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I know that SFV is out tomorrow but for whatever reason I had craving to play some Bloody Roar: Primal Fury yesterday. Whatever made me want to play the game I don’t know but I’m glad I did. Primal Fury is a great fighting trip down memory lane.

The Blood Roar is kind of a lucky duck of a fighting game. It was a 3D fighting game, based on the PS1 in the late 1990’s, that focused on a gimmick, and violence. For many fighters, that was death sentence (literally). Somehow Bloody Roar avoided that fate and lived on for quite a bit. The game was published by Husdon Soft (then just Hudson) and developed by Eighting. Eighting is a bit of an interesting company, it was founded and staffed by former Capcom members. So when it started work on Bloody Roar, you could say that fighting games were in its genes. I encourage you not to because its a really lame word pun only put here to make an awkward transition to the next section.

Primal Fury was released on the Game Cube in 2002. It was the update to Bloody Roar 3 on the PS2 in the previous year. Usually its rare to say that the GameCube version is the superior version but in this case its vastly improves the graphics of the PS2, which still hold up today. Blood Roar is a pretty simple fighter that features four buttons: punch, kick, guard, and beast. Doing attacks fills up your beast gauge which once its filled, turns you into your battle beast. Beast-ing it up isn’t just for show. You have different moves, your health slowly regains, and you have access to super attacks. However, beast mode has its draw backs. Any damage you take in beast form is taken out of your beast gauge and once at zero, you become human again. On top of that, supers also take you back to human form easily. However, a new mode was added to Primal Fury that kind of addresses this, hyper beast form. At the cost of two meters you have access to this state which gives you a stronger, faster form that can do unlimited supers for a brief time.

There’s a lot of though put into Primal Fury’s combat. There’s command chain combos, the ability to cancel a combo into a beast change and still continue the combo, guard breaks, and more. There are some weird hiccups here and there though. Balance on a few of the unlock able characters and movement options (you can only side step into back ground or foreground when you press a button. Weird thing to have when you are a 3D game). Overlooking the negatives, Primal Fury is still a fun game. As a kid, I played the heck out it and loved ever minute of it. I loved the goofy modes, the characters, and the music, oh lord, the music. This soundtrack screams “Early 2000’s anime” in every great way possible. Its a constant reminder that life (and fighting games) didn’t stop when Street Fighter wasn’t there. If you have a chance to pick up the game, or its Xbox update Bloody Roar Extreme, please do. Its a (Insert Furry Pun Here) time.