Bloody Roar General Discussion

Robot ninja moles?

No, just industrial-looking robots. Maybe they have alt modes.

Well they already had Kohroryu, and he insofar was the only robot in the series (and not a half-bad character to play as either). What really killed the series was the fact that the plot stopped making sense after 3, and the fighting mechanics were poorly balanced and gave WAY too much power to button-mashing newbies. Plus, it wasn't very well known, even within the fighting-game crowd.

I seriously doubt the game's plot had a major affect on the game...

Then again, Bloody Roar II (The best bloody roar!) was actually the first fighting game I played that had a fully-done story mode. It was really just Let's You and Him Fight: The game mode but it was there. It at least helped you get to know the different character's personalities better.

I haven't played much of III and 4 aside from some tinkering around with Primal Fury but will say that II is a damn well-done fighting game. I'm not a high-level player in any fighting game circuit so I can't blab on about the jargon your average Evo attendee can but all the characters are distinctive, there's tons of interesting moves and combo strings can get crazy. It's fun period.

edited 8th Jan '13 5:41:02 PM by ShirowShirow

So I was browsing the internets, and I stumbled across a series of Bloody Roar retrospective videos by someone named SCXCR. Yes, they are relatively old, but it's still a good excuse as any to inject some life back into this thread.

Bloody Roar 1

Bloody Roar 2

Bloody Roar 3

The Fang [A Bloody Roar Manga]

edited 5th Apr '13 11:20:07 PM by IWasJustPassingBy

there are rumors of a new Bloody Roar for PS 4,but yeah,I won't fall for that again,I will believe when(IF) it's official.

BR 4 really screwed the franchise,but I have fond memories of the previous games.It's really funny how they went from using those poor english voice-actors from Japan(you know,the same ones from Resident Evil 1,Castlevania Symphony of The Night and the first Silent Hill games.)to the extreme high-quality ones in BR 3(you can't go wrong when you use a cast of V As who have done Metal Gear Solid games.)only to use those guys from Japan again in BR 4...

Hudson soft died awhile ago, and I don't think Konami actually realizes they have the rights to this.

In a perfect world, I'd say that the Dead or Alive team would probably be the best people for the job, as long as they don't deviate too much from the first three games. Another lizard type would be nice, too, since Buzuzima looks way too... doofy, for lack of a better term, for me to want to play him. Maybe a gator of some sort, I dunno.

There are certainly enough cats.

I wanna see a bear-character.

Also the return of Greg (as a black guy).

edited 5th Jun '13 6:23:31 PM by IWasJustPassingBy

Busu's a boss, but I wouldn't object to a frilled lizard or komodo dragon or something. Maybe some kind of femme fatale with an elaborate necklace that morphs with her and manifests in her frill for the first one.

Having a black guy turn into a gorilla has some pretty bad Unfortunate Implications.

Another reptile would be cool, but I sort of want a Hyena too. And a female since they're the ones who lead the packs.

I say her last name should be "Gnoll".

For some reason I always thought the games could work well as a 3d Beat 'em Up, maybe with an Open world you could leap around. There would be Clothing Damage every time you transform, and save points would be oddly placed closets you use to replace your jacket/outerwear

Yeah, I know. And I understand that was the reason he was changed in the console parts. However, I'd rather have my race be represented poorly than not at all. To be honest, there was nothing wrong about Greg, he was just a circus ringleader that I didn't want to automatically punch in the face.

But hey, fuck do I know, right?

Nonetheless, the only things that I can say that I would definitively want in a new Bloody Roar game is the cheesy 80's metal theme music, and a 2nd human character model that retains the clothing damage from going into beast form.

edited 8th Jun '13 3:07:03 AM by IWasJustPassingBy

Greg got hit with a Race Lift? Le Sigh.

When it comes to new characters, I really just have one prerequisite: Make them animals. No "Chimera". No "Unborn". No "Spurious". No "Dragon" or "Phoenix". Just stop trying to one-up the status quo and Sequel Escalation and make'm animals.

"I'd rather have my race represented poorly than not at all."

Yeah no.

We're just now getting passed the blackface lips being the standard for African descended characters in Japanese media. Let's not encourage any more outdated stereotypes.

Now. A modern day Greg with a dignified backstory and a decent costume that so happens to be a black dude that becomes a gorilla? I'd be fine with this. Maybe he wears a suit or something else classy to soften the implications.

I understand why you'd think that, but I don't care.

Fighting games are not played for story. Sure, when implemented well, it's a nice feature, but they're mostly not implemented well, so it's a waste of money that could've been spent in other areas.

The reason that the Street Fighter series works so well is because the cast is entirely composed of outrageous stereotypes who as much fun to beat up as they are to play as.

But moving back to Bloody Roar, there was no malice Greg being a black guy. He was just a dude who wanted to recruit other zoanthropes into his circus so they won't be slaughtered by humans because humans are dicks. He wasn't stereotypical at all. Yes, there was the unfortunate implication of the (mostly) outdated notion of black people being monkeys, but in comparison to black people in usually being intimidating, stupid thugs who are also boxers or the evil version of an existing character, I'll take anything I can get.

