Video Game / Dino Rex

Boy, if I had a nickel for everytime they released a new arcade IP thats a one on one fighter featuring stop motion animated dinosaurs, I'd have...well, two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but its weird that its happened twice.

Dino Rex is an arcade Fighting Game developed by Taito and released in November 1992. It noticeably features a roster of six Stop Motion animated dinosaurs as its main playable characters, predating the better-known Primal Rage by a couple of years.

The story begins when a team of archaeologists uncover a clay figure of a man riding a dinosaur on Pre-Columbian ruins in South America, revealing that humans and dinosaurs coexisted together back in the 25th Century BC. In this world ruled by the Amazons, men of multiple tribes and their highly-trained, multi-ton scaly companions would prove their worth by participating in a fighting tournament against each other held once a year. Whoever came out as the winner would get to marry the Queen and rule the whole world for an entire year as the titular "Dino Rex" king.Now you, the player, and your own dino, must fight your way through multiple stages and reach the Auyán-Tepui to face the current Dino Rex in a decissive match that will decide the fate of the world.

One of Taito's most obscure entries, the game was helmed by most of the same crew behind Gun Frontier and Metal Black. The project was initially conceived as a Shoot 'Em Up, but got reworked into a fighting game after the massive success of Capcom's own Street Fighter II and the craze for similar titles it unleashed.

Initially launched for arcades, Dino Rex was re-released in 2007, bundled as part of the Japan-exclusive Taito Memories II Jokan compilation for PlayStation 2.

Dino Rex includes examples of the following tropes:

