knocking an opponent to the next stage layer is more of luck than actual skill. The character design is rough and outdated. The english version is badly dubbed that I'd suggest picking up the japanese version. Not to mention some of the characters are obviously rip off of existing 3d fighting characters...specially the new character Nagi looking like a certain female ninja. 

The music save for the awesome intro and the character select screen are mostly mediocre and forgettable. There's is sort of career mode where you can earn DNA points to upgrade your character but the game is so easy that it is not worth wasting the time to making a overpowered character. There are two beats attack for each character this time but the second one is harder to pull of yet does the same damage that its not worth executing. 

Is the really game bad? No really. It's quite fun when you just want to waste time playing a fighting game with your friends. The simple controls will have new players doing crazy combos in no time but if you want a more serious and more balanced fighting game then you're better off playing other games instead. Bloody Roar 4 is a decent game but due to its unbalanced character moveset and its lack of new innovation to invent itself is its undoing.

Bloody Roar 4 and its franchise characters ability to change into were beast was unique unto itself but it was also its undoing as it soon ran out of ideas so soon. If you played the previous Bloody Roar game than you won't find anything new in this one. If you're going to play one Bloody Roar game however than this is the game I'd recommend you pick due to its bigger roster and the added blood effect.