Bloody Roar 2 is a marginal improvement
that still suffers from second-best status due to the exclusion of integral
gameplay elements that should never have been messed with.
Bloody Roar first appeared on the
fighting-game map a little more than a year ago, it was a refreshing surprise
by a development team not known for fighters. Eighting/Raizing, whose previous
effort was the critically acclaimed shooter Soukyugurentai, practically came
out of nowhere with this savvy blend of anthropomorphic/lycanthropic combatants.
The fast, furious fighting found in the game made playing other fighters of the
time (Dead or Alive, Street Fighter EX) seem tedious and sluggish by
comparison.
Bloody Roar 2, no one can deny the wealth
of features available at the outset: arcade mode, story mode, training,
survival, time attack, etc. It's all in here. There's also the extra customs
menu, where you can select things like the big-head modes and other stuff also
found in the first game. While there isn't anything as luxurious as a Tekken
Force mode or an RPG mode, most gamers usually don't fret over such details, and
won't miss them here either. Graphically, the game is as gorgeous as the first
installment - in fact, it looks almost exactly the same, with beautiful
light-sourcing, speedy 60fps action, and all sorts of special effects when
switching into beast mode.
Gratuitous character swapping aside,
little has changed from the first game, prompting the question, "why
bother?" Why bother indeed when Bloody Roar 2 actually takes a step back
and removes the ease of executing the sidestep! For reasons unfathomable,
somebody actually went ahead and removed the perfectly functional sidestep,
which was the main reason the American version of BR1 was a fairly balanced
fighter. While there is an option in the custom mode that activates the
sidestep (performed by pressing right after executing a block), it's hardly
intuitive and only serves to give the computer an additional edge while you
struggle with the controls. Without this function, Bloody Roar 2 reverts to the
all-out frontal assault that the import version of the first game was. While
the new characters are much better than the ones they replaced, and the number
of available moves per character has increased, the incentive to keep on playing
wanes severely after a few rounds. The mode most gamers will enjoy playing is
the story mode, which gives you a good deal of background material on each
fighter.
In its defense, the voice-overs and sound
effects are very well done, while the overall gameplay is responsive and fast
paced, making fighters like Dead or Alive seem slow and ponderous.
Nevertheless, you'd be foolish to call BR2 a Tekken-killer. It's really
disappointing, because it really could have been. Unfortunately, while surprise
developer Eighting/Raizing could have used Bloody Roar 1 as a blueprint for
even greater things with the sequel, it appears as if the team dropped the
ball.
The bottom line is, if you never picked
up the first game, Bloody Roar 2 is still a good game, with a much better cast
than the first one. However, in contrast to the original American version of
BR1, Bloody Roar 2 is a marginal improvement that still suffers from
second-best status due to the exclusion of integral gameplay elements that
should never have been messed with. The game is a major disappointment for such
a promising series.
1) Download & Exract With WinRAR
2) Play & Enjoy This Game
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