Secondly, the country of Japan is a mono-racial uni-culture, with most of what they know about black people coming from outside sources. I'm not going to blame them for using outdated stereotype or their black characters being undeveloped.

edited 8th Jun '13 12:47:38 PM by IWasJustPassingBy

So you're just going to condone it? We've seen dignified blacks in Japanese media elsewhere. I guess Eddy Gordo, Dudley, Raven, Sheva, RE 5's Josh, and a handful of others are figments of imagination? They're being willfully ignorant when they continue to rely on outdated stereotypes, now - don't give me that "too xenophobic to be racist" bullshit.

But. Off my soapbox and back on shapeshifting ninjas and ring leaders.

Being larger than life and something out of a minstrel show aren't mutually exclusive concepts. See... every character ever in Jojo.

Well, technically, yes. They are figments of imagination, not ours, but someone's.

Secondly, about the characters you mentioned?

• Eddy Gordo is an inmate, also he's Brazilian. Also, his costume in TTT 1 was a faded grey and had him wearing two giant rope chains, because they really needed to hammer home that he was a prisoner.
• Dudley *
  Dudley is also the parallel to M.Bison, and that can be used to represent the duality of which black people are portrayed in the media. If you choose to see it that way, that is.
  is basically Eagle from SF 1 in blackface and boxing gloves.
• Raven was made because Namco wanted to make "a cool, Black guy," so the made Blade. Besides, everyone knows that Canadians aren't real people.
• I don't know anything about RE 5 except for the fact that Sheva Alomar has quite possibly the most comically racist alternate costume in to come out of Capcom in recent years. Way to go, Capcom. Also, I'm talking strictly fighting games here.

Third, I'm not stating that Japan is "too xenophobic to be racist." That statement doesn't even make sense, as a xenophobe is pretty fucking racist by definition. All I'm saying is that I'm not going to blame them if their black characters are stereotypes. Having a character that, by a glace is very different from the rest of the cast can only play out in three ways; national stereotypes, an aesop about how we are all not so different, or fucking nothing.

And lastly, I'm not condoning anything. I simply don't care. Getting bent out of shape over a video game just isn't worth anything to me anymore.

What this all boils down to is this: Don't change an established character for no good reason (Vanessa Lewis), because that tells me that you do not believe enough in your conviction that the character you created is designed well.

I like King Cobra, and I like Blacker Baron, we have room for both. If you wanna go nuts with your design, I'm all for it. It's just a game after all, I really should just relax.

edited 10th Jun '13 2:49:01 AM by IWasJustPassingBy

I don't see how Eddy being Brazilian necessarily makes him less black or whatever. There's more black people in Brazil than the US you know, if anything the fact that Japanese games tend to portray them(afro-Brazilians) more than other most media actually says something in itself. Most times I see Brazilian in US media it's just a bunch of scantily clad tanned women. And an inmate? Yeah, he was framed by Mishima corp, remember? It makes sense in context.

Calling Dudely Eagle in blackface is just silly. Raven is pretty cheesy lol but a legit example(several Tekken characters draw inspiration from other media/real people anyway in their designs and they're actually one of the better JP fighting game designers when it comes to portraying an international roster), and I can't speak for Sheva, and considering you didn't play RE 5 you probably don't have too much to go off there either in terms of her actual character.

If anything the whole misconception of black people exist only in africa/America/Carribean needs to really go, it's pretty idiotic when you meet someone in real life and they say a guy is not really black because he speaks Portuguese or French. I kind of find it interesting when we get guys like Raven who are from places where black people don't get much rep at all(even among black culture), despite being there in a good population and having history there.

As for bad rep vs no rep, ehhhh I think if your character ends up that offensive(taking context into account here) in the first place you screwed up somewhere. There's no excuse as to why they should end up that way, like the Vanessa lighting up thing was pretty dumb, most of the VF fanbase agrees on that, as well as turning Jeffery into a freakin moron though that's more due to bad character development. I feel like really if you're competent at making characters, you should be able to do them in a tasteful manner while keeping them interesting and appealing. Relying solely on stereotypes feels pretty lazy to me and if you're unable to do so that's a flaw on your part you need to fix.

edited 10th Jun '13 11:37:06 AM by Vertigo_High

You know, Killer Instinct is getting a revival so hell maybe this series getting a revival isn't impossible.

It's also highly unlikely. Killer Instinct went from being HUGE to nothing, and despite the style over substance nature of the series, is (usually) fondly remembered. While MS is relying on blind hype and nostalgia, I doubt that those two things alone will keep this new KI afloat.

Bloody Roar, from what I can remember, has never really been big. It's done well, yet slightly below the radar because it was completely overshadowed in the 90s, and no one gave a fuck about fighting games that weren't Tekken in the mid-2000s. I can't help but think that reactions for an announcement for a new Bloody Roar would be met with either confusion, apathy, or scorn (because furries), rather than excitement.

edited 10th Jun '13 2:30:29 PM by IWasJustPassingBy

I've always enjoyed Bloody Roar's soundtrack. The only fighting games that seem to have heavy use of heavy metal would be anything by Arc System Works

King Of Fighters gets it's fair share as well.

Oh yeah, London March :P