Bloody Roar 4 – PS2 – Review

The Bloody Roar series has
been out since 1997, and it has always fascinated me. I liked the fact that
while you are in the middle of a battle you could morph to a more powerful
creature and it could help turn the tide of the battle. The problem with the
series is that it was never deep in the game-play department. The previous games
always became the fighting games that you gave your younger siblings to play so
they could get down the basic mechanics and than transfer them to one of the
“big boys” of the fighting genre. Has Bloody Roar 4 changed all of that? Read on
to find out.

The story for Bloody Roar 4 goes as follows: Throughout time, life forms on this
planet have evolved and prospered. Some life forms do not evolve, but what is
the cause behind the choices on who evolves and who dies? Gaia is a life form
that is the entire earth, and it has a self-balancing nature and it is a way
that the environment can be controlled. Mankind has taken on many forms though
Gaia, though natural selection, as well as the Unborn: the life forms that would
have survived if they evolved. Exactly one year ago, during the X-Genome Code
Incident, there were many riots on earth by beasts that were not in the XGC.
Soon it all ended and no one knows the true cause of it, but people began to
blame it on a Stone Seal. The seal is locked away, but the riots have increased
even more so. What is the cause behind it all, and can this be stopped?

This game offers several different modes of play: Arcade, Time Attack, Training,
Sparring, Com, Survival, Verses, and Career Mode. Arcade mode is the time-tested
mode which is one-on-one fighting that is usually a single players verse a
computer. Players advance till they get to the boss of the game and then attempt
to beat them. Time Attack is where players see how long it will take them to
beat the game. Training mode is where players get a better understanding of the
gameplay mechanics for this game. Sparring mode is when the players battles
against the computer for an unlimited amount of rounds. Com mode is where
players can watch a battle between two computer opponents; this mode is really
helpful when players want to see how the AI strings together combos.

Survival mode is where players try to defeat as many opponents as possible in
consecutive rounds. This mode really tests player’s skills and patience, because
after each round players are given only 50 % of their health which can be
regenerated before the next round. Verses mode is a one-on-one,
human-versus-human fight, to see who is the best person.

In Career mode players take on computer-controled enemies to help build up their
characters stats and gain special abilities. The characters that are built up
can be used in other modes as well. As players go through this mode, they will
go though different maps, and each map has battles that the players must fight.
As you defeated enemies, players can use the DNA points acquired, which allows
them to buy upgraded abilities.

What makes this game different from all of the other fighting games is the
ability to transform into a beast anytime during the course of a fighting. Even
though this is really “cool,” one of the main problems with this game is this
ability. I found myself transforming to my beast side anytime I could because it
protected your health. You have no idea how annoying it is to try to defeat
enemies and they keep morphing to their beast form, than go back to human, build
up the beat gage than transform again. During some battles I actually found
myself losing because of the time it took to defeat the enemies, and the fact
that they had more beast spurt in than I did.

The other thing that kills
Bloody Roar 4 is the actual gameplay. This game is nothing more than a
button-mashers delight. I tried to create a strategy when I went up against the
enemies, but I found that it never worked, and the only way to get anywhere is
to randomly hit buttons (mostly the “beast button”) over and over again. While
this can be entertaining for a while, without any strategy for this game, it
really kills the replay factor.

One of the best things about Bloody Roar 4 is the graphics. While this game
isn’t the best looking around, it still brings in some nice eye candy. Every
fight will have bright colorful explosions with tons of transformations. The
humans and the beast forms are nicely detailed and diverse. The best thing is
the beast animations. During a fight players might transform several times, and
transforming never takes a hit on the frame rate and the fight will continue
once players step out of the flashy white morphing lights. The backgrounds are
nicely varied, and always have some sort of animation going in the background.

This game features some of the worst audio I have heard in a videogame in a long
time. The voice-overs were horribly done! This is one of those cases where the
developers really should have left it in the original language. What makes it
notorious is not the actual voice acting itself, but how it is presented. The
subtitles will pop up, then a few seconds later a voice will start talking, and
at times there will be long awkward pauses. At times you might be looking at a
building for 5 seconds, looking at the dialog waiting for the person to finish a
sentence, than out of now where they will. This is really inexcusable, and makes
the game a joke. The music and sound effects used for the game are ok. The music
might get on your nerves if you listen to it for a long period of time, but it
is nothing that the mute button can’t handle.

Bloody Roar 4 is rated M for Mature for violence and blood. It requires 85kb on
your memory card.

Gameplay: 6.0
If you love to button mash, than this is the game for you! There is no
strategy involved in this game; all you have to do is morph to beast mode than
hit the “beast button” over and over again.

Graphics: 7.0
The graphics are not the best looking (nor the worse) in this genre. Why this
portion gets high marks is due to the great animations and constant frame rate
this game has.

Sound: 4.0
I have never laughed so hard at the dialog in a game before. This is just a
horrendous job, with all of the looooong awkward pauses. The music is sub par
and can get annoying quick.

Difficulty: Easy
This game really won’t challenge you in any way, all you have to do is
just mash down on the buttons to win. Anytime you come up with any sort of
strategy the AI will get so cheap that the only way to defend yourself and win
is to be cheap back.

Concept: 6.2
This game has a really good premise, but there is a lot missing. With the recent
releases of Tekken 4, Virtua Fighter 4, Soul Caliber 2; Bloody Roar 4 just can’t
compete. The Career mode is nice, but it needs to be expanded upon and the game
just needs to take it to the next level, or it will never be able to compete
with the big boys.

Multiplayer: 6.1
No fighting game can omit Versus mode, or else it can’t be considered a good
one. The versus mode is great, but the whole “button masher” theme that Bloody
Roar has going on ruins the experience.

Overall: 6.0
This series has great potential, but it is ruined by the developers by not
making it deeper. On the other hand, if you love to button mash, this is the
game for you!