A not so popular fighting game franchise co-developed with Hudson and 8ing. Originally it was called Beastorizer. The story features humans who can transform into animals. They are called Zoanthropes. And of course there is a corporation trying to use and brainwash them for world domination. So they... fight them of course.The fighting system (somewhat reminiscent of Fighting Vipers) is a basic 3 button layout with a punch, kick and beast change. The special thing about this franchise is the ability to (as the story suggests) morph into different animals and become stronger and have access to different attacks and special moves. They can also heal while in beast form. The games combine 2D fighting game elements with 3D elements, complete with jumping by holding up and side stepping.There are 5 games in the whole series, mostly on the PlayStation brand.
Bloody Roar
Bloody Roar 2
Bloody Roar 3
Bloody Roar Primal Fury/Extreme (GameCube and Xbox ports of 3, essentially)
Bloody Roar 4
There's also an incident that 8 years after 4 without any other games, Hudson Soft announced that they're going to release a new Bloody Roar game with the premise that it's going to be a Continuity Reboot. Understandably, after the disaster in 4 both gameplay and story-wise, fans were pleased... until it turns out that it was only a trolling attempt from someone, bringing the fans back to square one in much disappointment.Character Sheet in progress.
A.I. Breaker: A viable strategy in 4 is simply withdrawing and putting distance between you and your foe, waiting for your opponent to charge, sidestepping, and then hitting their blind side. No joke.
Ass Kicks You: Busuzima, going for the gusto, not only sits on his foes' faces, but cuts farts as well. The Nonomura family (Alice, Uriko, Mitsuko) appears to be fond of this type of attack, as does Greg.
Bishōnen: Xion and Cronos exemplify this, but most of the guys are either this or ruggedly handsome (i.e. Gado).
Bishonen Line: Uranus and Ryoho's Hyper Beast modes allow them to stay human, while Cronos turns into a humanoid phoenix capable of going from 0 to 60 on your ass. To a lesser extent, Uriko exhibits some of this too.
Bottomless Pits: You can knock people off buildings and bridges. An instant win if you manage it, though it's rather difficult to break the walls around the arena without having already defeated your opponent.
But Not Too Foreign: Alice's father was Japanese, while her mother was an American of German descent.
However, if you try this in Bloody Roar 2 or 3, you will simply be destroyed. It's a good "tactic" in 4, though.
Long, Shenlong, and Uriko have fighting styles that focus on large combos, however.
Cain and Abel: Xion (Cain) and his sister Nagi (Abel).
Calling Your Attacks: A number of attacks across the series are accompanied by various shouts. Parodied by Busuzima, with one attack accompanied by him simply shouting "Kick!"
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Fox and Greg never come back after the first game. Mitsuko stops being playable, but is still referenced by other characters over the next couple of games.
Cloning Blues: Shenlong initially loathes Long, conflicted by the fact that he was cloned from him (the truly noticeable differences in appearance between the two being Shenlong's red eyes and white fur, most likely due to genetic manipulation). He eventually gets over this and mellows out, his role towards Long becoming significantly less antagonistic, to the extent of a friendly rivalry of sorts. It's even implied from the opening of Extreme/Primal Fury that he's friends with Uriko, Long's student.
Clothing Damage: Self-inflicted, since they rip their clothes when morphing into animals. The clothes come right back on when they morph back.
Comeback Mechanic: Primal Fury aids losing players by expiditing the rate at which their beast gauge fills, regardless whether inflicting or receiving damage. Meaning, the lower their health, the greater the gain per hit.
Creepy Child: The final battle of the first game looks like it will be against a little girl... who glares at you and then erupts into a more adult form, which in turn erupts into a massive beast. Uriko got a lot less creepy, but that first meeting...
Cursed with Awesome: Long hates his Zoanthrope genetics, as it was this power that killed his younger sister
Cute Bruiser: All of the females, but the best example is probably Uriko.
Long and Shenlong have a weird way about this: Shenlong in 2 has Long's moveset from the first game, while Long's own moves are changed. Then, in 3, Long gets most of his old moves back and Shenlong gets a new unique moveset.
Enemy Within: Ryoho's Dragon transformation, which was so powerful that it needed to be sealed away from time to time. It should be noted that his Dragon form isn't necessarily good or evil, more like initially rampaging.
In-universe, Yugo gets one in the form of Fang,◊ a character exclusive only to the worldwide versions of Extreme and PF and a Canon Immigrant from Maruyama Tomowo's two book tie-in manga, Bloody Roar: The Fang. He looks and acts just like Yugo (even sharing most of his moves from the first game), a rabbit girlfriend (Mashiro), and beast form of choice (the wolf). He acts as a Palette Swap for Yugo. Word Of God confirms that the parallels were intended.
