Gameplay is rather simple-looking. Firstly, a slot machine-esque wheel comes out with the player's attack options. The player has to press a button to stop the wheel and select their attack. Next, a slot machine-esque wheel comes out with the player's attack power. Again, the player presses to stop the wheel. The opponent also gets the same for both. Whoever gets the higher attack power will then use their attack against the other. Gameplay continues until one animal is defeated.
Finally, after years of Capcom Sequel Stagnation, it has received a sequel in the form of Great Animal Kaiser.
Tropes present in this game:
- Animals Not to Scale: Every single creepy-crawly and snake is at least the size of a large cat. Inversely, animals like whales got scaled down to be moderately bigger than elephants, albeit there are some attacks where they gain their actual size, and the bosses are depicted in their full size for their Battle Intro.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Several, such as the Dark Forces, the alien invaders, and Brutus' Gang. And they still say that that every animal in the game exists in real life...
- Attack Its Weak Point: Mecha Lion-Elite's ability. The attack animation is unchanged, but it does give massive damage boost.
- Auto-Revive: The "Survivor" miracle effect, which can revive your animal should it lose all its health.
- Brutus, Joker, and the latter's minions have the Grim Reaper ability, which revives them from defeat at one hit point (more in Brutus and Joker's case) if it is active.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Brutus reluctantly learned and mastered the Forbidden Arts, but it's done to protect his family and clan. Deconstructed as Brutus still possessed the dangerous power regardless, thus is exiled from his clan (except Blue) and got imprisoned.
- BFS: Some of the attacks employ this, like Alien Egg A, or Celeo and Regulus' strongest moves. Exaggerated in some cases where swords longer than Earth is used to slice off said planet.
- Big Bad: Armageddon Vertus seems to be one for the entire franchise.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Every Single insect, arachnid and creepy-crawly fits here.
- Big Good: Galleon, who is Leo's dad, Siegfried's mentor (who goes to train other hero animals), and gives Celeo and Regulus bracelets.
- Blatant Lies: Very much so in the later versions of the game. Said versions claim during the Attract Mode that every animal in the game exists in real life. It's especially cringe inducing when the game boldly makes said claim while showcasing the Mecha beastsnote . And don't get us started on the ninjas, aliens, Dark Forces, Brutus' gang, etc...
- From a Certain Point of View, most likely. The animals that serve as the 'bases' for the Animal Cards would certainly be in real life (except the machines).
- Blood Knight: Brutus is eager to unleash his forbidden power at any given opportunity.
- Blow You Away: Almost every bird character has a move where they whip up a whirlwind using their wings.
- Capcom Sequel Stagnation: And how! The only difference between each version of the game are the new cards introduced into the roster, tweaks to the existing gameplay mechanics, and the final boss. The overall plot does not change at all! Then again, given it's No Plot? No Problem! nature...
- Finally averted with the release of Great Animal Kaiser, although it's already given that Great Animal Kaiser will be going into it's own set of Capcom Sequel Stagnations.
- Combination Attack: Some animals' attacks involve other animals attacking together with them, such as Hippo Daddy and his sons, Kid and Joe, Konsuke and Tanumaru, Raging Celeo and Raging Regulus.
- Combined Energy Attack: The Master versions of the hero characters have this. They draw power from their comrades (and a flower), which heals them, AND allows them to use a very powerful attack!
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Hoo boy. The game creates much Fake Difficulty, especially against the final opponent. There is a very high chance that game rigs the attack power slots and makes you roll 10 lower than your opponent (even when it was supposed to stop earlier- they make it roll to the next number!) or making the opponent roll 10 higher than you.
- Damage Reduction: When your animal is getting attacked, there's a chance of them getting Focus Guard. If successful, it will take reduced damage (or reduce it to 0, for Triple Focus) and is guaranteed to survive the attack. However, this does not work if your animal's health is already low.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Regulus is Scorch's son but is on the side of good.
- Death or Glory Attack: The Forgotten Warriors' Desperation Attack. For the attack roll, it makes them use either their strongest attack OR their Limit Break. The catch? For the power roll they either get a Doubling (the highest, beats out everything except itself) or a 10 (the lowest, loses to everything except itself).
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Many attacks, examples are some miracle attacks like Alligned Planets. Also the strongest attacks of Kaiser Rare animals and both versions of Vertus.
- Fartillery: The Hippo brothers can use this.
- Feather Flechettes: Quite a number of the birds have this.
- Final Boss: The final boss has kept changing throughout the iterations:
- Version 2: Special Ops Leo
- Version 3: Siegfried
- Version 4: Scorch
- Version 5: Atlas
- Version 6: Galleon
- Version 7 (JP)/Evolution 1: Death Scorch
- Version 8 (JP)/Evolution 2 (Normal difficulty): Ninja Trained Siegfried
- Version 9 (JP)/Evolution 2 (Strong difficulty): Kaiser Coral
- Version 10 (JP)/Evolution 3: Zangetsu
- Version 11 (JP)/Evolution 4: Mecha Lion-Elite
- Version 12 (JP)/Evolution 5: Brutus
- Version 13 (JP)/Evolution 6: Emperor Vertus
- Version 14 (JP)/Evolution 7: Armageddon Vertus (Admiral Eraser for Evolution 7 Normal difficulty)
- Flying Seafood Special: Flying sharks. I kid ye not.
