For this mode, you pick a character and then go to a huge grid-style map filled with locations to battle opponents. The only other twist to note is the game's Career option, but it's no great shakes either. I was a little shocked that any developer would look at these as full-fledged modes since they amount to basically nothing.
Besides those staples, there's a ridiculous Sparring mode that gives you the option of fighting against a computer opponent for an unlimited number of rounds, as well as Com Battle where you can watch two computer-controlled opponents fight each other.
modes are here, along with the same sort of Training and Time Attack options you'd find anywhere else. Aside from the neat idea of beast transformations, Bloody Roar 4 offers next to nothing.Īmid a number of recent efforts that strive to give more, the variety of Bloody Roar 4's modes is laughably weak. Still, not every successful fighting game can boast the mastery of mechanics the way the leaders of the genre do, but many can still manage to meet a fair amount of success as long as there are other hooks on top of the mediocre fighting. Toning down the ego-crippling artificial intelligence would be a good idea, to boot. The combat system is more hit than miss, but it still needs work. There is also some additional depth regarding transformations, since lifebars can be partially replenished by morphing back and forth between human and strategically. Still, there's enough variation and difference between the characters that just about anyone will be able to find a combatant they can feel comfortable with. Based upon executing long strings of combos preset by the developers, the gameplay is flashy and fast, but doesn't offer the freedom and flexibility that others do. You don't need a story to being fierce warriors come together to fight, however, and fight they do.įor anyone even casually familiar with fighters like Street Fighter or Tekken, Bloody Roar 4's structure offers no surprises. There's some nonsense about good and evil, a guiding earth-spirit, and some atrociously bad lipsynch for the voiceovers, but it makes little sense and has practically no continuity with the other games in the series, each of those plots amounting to almost zero to begin with. Story-wise, there isn't much to talk about. Naturally, any game about people changing into animals is going to include a wolf, but besides that traditional nod, returning faces from previous rosters include a chameleon with stealth abilities, two rival tigers who are masters of Kung-Fu, a cute kitten, a sultry she-bat, and an insectile creature who could be the long-lost brother of anime's " Guyver." New additions include a crow with flying combos, a large brawler/little girl duo who fight as one, and a rugged female that sprouts crusty armor and a long blade. The game and its forebears take the idea of "Zoanthropes"-people with the ability to transform into beasts-and merges it with a standard fighting game formula. Technically fourth (although really the sixth if you count cross-system updates) it's the perfect example of the sort of game that seems to poised to make its mark on the world and then inexplicably proceeds to hang out at the local mall for its entire adult life. It has never been at the top of its class, but the earlier games, especially the third iteration, were pretty respectable. Originally debuting back in 1997, Hudson's Bloody Roar was promptly (and not unfairly) pigeonholed as a C-list offering cashing in on the then-new trend of 3D fighting games. There's some debate as to whether the phenomena really exists on a generational level, but that particular debate aside, I think it's a useful concept that can certainly apply to videogames. There are a number of books addressing the subject, giving all sorts of advice to those who deal with friends, relatives and children who never get out of the starting gate to take life by the horns. Referring, for example, to those individuals who still live in their mom's basement at age 35 and who routinely hit dad up for a loan to tide them over until the paycheck from Burger King arrives. It's a phrase most recently used to describe a young generation of children who fail to meet their parents' expectations.