Fake Difficulty: The Final Boss from Bloody Roar 4 can break through your own guard. And his attacks deal more damage, like half a gauge.
Depending on the game, Alice is either shaped like a realistic rabbit, or this.
Fantastic Racism: Much like the X-Men, humans come to resent the Zoanthropes over time. A good portion of the cast, like their mutant counterparts, are trying to induce peaceful relationships between both species.
Fartillery: In Primal Fury, one of Busuzima's grabs involves him farting in your face. It's one of his more powerful grabs...
Femme Fatale: Jenny. You could also argue a case for Uranus and Nagi.
The Fighting Narcissist: Fox. He prides himself as the most beautiful fighter. This gets to the point that he hates morphing into his Beast Form, simply because he sees it as ugly (despite the fox being one of the more attractive forms in the first game).
Fingerless Gloves: Several characters. What'd ya expect? It's a fighter.
Also, Mitsuko is a female example. And there was Greg, too...
Good Scars, Evil Scars: Yugo has a X-shaped scar on his forehead, while Gado has a scar running up his left eye along with several more on his arms. Shenlong has a scar running up the left side of his face, while Fang has a single scar on his forehead like Yugo.
Grievous Harm with a Body: It rarely happens, but it's possible to injure yourself with your opponent after knocking him/her into the wall. It's also hilarious.
Happily Adopted: Shina, the adopted daughter of Gado. Kenji is Yugo's adopted younger brother, and Alice was adopted by Mitsuko, also making her Uriko's older sister.
Ironically 2's greatest strength and 4's greatest weakness. The moves have always been simple to use, the game emphasized tactics and mind games over long, complicated moves. Thus in 2, a new player could be an expert if they used their head and out thought opponents. In 4, it's pointless working hard to understand the game, just use the cheap and broken stuff to get easy wins. Why did these games stop there? Oh yeah...
Hospital Hottie: Alice, before joining the W.O.C. (The World of Co-Existence), a non-government organization dedicated to bringing about peaceful relations between humans and Zoanthropes.
This is a counterbalance to Cronos' Phoenix form, which can bite off chunks of your health almost instantaneously, but only can maintain the transformation for about 15 seconds. His Penguin form is weak and severely lacking in the range, speed, and strength departments, but is a hard target to hit. All of this is mitigated by Cronos' human form having above-average stats.
The first game featured Greg, a weak, slow, and generally useless gorilla. However, he has a throw that can be spammed an infinite amount of times, leading to an amusing way of beating the last boss...
Mad Scientist: Busuzima... and good lord is this an understatement.
Everything he does is For Science!! That, and getting the rest of the cast to recognize his genius and take him seriously for once. Yeah... not gonna happen.
Meaningful Name: Aside from the obvious implication that as a "Half-Beast", Uriko is a cat girl (or werecat, as evidenced by her adult form), Nagi is a Spurious. The word spurious (an adjective) means "to be false/not genuine." In biological terms, it means a structure that has a comparable appearance but nonetheless has a diverse structure, thus explaining why Nagi's Beast Form is so distinct from the others and greatly resembles her regular self (in fact, her incomplete transformation seems to resemble a red, feminine version of Xion's Unborn form).
Ganesha is a god in the Hindu pantheon, known for his elephant head. Guess what Ganesha's Beast Form is.
Alice has a rabbit transformation, which makes sense in terms of Wonderland...
Let's just say Uranus and Cronos are named after deities for a reason...
Curiously, their namesakes are parent and child, which just adds more fuel to the "Uranus is Cronos' mother" theory.
Ninja: Yugo's brother, Bakuryu, the original Bakuryu who trained the second, and his clone, Kohryu.
Ninja Log: One of Kenji's Victory Poses. Not to be outdone, Kohryu uses a steel construction girder to achieve the same effect.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Kohryu is a ninja robot oni mole. Busuzima is a punk rock scientist chameleon. Uranus is a sexy psychic lava-Tyrannosaurus-bull lightning clone prisoner.
Not Just A Tournament: Each tournament revolves around diplomatic tensions between Zoanthropes and humankind due to experiments being conducted on Xoanthropes, behind the scenes. The tournament itself is merely a front to lure the strongest of their kind to be test subjects, by pitting them against others of their kind with legendary beast power... or genetically enhanced super beings.
Oh Crap: During the final battle with Uriko in the first game, you're in a caged-off arena. When she turns into the Chimera, steel walls slam into place with "EMERGENCY MEASURE" flashing on them. Someone off-camera must have had one of these moments.
One-Man Army: Stun can take on a full army of security guards (obviously).
Only Known by Their Nickname: (Alan) Gado and (Hajime) Busuzima are only ever addressed by their last name in the games. Gado's daughter is also only ever called "Shina" or "Marvel", depending on region.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: Every character is some sort of werebeast. There's a weretiger, werebear, werelion, wererabbit, werefox, werecat, wereboar, weremole, werebat, werechameleon...