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• Acrofatic: The Tyrannosaurus can perform some truly wicked fighting moves in spite of its rotund build. Triceratops and the unplayable Monoclonius are also equally fast and versatile, being even capable of rearing up and running on their back legs!
• After the End: While the game's prologue states that the story takes place in the 25th Century B.C, the city-destroying minigames suggest that, in the modern age, dinosaurs somehow reappeared on Earth, completely devastated human civilization and forced the survivors to live like their stone age ancestors before they eventually regained some control by taming the very same creatures responsible for their fall. Mr. Ho Lee Chan appearing in the end credits lends credence to this.
• Adipose Rex: The current Dino Rex is extremely obese and not a jovial Big Fun either. The Tyrannosaurus rex is also portrayed with a rather chunky figure.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The game's introduction clearly states that everything elapses in the ancient past, but the minigames where you destroy Ho Lee city show it going from a modern metropolis to a primal land covered by vegetation, and the humans who survived the dino's rampage are know wearing loincloths and fur bikinis while hunting animals with spears and living in tribal huts, with the implication that non-avian dinosaurs somehow came back from the dead, destroyed civilization as we know it and humans began living like their ancestors until they eventually managed to tame the dinosaurs and use them as fighting beasts, and thus the events that take place in the prologue must happen sometime in the far future. However, nothing really confirms whether this is the case, and muddling things further is the fact we see Mr. Ho Lee at the very end of the final credits sequence.
  • In the epilogue, the people who discovered the figure wonder what happened to the tribe, and a man who claims himself to be a descendant of them simply says that they "became leaves of the jungle". Make of that what you will.
• Anachronism Stew: Non-avian dinosaurs in the 25th Century BC. Interestingly, unlike other examples of this trope, where the dinos usually live side-by-side with Paleolithic humans, this game has them living alongside a pre-Columbian South American civilization. Additionally, while many of the creatures at least hail from the Late Cretaceous, there's also a handful of Jurassic species, such as Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Archaeopteryx and Rhamphorhynchus. Then again, the game's timeline may be more complicated than what is shown here.
• Animal Gender-Bender: The Pteranodon that snatches either the player or the rival after being defeated in a match is a female, but has the elongated crest of a male.
• Animals Not to Scale: The playable dinos are massive, and some in particular, such as the Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch, tower over their real-life counterparts.
• Artistic License – Paleontology:
  • Zig-zagged. On one hand, all of the playable dinosaurs are deliberately inspired by retro films, with dragging tails, upright postures, and sprawling legs. However, despite their ungainly looks, they are incredibly active, being able to move at a speedy pace, jumping very high and can do all sorts of varied combat moves and techniques. Also, all of the background prehistoric creatures are more in-line with then-current paleontological knowledge, having horizontal postures, tails lifted away from the ground, and upright limbs. Some such as Ornithomimus and Archaeopteryx, possess plumage.
  • All of the playable animals are considerably oversized.
  • The bipedal dinos have pronated hands.
  • Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch are treated as separate creatures. Current consensus heavily indicates that Stygimoloch was most likely just a growth stage of Pachycephalosaurus.
  • While most primitive and basal ceratopsians were either fully or partially bipedal, larger, more derived forms such as Triceratops were obligate quadrupeds and most definitely could not run, much less stand, on their hind legs.
  • While the Ornithomimus has a mohawk of feathers on its head, it is otherwise completely scaly. Current research has shown that ornithomimids, like many of their fellow theropods, were covered in plumage and even had wings. A cutscene also shows it with a chicken-like beak rather than the more bill-like corny beak it had.
  • Pinacosaurus is capable of curling into a ball like an armadillo when agitated. No ankylosaurs or nodosaurs could do this at all.
  • The Brachiosaurus in stage 4 has an elongated, giraffe-like tongue that it uses to scare away your dino should you get too close to it. It also has the usual wrinkly, elephantine skin sauropods are usually portrayed with in media.
  • The Deinonychus that pops up to eat the Power-Up Food eggs if you take too long to consume them is very much a product of its time, scaly, very lizard-looking and with pronated hands.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The bonus stages that you play after beating each two story mode levels allow your dino to wreck a modern city, stomping military vehicles, reducing buildings to rubble and eating soldiers and unlucky bystanders in true Kaiju style.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • A game about massive prehistoric beasts duking it out sounds like a truly epic idea, but unfortunately, this game's extremely rushed state and janky frame rate means the playable dinos will often have a hard time getting a good hit at their enemies with their stubby limbs using the vaseline attacks, which means you'll have to rely on the combos at your disposal to defeat your opponents. And even though the combos are fairly easy to execute, they will take up energy slots which have to be replenished by roaring, which can leave you unprotected if you're not fast enough. Not helped by the fact that you can get interrupted in the middle of a combo, and that you're almost always outmatched by the rival AI in most of the stages.
