Bloody Roar

"My soul awakens... WITH A PRIMAL SCREAM!"

A not so popular fighting game franchise co-developed with Hudson Soft 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

After laying dormant for over eight years, a sixth entry in the series is currently in production. From what it sounds like, it's a Continuity Reboot...

... Or not. As it turns out, it was somebody trolling. Fans are, to say the least, not pleased.

Character Sheet in progress.

Tropes used in Bloody Roar include:
  • Action Mom: Mitsuko... eww.
  • A God Am I: Cronos from Primal Fury... sort of.
  • AI 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 jokes.
  • Alice Allusion: Alice turns into a white rabbit.
  • Alternate Continuity: Primal Fury and Extreme.
    • It's more of a game set between 3 and 4 based on a sidestory. In other words, a Gaiden Game.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Most of the Final Boss stages.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Shina is noticeably buffer than the other females. She also has a few... distracting costumes. Did we mention that she's French? Being a mercenary since she was a child, she also is most likely the strongest of the ladies physically, thus averting Muscles Are Meaningless.
  • Anime Hair: Quite a few characters, with Gado probably taking the cake, as his hair resembles a lion's mane.
  • Animorphism: The whole game features characters who transform into animals.
  • Anti-Hero: Xion (anywhere from Type III to Type V, depending on his mood), Cronos (Type I-II).
  • Anti-Villain: Xion (Type I). He could convincingly be read as "amoral".
  • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Shenlong and Yugo.
  • 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.
  • Badass: It's a series full of 'em.
  • Badass Adorable: Uriko is a standout here.
  • Badass Beard: Ganesha, Ryoho, Greg.
  • Badass Biker: Yugo.
  • Badass Longcoat: Xion.
  • Badass Long Hair: Long.
  • Badass Long Robe: Long.
  • Bald of Awesome: Ryoho, the series' resident Bare-Fisted Monk.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Alice (up until Extreme/PF), Shina, Nagi.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Yugo and Alice, natch. One's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, the other's a Type B ("deredere") Tsundere. She even delivers an Armor-Piercing Slap to Yugo in her ending from Extreme/Primal Fury because he was being reckless and could have gotten them all killed. She then turns around and cries.
  • Big Badass Bird of Prey: Reiji, although he's a giant crow instead of your typical falcon/hawk/eagle/etc.
  • Big Badass Wolf: Yugo, natch.
  • Bishonen: Xion and Cronos exemplify this, but most of the guys are either this or ruggedly handsome (i.e. Gado).
  • Bishounen 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.
  • Blessed with Suck: In some way or another, just about all of the more powerful characters (i.e. Uriko, Uranus, Xion, Ryoho, etc.) get bowled over with this. Cronos, by far, has it the worst. An oddity among Zoanthropes, Cronos was a rare specimen with two Beast forms. Unfortunately, Cronos has little control over his Phoenix form, the more powerful and more destructive side of his persona. During his childhood, it's heavily implied that his Phoenix form went berserk, wiping out his entire home village. The number of causalities was great, and his mother was (apparently) among them.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Happens with Uriko, Bakuryu, Xion, and Nagi.
  • Bonus Boss: Kohryu and Uranus from 3.
    • Shenlong in 2.
  • 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.
  • Button Mashing: You don't need to learn special moves.
    • 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!"
  • Came Back Wrong: Stun, or to be specific, his clone.
  • Captain Ersatz: You're lying to yourself if you say that Nagi isn't Kasumi with less clothing.
  • Cast of Snowflakes
  • Charged Attack: Gado's very own Falcon Punch! Shina got it, too.
  • Cherry Tapping: Alice's basic crouch punch in the first game. Just watch out for Fox, who will bitch slap you for being so cheap.
  • Chickification: Shina in Primal Fury.
  • 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, Take Warning 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.
  • Combat Stilettos: Alice, Jenny, Uranus, and Nagi.
  • Combos
  • Comeback Mechanic: Primal Fury aids losing players by expediting 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.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Ganesha.
    • Heck, Shina and Busuzima can do their third Beast Drives with no problem!
