The Characters of Bloody Roar

For some reason Bloody Roar is a game that I am fascinated with. I've never actually played it as it was around during a period of time in which I couldn't afford the newer gaming systems (the Playstation, Xbox, Saturn?) and these polygon heavy games simply weren't made for my Nintendo consoles.

But the concept is pretty cool: a fighting game in which your character has a separate gauge that lets you transform into a fucking animal mid fight and wreak some havoc on your enemies. It's a very interesting premise, one which was sorta explored in Altered Beast but which is better done here.

The art is what fascinates me. The drawings, for the most part, have a great anime feel to them that I'd really like to see taken into a fighting game (it's not as good as BlazBlue's but nothing is). The biggest drawback, and the reason why this series isn't as beloved and why I don't even care to hunt down a PS copy for my PS2, is because the game is in 3D. Yep it suffers from the same problems as Rival Schools and that's a shame.

But we're not here to focus on that, we're here to check out some of the character designs, especially those of the first games. These characters are exceptionally well done, it's like they took the animal as a base and then created a human around said animal. The results often go overboard in their obviousness but they're still pretty cool.

Yugo - I'm assuming he's the protagonist. A wolf, I don't really see a wolf in his design (way to ruin my thesis asshole). He's probably a loner. It's nice to finally find out where Capcom borrowed Abel's nose from.

Alice - A rabbit! First of all the hair is an obvious reference, the name is probably derived from Alice in Wonderland (which I believe features a rabbit also), I'm willing to bet she has rabbit teeth too. Oh and the red eyes, because all bunnies are murderous.

Long - A nerdy buff guy as a tiger? yeah that actually makes sense. I get the feeling tigers are a symbol for wisdom in some cultures and if that's not enough it looks like this guy is into martial arts. Tigers and Asia? sure why not.

Bakuryu - what the fuck is that? a mole? oh ok, so it makes sense that the poor guy looks like he's blind, but did they really need to give him that nose? Apparently they changed his looks from the first to the second game, they made him younger. This makes no sense, a mole isnt necessarily synonymous with youth.

Mitsuko - I'm not sure what's going on here...is that a warthog? shit, is that a woman? I have no idea but I don't want to find out either.

Greg - I am having a love affair with this design. The buff guy (the Zangief if you will) of the title is a fucking gorilla? no! he's a gorilla with a hat! genius. And both versions have that great beard. Too bad he didn't make it to the sequel.

Fox - Obvious name is obvious. I dont like this design, what is she some sort of body builder? no, most likely she's the Morrigan to Alice's Felicia. Still I dont like it. Seems lazy, the bodies are the same they just changed the face.

Uriko - a half cat? why did they have to break the pattern? you couldn't make her a full cat?

Gado - I have nothing to based this on but I'm saying this guy is German. Not only does he look like a lion but it looks like he's trying to look like a lion. I applaud this. Look if you're gonna be stuck as some sort of animagus for your entire life you'd might as well go all the way. A little hair gel and some mutton chops go a long way.

That's all the characters for the first game. Like I said had this game been done in 2D it probably would have been better. It's a shame it wasn't, it's a shame it decided to go with what was hip at the time and it's a bigger shame that they couldn't even do that right.