  • The Tyrannosaurus rex is this, natch. Its attacks deal devastating amounts of damage and it's a tempting choice for many first-time players, but it's slower and clumsier than many of the other dinosaurs, its kicks and slashes have barely any reach, and it gobbles up all the items that can be used as improvised weapons rather than using them to attack. Ironically, the Big Bad's T-rex is a much better fighter, but if you're crafty enough to use tail attacks, you can kick its ass without much problem.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Beating the entire game results in the main human character getting instated as the new Dino Rex, as several amazons run toward him to congratulate him.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: In a rare inversion of this trope, it's the main warriors the ones who do this. They control their dinosaurs by whipping them nonstop.
• Beastly Bloodsports: Two dinos brutally fight each other to the death while a tumultuous crowd looks on. Their trainers control them by whipping them constantly. Pretty messed up, don't you think?
• Behemoth Battle: Nothing like mighty dinosaurs beating the ever-loving tar out of each other in a journey to become the king of the world.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The main antagonist of the game is the current Dino Rex. An old man in a cutscene tells the player that he's planning on leading the world down a path of darkness and corruption and must be stopped. The dream segments have Ho Lee Chan, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who effectively rules over a city with an iron fist. Both are completely unconnected.
• Big "WHAT?!": Ho Lee Chan, the main bad guy of the city-destroying minigames, utters one in the first Bonus Stage when he realizes your dino is coming after him. It's positively hilarious.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The English text kind of makes sense and it's possible to get a good gist of what it's saying, but it's still filled with obvious typos, grammatical inconsistencies and overly literally translated words which results in many awkward sentences.
• Bonus Stage: After beating two story levels, you're treated to a minigame where your dinosaur must rampage across a modern-day city while smashing up buildings, tanks and combat airplanes while pursuing the evil mogul Ho Lee Chan. All of these begin when the hero gets himself absolutely drunk after his second victory.
• Boring, but Practical: Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch may not be as impressive as their co-stars and have extremely irritating calls, but they may very well be the most useful players in the entire game. They're much faster and nimbler than the other dinos, and their attacks, combos and moves can deal a fair amount of damage if done correctly. In addition, their elongated tails have plenty of reach and are handy enough to be used as whips.
• Company Cross References: The Hero is Rastan from the Rastan Saga series.
• Cool Mask: The male warriors wear white, simple masks with striped patterns and a long, mane-like wig.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: In the bonus stages, Mr. Ho Lee is the uber-rich tycoon of a chain of ice cream and donut stores who effectively rules unopposed over a metropolis named after him. According to cutscenes, he made most of his fortune through underhanded means and "all tragedies were his comedies."
• Covers Always Lie: See the T-rex on the arcade flyer? Looks appropriately majestic, intimidating and dignified, doesn't it? Too bad the Tyrannosaurus in the actual game is a far cry from those adjectives.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: After beating his T-rex, the current Dino Rex challenges you to a fight mano-a-mano with him. It goes as well as you expect for him.
• Digitized Sprites: All of the main playable dinosaurs are rendered this way.
• Domesticated Dinosaurs: The ancient civilization depicted in the game coexists with a plethora of tamed prehistoric animals, some of which are trained for fighting.
• Dramatic Unmask: After defeating the Big Bad, The Hero takes off his mask and reveals himself as Rastan, the eponymous hero of Rastan and its two sequels.
• Easter Egg: The main human character is Rastan, in a particularly bizarre tie-up to another Taito entry.
• Fan Disservice: On one hand, you have lots of scantily clad Amazons and hyper-buff guys walking around shirtless, and on the other, there's the evil Dino Rex, a morbidly obese guy who wears nothing but his mask, a loincloth and a pair of leather boots.
• Fanservice Extra: Lots of Amazons clad in skimpy bikinis run around in the background of each stage.
• Fat Bastard: The game's Big Bad, the current Dino Rex is a very heavyset man and has sinister plans in mind for the world at large. Mr. Ho Lee has quite the gut as well.
• Fed to the Beast: Anyone who loses a battle (including YOU, the player) will be carried away by a Pteranodon mother, eager to feed you to her kids. This ultimately happens to the incumbent Dino Rex as well.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: One of the Power-Up eggs you can eat (specifically, the red one) allows your dino to spit a stream of flames at its opponent.
• Funny Background Event: At the start of the fifth stage, it's possible to see a guy standing at the top of a waterfall. He falls down with a comical scream after a while. It happens at the start of every round in that level.
• Game Over: If you don't push the continue button in time or add more credits, you'll be treated to a lovely scene of Mama Pteranodon gobbling you up and preparing to feed your mushy remains to her seven children.
• Genre Throwback: The playable dinos are very deliberately based on the stop-motion beasts of older films like The Valley of Gwangi, One Million Years B.C. and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and were even brought to life with a similar process.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: The final opponent of your journey is the Big Bad's very own Tyrannosaurus rex, which has a solid golden color and is a more effective fighter than the playable one.
• Headbutting Pachy: The Pachycephalosaurus and the Stygimoloch both have plenty of head-based attacks.
• Head Swap: Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus, Triceratops and Monoclonius and Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch.
