Bloody Roar 3 (PlayStation 2)


Bloody Roar 3 is about Beastmen, human who can turn in to beasts, having a mysterious mark appear on their bodies which grants them power, but will supposedly also kill them.Each fighter has a reason for fighting, generally involving the sign and how to stop or abuse its power. Like many fighting games, the plot is not super important or even that fleshed out.



This game is a 3D fighting game. What makes this one unique is that each character can transform in to a beat version of themselves. Some can turn in to wolves or lizards or bugs or bunnies. This is obviously a very fantastical element, but the game actually handles it quite well and it doesn't feel gimmicky. There's also an element of strategy to it; your beast bar will fill and then begin to deplete once you have transformed. While transformed you will also heal some health. Do you save your transformation for when you need the health? For when your opponent transforms? Do you just go all out? Do you wait for it to fill completely before transforming? This allows for many different approaches and a bit more strategic thinking than a lot of fighting games offer.



The game has a few modes, such as a 9 stage arcade mode, a survival mode, a 2 player VS, and of course, options. There aren't many other modes aside from that. In the options you can change things such as difficulty, round time, and number of matches. The default layout is Square for punch, X for kick, O to transform and Triangle to throw. These buttons can do other things as well depending on your sequence of button presses. There is also no command list available in game, making it a bit of trial and error figuring each character out. Each character also has 3 outfits available, which will also change the appearance of their beast form, and there are two unlockable characters as well.

Characters:
(Ordered from favourite to least favourite)
Alice, The Rabbit: Alice leaves her job as a nurse to help Yugo who has gone off somewhere.
Uriko, The Half Beast: After having horrific experiments performed on her and being saved, Uriko now feels pretty bored with her life.
Jenny, The Bat: A super model and spy, she tries to uncover the secrets of her new mark.
Shina, The Leopard: A powerful mercenary and soldier sent to investigate the mark.
Long, The Tiger: Noticing the mark on the daughter of his master and close friend, he goes off in search of a way to save her.
Bakuryu, The Mole: After being afforded a nice life thanks to Yugo, he enters the tournament to prove how much he has grown.
Gado, The Lion: An advocate of peace between the humans and beastmen.
Yugo, The Wolf: Another advocate of peace between humans and beastmen, he is searching for a way to cure the mark and keep people from dying.
Shenlong, The Tiger: He is a clone of Long and has gone out in search of his own identity.
Stun, The Insect: Experimented on by Busuzima, he struggles with existing as he is.
Xion, The Unborn: Extremely OP villain of this game who killed his sister and wants a lot of power.
Kohryu, The Iron Mole: A character unlockable by beating arcade mode, a robot based kind of on the sort of dead person he used to be.
Busuzima, The Chameleon: A mad scientist who wants to test the extent of his powers.
Uranus, The Chimera: A character unlockable by beating the game without having to continue, a feat I was unable to accomplish. She is at the bottom only because I could never use her.

Overall this is an excellent fighting game. The game is fun and I like the added beast mode part of it. As I said, it doesn't feel gimmicky as I expected, but instead it serves as a way to make the game more complex and add a bit more strategy to it. The characters are mostly fun to use and I was happy to find that all of the female characters matched up with my style of playing and my preference for fast, acrobatic characters. The game is kind of minimalistic though, the story is kind of unclear, and my biggest complaint is that, even on the easiest mode, the game is just too darn hard. But overall a very good fighting game and I quite like it.

Verdict:
LIKED IT A LOT