- Foil: Galleon and Scorch are both Kaiser Coral's proteges, with the former being good, light-based lion who has a best attack of Zerg Rushing his opponent with numerous smaller geists, and a special ability that strengthens both his attack and defense, and the latter being evil, dark-based lion who summons a single, gigantic geist (also the attack's name) as his best attack and has a special ability that weakens the opponent's attack and defense.
- Friendly Fireproof: Some animals have attacks that ends with them getting injured themselves, such as Hippo Barry's Rolling Malta, or even being caught on the destruction of Earth. And yet somehow, they don't take any damage...
- Giant Food: Some of the Alien Eggs cards has this, B has a giant bowl of ramen, H has a giant takoyaki, L has a giant steamed bun, N has a giant box of pizza
- The Hero: Leo, and later his younger brother Apollo, then his son Celeo.
- An Ice Person: The mammoths have a move where they uses their trunk to suck in icy air, then fire it out in a Flechette Storm of icicles.
- Kill Sat: The Mecha beast DX versions use one as their strongest attack.
- Limit Break: "Miracle Attacks". These do a massive amount of damage and cannot be blocked/guarded from.
- Life Drain: Some abilities inflict the "Vampire" Status Effect. This doesn't turn the foe into a vampire, but it does drain their health (unless blocked by Iron Heart).
- Meteor Move: Several of them. There's also...
- Meteor-Summoning Attack: Some Miracle attacks involve dropping meteors to the opponent.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Quite a number of attacks are Stock Animal Behavior infused with the Rule of Cool.
- No-Sell: The Mikiri ability, of which the animal (example: Ninja Trained Siegfried, Zangetsu) gets an increasing chance to avoid an attack each time they got hit by an attack. If this succeeds, they "see through the attack" and use a Ninja Log in their place.
- The Mecha beasts' Iron Heart ability makes them immune to all Status Effects.
- There's also P Guard, T Guard, and G Guard, which No Sells P, T and G attacks.
- Ninja: Ninja Trained Siegfried, Zangetsu and his companions.
- One-Hit Kill: Death Scorch's "Curse of the Nether", which is inflicted by his strongest attack. It makes Death Scorch's next successful attack deal ludicrous damage (50000 damage displayed as 9999) enough to kill any character.
- Panthera Awesome: There are many characters that are big cats.
- King of Beasts: Leo, Galleon, Scorch, Apollo (Liger), Regulus, etc.
- Psycho Electric Eel: The torpedo ray, who can fire an Energy Ball of lightning at his opponent.
- Recycled In SPACE: Ninja Trained Siegfried is Siegfried WITH NINJA TRAINING!!!
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Armageddon Vertus is orange and black, and is pretty much the biggest baddie up to now.
- Repeat Cut: Used in numerous attacks, of which somehow each cuts incrase the attack's damage further.
- Robeast: The Mecha beasts, like Mecha Lion-Elite.
- Rocket Punch: The Mecha Gorillas' best attack.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: The game is timebombed. Once the expiry date of the game has been reached, the machine will refuse to start or continue operating, instead displaying a message saying that the licensing module has expired and asking the operator to contact their distributor for support.
- Sizeshifter: The mammoths, such as Atlas, can grow to about the size of a building and stomp on their opponents. The whales can briefly subvert Animals Not to Scale and slam themselves down on their opponent in their full size. Vertus takes it up to eleven with his signature move, where he flies into space and grows to truly immense proportions before swatting the very Earth itself away with his tail.
- Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: Two of Vertus' attacks have him split the earth into two and smack it into oblivion respectively.
- Also, many of the miracle attacks like Black Hole, Saturn Saw, Aligned Planets, etc.
- A few examples coming from the animal's regular attacks include slicing the Earth into quarters, running completely around the Earth, tunneling completely through the Earth both ways, squashing the opponent flat, and eating the opponent.
- Space Whale: Vertus, who is a alien invader whale from space.
- Squashed Flat: Certain animals' attack inflicts this on the opponent, and every animal has a unique sprite of their squashed selves, complete with X-eyes, and Instant Bandages.
- Status Effects:
- Poison, which lowers the opponent's attack until the next turn.
- Curse, which lowers the opponent's defense until the next turn.
- Vampire, which drains health from the opponent after the attack.
- Curse of the Nether, which makes the opponent into a One-Hit-Point Wonder for the next turn.
- Stepping Stones in the Sky: Galleon's Limit Break has him do this after unleashing an energy wave that causes rocks to fly and hurt the opponent. He then finishes off with s Meteor Move.
- Threatening Shark: Various. Blue is their leader. And then there is Brutus, who did a Deal with the Devil.
- Turns Red: Several characters gain a Status Buff or special effect when their health gets low.
- Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Wildlife version.
- When the Planets Align: The "Aligned Planets" Miracle Attack. Apparently they all smash into each other and Earth in a Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke cutscene when this happens.
- World-Wrecking Wave: The strongest move of Kaiser Rares causes this.