• Horn Attack: Triceratops and Monoclonius are the resident ceratopsians and appropiately enough, make good use of their trademark horns. Only the Trike is playable, though. The Ceratosaurus also briefly utilizes its nose horn for one of its attacks.
• Improvised Weapon: While causing destruction, your dino will occasionally uncover some items and creatures which it can pick up with its mouth and use as a makeshift weapon to harm its opponent. Some include massive bones, logs and even a Pinacosaurus which can be used as a living flail. The T-rex on the other hand, will eat them up instead.
• Informed Species: The Pteranodon in the game have head crests more similar to those of the related genus Geosternbergia. To be fair, Geosternbergia is sometimes considered to be an earlier species of Pteranodon.
• Last Villain Stand: After you take down the rival Dino Rex's Tyrannosaurus, he challenges you to a final hand-to-hand battle in a desperate attempt to keep his throne. He goes down after a few hits and is abducted by a mother Pteranodon.
• Mascot: Stygimoloch is featured in the game's logo.
• Mirror Match: No matter which dino you choose, you'll end up fighting another of its kind in at least one stage. The Allosaurus in particular, as the first opponent of your journey is another Allo. The only exception to the rule is Monoclonius, but even then, it's basically a one-horned Triceratops. And since many of the dinos are essentially head swaps of each other, minus the T-rex, there really isn't much difference.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Absolutely none of the species depicted in the game lived in South America, much less Venezuela, the exact place where everything takes place. And, for that matter, what is a Pteranodon doing inland so far away from its coastal habitat, and hunting humans instead of its more adequate aquatic, fishy prey?
• Noisy Nature: All of the playable dinos, but specially Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: As revealed by this blog entry about the game, some of the dinos were created from modified Kaiyodo models.
• Power-Up Food: During combat, a Pteranodon will fly over the stage and lay an egg which the player's dinosaur must consume to obtain a certain ability. Normal eggs restore its health, while the red one allows it to breathe fire at its enemies and the orange one allows it to spit out orange, sticky flowers. Your enemy can gobble them as well, and if neither combatant is fast enough to eat the egg, a Deinonychus will appear and devour it instead.
• Prehensile Tail: Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch have very flexible tails which they can use as improvised whips to ensnare and throw their enemies away.
• Prehistoria: The game's setting is a pre-Columbian inspired world where Nubile Savages and mesozoic fauna live side by side.
• Recycled In Space: It's Street Fighter (or at least tries to be) with DINOSAURS! The use of Digitized Sprites also brings to mind Mortal Kombat, whose first entry had been released just a month prior.
• Raptor Attack: The Deinonychus that shows up to eat the Power-Up Food eggs laid by the Pteranodons is scaly, without any form of feathering whatsoever and has pronated hands, looking almost exactly like the sketch made by John Ostrom.
• Royal Brat: The current Dino Rex. He throws an infantile hissy fit whenever you beat his T.rex, and, in one last attempt to maintain his title, challenges you to a decisive fist-to-fist combat.
• Scenery Porn: Each stage has gorgeously designed backgrounds with plenty of intricate little details in there.
• Sensory Abuse: To use combos, you have to expend segments of your Power Bar. You replenish it by screaming. Ear-piercingly screaming.
• Shout-Out:
  • As mentioned on Genre Throwback above, the playable dinosaurs are clearly modeled and animated in the same way as those found in the films of Ray Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien.
  • The clay figurines which kickstart the plot are likely a nod to the Acámbaro figures of Mexico and the Ica stones of Peru, alleged prehispanic relics which supposedly depict pre-Columbian civilizations coexisting with non-avian dinosaurs. Both have been exposed as fabrications.
  • After vanquishing the Big Bad for good, The Hero unmasks himself and reveals himself to be Rastan, the protagonist of fellow Taito title Rastan.
  • The player's dinosaurs often come in garish colors, including a purple T-rex.
• Shotoclone: Hilariously enough, the Rastan-like dinosaur trainers (which can only be played after a draw or against the final boss) have the basic Shoto repertoire, including Rhamphorhynchus projectiles. Given their lack of animations and oddly misplaced gameplay, it's safe to take it as an Affectionate Parody of Street Fighter II.
• Sore Loser: The incumbent Dino Rex. After you defeat his T-rex for good, rather than handing the crown peacefully, he attempts to secure onto it by challenging you to hand-to-hand combat. Doesn't end well for him.
• Swallowed Whole: The mother Pteranodon sometimes does this to the human losers of the battles. She noticeably does it to the main character in the Game Over screen, with the implication that she will regurgitate him as a more edible meal for her babies.
• Tail Slap: A standard attack for the bipedal dinos.
• Temper-Ceratops: Triceratops and Monoclonius are very resilient fighters, and the Monoclonius in particular will be a major wake-up call for beginning players.
• Terror-dactyl: The Pteranodon is shown to be a Maneater, whith one female in particular snatching up the human losers of each match and taking them to her nest to feed them to her hatchlings. She will even occasionally devour them whole!
• Throne Made of X: The throne of the Dino Rex is made from a Tyrannosaurus skull.
• Volumetric Mouth: The T-rex has a pretty wide mouth, which is particularly noticeable when it roars.
• Zerg Rush: A non-lethal variant. All stages have a timer, and if any of the fighters hasn't managed to beat their opponent by the time the timer reaches zero, they'll be forcibly stopped by a multitude of Amazons on horseback, a flock of Rhamphorhynchus, or, in levels with water, a pod of Platecarpus.