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Techtite's Playstation-2 Reviews! |
"However, I really liked Bloody Roar 4. Of course, this is from someone who has already played Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 4, Virtua Fighter Evolution, and all the rest, more times than I care to admit. If you haven't played any of those games yet you owe it to yourself to do so. When done, however, I see no reason not to give Bloody Roar 4 a look." ---from the review ------------------ Sidebar:: ----------------- "No sidebar comments for this game" Yet...
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Bloody Roar 4
Click picture to order this game. A Techtite ReviewThe Bloody Roar gaming series has always been one which has never reached the peak of the potential it seems to have. The overall concept of humans with super powers that can morph into animal forms and back again...? That's cool fighting game fodder. Yet the overall graphics, game strategies, and lack of decent back-stories up to now, have kept this saga from being anything less than a diversion from the Tekken, Dead or Alive, and Soul Calibur series. With Bloody Roar 4, they seem to have learned some of the things that make a fighting game great...but not all.
Well, sort of. See, this is the problem with Bloody Roar for three prior games by now; with so much devoted to additional animal moves, there are very few actual "special moves" a character can perform at all. There just isn't enough here, aside from punch, kick, block, morph, and then repeat as an animal, until you're a human again, in which case: punch, kick, block...and so on. This is to be expected. When you think about it, the game is not like other fighting games, in that it must keep track of "four" characters; one human, one opponent, and their morphed super-characters. This is unlike other fighting games where there is only a need to keep track of two characters on screen, in any one fight. Due to each fight needing to keep track of "four" possible characters at once, lots of sacrifices were made in the memory/graphics power needed for each battle. Graphics here are not half of what they are in, say, Soul Calibur 2. Animation of characters, and the number of special moves, is not as elaborate as Virtual Fighter 4. However; yes, you get to fight as either humans or super-power animals. Isn't that cool enough to forgive a sacrifice in graphic power...?
Not that there isn't still room for improvement. People familiar with this series' characters will be slightly disappointed at the limited number of new characters. What's more; aside from the new "final battle" character, there really isn't much in the way of new animals to fight as. The most noteworthy new female (the one on the box cover) doesn't even morph into an animal at all, though basically turns into a fighter whose right arm is its own sword. While this sounds cool --and it is, kinda-- this is obviously out-of-place from the animal-human formulae at work here. However, I really liked Bloody Roar 4. Of course, this is from someone who has already played Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 4, Virtua Fighter Evolution, and all the rest, more times than I care to admit. If you haven't played any of those games yet you owe it to yourself to do so. When done, however, I see no reason not to give Bloody Roar 4 a look. It may not be perfect, but they're trying, and quite frankly, they're getting there.
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The
overall formula is the same; aside from the standard kick, punch, and
block, the circle button allows you to "morph," into whatever
animal form your chosen character can change into. From there on in
battle, the circle button allows you to do special attack moves for that
animal, until you're hit enough times by your opponent to reduce your
morphing energy to zero, in which case; you're back to fighting as a
regular human again. Otherwise, this is a fighter game through and
through.
Before
you answer that question, consider the enormous upgrade this game has been
given, compared to Bloody Roar 3. All cutscenes are within
the game engine itself, not a mere closed-captioned, silent, anime video
clip. There is also a clearer ongoing story for each character, which is
elaborated in the second last and final battles. This is a concept taken
from Soul Calibur and Tekken, yes, though it's a feature
this game series very much needed. Game
rules have been given a thankful upgrade as well, although this is more of
a "you have to see it to know what I mean" sort of deal. Trust
me; this game series has gotten some nice upgrades. 