  • Cool Shades: As if you needed more persuasion that Gado was a Badass Cool Old Guy, check out his outfit from 3.
  • 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.
  • Cutscene: They came in full force in 4.
  • Dance Battler: Not only can Cronos kick your ass with no effort, but he does it while doing the tango!
  • Dark-Skinned Blond: Gado, Cronos, and Ganesha. Shina as of Extreme/PF (she had a somewhat lighter skin tone beforehand).
  • Divergent Character Evolution: Oddly, a clone of Gado gets his moves while he himself gets this.
    • 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.
  • Dojikko: After her revamp in 2, Uriko learns a Kenpo style mimicking Long's. However, if a player makes even the slightest mistake during her inputs, Uriko can easily mess up and fall over. Being something of a ditz, this makes sense, although Uriko is much more capable than you'd think, given that she's implied to be the strongest of all the Zoanthropes. In typical Lethal Joke Character fashion, Uriko (with the right tempo) can whip out infinites that can juggle her opponent to death.
  • The Dragon: Ryoho, literally.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Xion to some extent, as well as Cronos and Fox. Especially Fox.
  • Emotionless Girl: Uriko in the first game, along with being a Tyke Bomb.
  • 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.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Fangirls seem to be crazy for Shenlong.
    • Anyone else find it humorous that he's essentially Shen Woo, only two years early?
  • Everything's Better with Penguins: One of Cronos's forms is a penguin... which is oddly good.
  • Evil Albino: Xion the Unborn.
  • Evil Laugh: Xion after winning in beast form, or during his Beast Drive in 3.
    • Xion takes a liking to stuff like this. Uranus also gets a pretty sinister laugh from time to time, most notably in 4.
    • Same goes for Cronos, although it's more like "Ha ha! You suck and I'm much better than you!"
  • Evil Twin: Shenlong (yes, him again) to Long, Kohryu to Bakuryu, and (somewhat) Uranus to Uriko.
  • Expy: Mitsuko and Greg got nixed for Stun, while Fox got nixed for Jenny. Then there's the whole Bakuryu situation.
    • If you think Long bears an uncanny resemblance to Citan Uzuki, you're not alone.
    • Likewise, Xion's design screams Pegasus.
    • 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.
  • Fan Service: All female characters. And Shenlong.
    • Ms. Fanservice: Jenny.
      • Nagi, too. Her Spurious form is Not So Different from her human form. And still she's hot.
    • 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.
  • 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.
  • Forgotten Childhood Friend: Averted with Shina and Cronos. We know that they have a connection (and the two actually remember one another after being separated for so long), but the games have yet to divulge anything more than that.
  • Gaia's Vengeance: Since the story of 4 revolves around a god called Gaia.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Alice, until Extreme/PF. Complete with blue hair.
  • Gonk: Dear lord, Busuzima.
    • 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.
  • Guest Fighter: Yugo pops up in DreamMix TV World Fighters, a Mascot Fighter featuring characters from Konami, Hudson, and Takara.
  • Guide Dang It: No one knows how to do Shina's third Beast Drive. Or Busuzima's. No one who requires oxygen, at least.
  • Hair of Gold: Shina. Also, Jenny; she's a bit of a seductress, but still a good-natured woman at heart.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: The whole cast.
  • 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.
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Sums up why most people hate these games.
    • Ironically 2s greatest strength and 4s 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...
  • Hired Guns: Both Gado and Shina are former mercenaries.
  • 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.
  • An Ice Person: Cronos' penguin form.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Everyone... friggin' everyone.
  • Jiggle Physics: Not just the boobs... but the guys' muscles as well!
  • Ki Attacks: Long and Shenlong employ a bit of it.
  • Killer Rabbit: Quite possibly Alice, even though she's not the Blood Knight kind.
  • Lady in Red: Jenny. Ok, it's more like a hot pink, but close enough.
  • Last-Name Basis: Long, Gado, Busuzima.
  • Left Hanging: Just about everything.
  • Legacy Character: The mantle of Bakuryu. It first belonged to Badass Grandpa Old Master assassin Ryozo Kato [1], before being passed on to his apprentice, Kenji Ogami.
  • Lethal Joke Character: The Penguin will kick your ass.