Playing with Fire: Cronos' phoenix form, Yugo during his second Beast Drive, Ryoho.
Plot-Relevant Age-Up: In the first game, Uriko goes from this◊ to this◊ upon tapping into her powers. Judging by her ending in Extreme/PF, she briefly assumes this form again to save Cronos' life.
Power Echoes: Upon entering Hyper Beast mode in later games, the fighters' roars deepen and become heavily distorted. Nagi's Spurious form also has an echo effect.
Power Floats: Uranus is above gravity, apparently. Same goes for Uriko in 1.
Power Glows: Hyper Beast Mode give each character an electrified Battle Aura with a yellow glow. Cronos' hand also glows during one of his intros.
Put on a Bus: Fox and Greg simply disappeared after the first game. Mitsuko is a different case: while she also hasn't been available outside of 1, her status as Uriko's mom keeps her gravitating around the game's story.
Randomly Gifted: Zoanthropy is seemingly randomly developed. The exception is Busuzima, who apparently made himself into a Zoanthrope after he began working for Tylon.
Red Baron: As a child, Shina was known as "Fighting Marvel" due to single-handedly obliterating a platoon of soldiers. (In the Japanese releases, she's exclusively addressed as such.)
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Among other examples, Nagi (when controlled by the Unborn) and Ryoho (when he loses control of his Dragon transformation).
She's a Man in Japan: The feminine, crossdressing Fox in Bloody Roar was made female for the European release. That is one manly-looking woman...
Shirtless Scene: A scant few fighters go shirtless, and while costumes have undergone drastic changes between 1, 2, and the rest, one thing remains true: at least two characters go shirtless in their Beast Forms in every single game.
Greg, from 1, is an exception—in his base form he's always shirtless, but has the decency to wear a Nice Hat with it. Reiji is also always lacking in the shirt department.
Shout Out: Gado's outfit in 2 is extremely similar to that of un-tuxedo'd Rugal.
Perhaps it's a stretch, but Stun's real name is StevenGoldberg.
Some of Stun's moves in his beetle form resemble certain Kamen Rider attacks.
Xion's beast form is clearly inspired by the Guyver while Nagi's is a very clear shout out to Witchblade. Oddly, Nagi heavily resembles Masane Amaha, whom she predates by about three years.
Split Personality/Superpowered Evil Side: Nagi has a part of Gaia in her blood and goes crazy when she's under control of the Unborn. Long shows some signs of this in his BR1 ending, but it's never brought up in later games.
Stripperiffic: Shina enjoys fighting in a bra a lot. And then there's Nagi, whose bra is revealed a lot, and fights with a SHORT SKIRT. And then there's Jenny...
Super Mode: In every game except 2. Gives the player character massive speed, damage, and regeneration boosts, even allowing them to use multiple Beast Drives (which normally instantly brings them out of beast mode) while it lasts, but at the cost of being unable to transform at all for the rest of the fight.
Ultimate Life Form: There's convincing evidence for both Uriko and Uranus to have claim to this title. There's also hints that the two are closely related, perhaps even being one in the same.
Weaksauce Weakness: Ryoho is an obnoxiously cheap SNK Boss. He's got a bunch of extremely easy-to-hit moves with high damage and can chew your life meter out in a few seconds, giving you a game over when you lose. If you're using Uriko, on the other hand, all of his attacks will go over her head and he will be completely vulnerable to all of Uriko's moves, making this the biggest anticlimax of a boss since Shang Tsung in the first Mortal Kombat. Apparently, Catgirls > dragons.
Said catgirl is hinted at throughout the series as being, possibly, the strongest character in the series (maybe even stronger than Uranus, though that's only hinted at in Uriko's final scene in Primal Fury) this may be... well it's still a bizarre way of showing it, but what can you do?
Considering that Uriko's beast form in the first game (where she was the Final Boss) is similar to that of Uranus, this isn't altogether unsurprising.
The Worf Effect: A pro boxer like Yugo getting trumped by Busuzima of all people.
The opening to 3 is essentially the dev team showing off Xion by dedicating about half of the time to scenes of him brutalizing most of the cast. It's like they were asking, "We've got this new character in a bitchin' sweet redlongcoat and he's got BLADEScoming out of his arms. How should we use him? I know! Let's show him beating the ever-loving daylights out of everyone! YEAH!" This is then turned right around when Yugo recovers and shows off his new second Beast Drive.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Up until the time of 3, characters like Alice and Bakuryu (Kenji) actually had blue hair. Nana from 4 also has blue hair. Uriko's hair turns green in her werecat form from 1, while Busuzima also has green hair by default.
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