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!