    • 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...
  • Light Is Not Good: Xion. Considering that one of his Beast Drives creates a Holy Cross out of light...
    • Considering that in English, his name would be pronounced "Zion" instead of "Shion" (the Japanese equivalent), this might be intentional.
  • Limit Break: Beast Drives, first introduced in 2, which deal incredible amounts of damage at the cost of forcing you back into human form afterwards.
  • Little Miss Badass: Uriko... at times.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: 3.
  • Killer Robot: Kohryu, a mindless clone-robot of the first Bakuryu who is a rival/enemy of his successor. Comes complete with a Rocket Punch and Macross Missile Massacre!
  • 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 Catgirl (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 Cronous are named after deities for a reason...
  • Miko: Nana.
  • Names to Run Away From Very Fast - Xion the Unborn
  • Nebulous Evil Organisation: Tylon and the ZLF mostly.
  • 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.
  • Noisy Nature
  • Not Blood Siblings: Yugo and Bakuryu, along with Alice and Uriko.
  • Not Just a Tournament: Each tournament revolves around diplomatic tensions between zoanthropes and humankind due to experiments being conducted on zoanthropes, 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: Gado and 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...
  • Panthera Awesome: No fewer than five characters, two of whom are tigers.
  • Panty Shot: In all of Jenny's costumes, you can do several attacks that reveal a G-string.
    • Nagi, thanks to a practically non-existent skirt. At least one cutscene in 4 blatantly focuses on her barely-clothed rear.
  • Parental Substitute: Ryoho is a father-figure for Nana.
  • 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 Crono's 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.
  • The Protagonist: Yugo, who doubles as the Series Mascot.
  • 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: Zoantrhopy is seemingly randomly developed.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Among other examples, Nagi (when controlled by the Unborn) and Ryoho (when he loses control of his Dragon transformation).
  • Redheaded Heroine: Nagi, in her Spurious form.
  • Ring Out
  • Scarf of Asskicking: Bakuryu II aka Kenji.
  • 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.
  • Shorttank: Shina, with a light dash of Sugar and Ice Personality in her.
  • 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 Steven Goldberg.
    • 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 shoutout to the Witchblade anime design.
  • SNK Boss: Cronos, Ryoho, Uranus.
  • Sobriquet: 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.)
  • Spinning Piledriver; Bakuryu's 1st Beast Drive, which begins with an explosion of leaves.
  • Split Personality/Super-Powered 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.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: All the new characters in 4.
    • And Xion ever since 3.
  • Stoic Spectacles: Long.
  • Stout Strength: Ganesha.
  • 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 bring 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.
  • Surprisingly Good English: Arcade versions of the games in Japan.
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Jenny, Shina, Nagi, and Uranus. The first three are simply well-meaning women who are somewhat aloof, while the latter is implied to be a tormented soul of sorts.
  • Villainous Crossdresser: Fox (Hans in some versions), the aforementioned narcissistic Dude Looks Like a Lady fox. He works as a psychotic assassin for Tylon and is extremely effeminate. He accidentally kills his mother in the process, and snaps. Oh, and he's British. Those are some Unfortunate Implications if we've ever seen 'em.
  • Warrior Prince: Cronos.
  • 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.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Xion, Cronos, and Reiji.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Uranus. It's more like a grayish/silverish-blue, but you should get the general idea.
  • Will They or Won't They?: A few teased couples, notably Yugo/Alice and Gado/Jenny.
  • 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 red longcoat and he's got BLADES coming 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.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: How many wrestling moves can you count?
  • 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.
  1. ↑ who was liquefied soon afterward
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