The History of Bloody Roar

The fighter that let you become the animal.

In the summer of 1997, Japanese arcades got a 3D fighting game with a hook nobody else had. Its fighters did not just hit harder as a match went on. At the press of a button, once a meter had filled, they turned into animals: a wolf, a tiger, a lion, a rabbit, each form faster and stronger than the human underneath, with new moves and a portion of lost health restored.

The game was Bloody Roar, developed by Raizing, the studio that would become Eighting, and published by Hudson Soft. It moved to the PlayStation within months, earned some of the strongest fighting game reviews of its season, and started a five game series. This is how it was made, how it was received, and what it left behind.

THE TWO COVERS

Same game, two sales pitches

North America

The American cover keeps the short title and sells the transformation itself: a snarling beast face, fire, and the line Unleash the beast within. Sony Computer Entertainment published the game in North America.

Japan

The Japanese cover is a different mood entirely: a stone sculpture of a human face merging into a wolf, under the fuller title Bloody Roar: Hyper Beast Duel. Hudson Soft published it in Japan.

HOW IT WAS MADE

Raizing, Hudson Soft, and one good idea

The director's complaint

Director Kenji Fukuya said that fighting games between ordinary human characters felt somewhat dull. What he wanted first was superpowered characters, in his words similar to the Super Saiyans of Dragon Ball. The beast theme that turned that wish into a game came from Eighting, the studio also known as Raizing.

Two studios, one game

Raizing developed the arcade original and Hudson Soft handled the PlayStation version. Fukuya and Susumu Hibi directed. Mitsuakira Tatsuta and Shinsuke Yamakawa created the visual design, and the arcade score drew on a deep bench of composers including Atsuhiro Motoyama, Kenichi Koyano, Manabu Namiki, Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, with Takayuki Negishi composing new music for PlayStation.

Built on PlayStation bones

The arcade game ran on Sony's ZN-1 board, arcade hardware built around PlayStation technology. That choice made the home port a close translation rather than a compromise, and the PlayStation version added its own extras, including sidestepping on the shoulder buttons in the North American release and the PlayStation exclusive Beast Rave mode.

THE RELEASE

Beastorizer in the arcade, Bloody Roar at home

The arcade game launched in Japan in July 1997. In North American arcades it carried a different name, Beastorizer, and the PlayStation version was shown at E3 1997 under that title before the Bloody Roar name won out at home. In Japan and Europe the home game kept a longer title, Bloody Roar: Hyper Beast Duel.

The PlayStation version reached Japan on November 6, 1997, Europe on January 16, 1998 through Virgin Interactive, and North America on March 5, 1998 through Sony Computer Entertainment. Eight fighters made the roster: Yugo the wolf, Alice the rabbit, Long the tiger, Gado the lion, Bakuryu the mole, Fox the fox, Mitsuko the boar and Greg the gorilla, with the chimera Uriko waiting as the final boss.

HOW IT WAS RECEIVED

Fast, fluid, and a little short on fighters

The scores

GameRankings averaged the PlayStation version at 78 percent. IGN gave it 8 out of 10, GameSpot 7.7 out of 10, Game Informer 8.5 out of 10, and Next Generation and Computer and Video Games both gave it 4 out of 5. GameFan's three reviewers scored it 95, 98 and 96 percent. Electronic Gaming Monthly's four reviewers were cooler on it, at 8.5, 8.5, 8 and 6.5 out of 10, and Dengeki PlayStation's four scores ran from 70 to 90 out of 100.

What critics praised

Reviewers singled out the transformation system as the game's real invention, and praised the speed, the precise and accessible controls, and a smooth, fast engine that several compared favorably with Tekken 2. The fighting borrowed openly from Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers, then added wall juggles, destructible arenas and ring outs of its own.

What critics held against it

The roster of eight was called small again and again, the character designs were described as functional but generic next to Tekken and Street Fighter, and the hard rock soundtrack split opinion. In its first North American month the game still placed 20th in unit sales, and it was nominated for Console Fighting Game of the Year at the first Interactive Achievement Awards, losing to WCW vs. nWo: World Tour.

WHAT IT LEFT BEHIND

A short series with a long shadow

Bloody Roar did something no major rival was doing: it made transformation itself the strategy. The Beast meter, the health recovered in beast form, and the risk of being beaten back into human shape gave every round a second decision underneath the fighting, and the series spent four sequels refining it.

The sequels came quickly: Bloody Roar 2 in arcades in 1998, Bloody Roar 3 in 2000, Bloody Roar Extreme for GameCube and Xbox in 2002, and Bloody Roar 4 in 2003. The first two games returned as PS one Classics downloads in 2008 to 2010. The idea at the center of the series, a fighter who becomes an animal mid match, still has no true successor, which is a large part of why the original keeps its cult standing.