Alternative Character Interpretation: The Unborn possessing Xion in his debut can either be his sister's vengeful spirit or the Unborn posing as his sister's spirit, and may or may not be the same Unborn that appears in 4. You decide!
Anticlimax Boss: Dragon Ryoho, once you learn that his Beast Drive drains his Beast Gauge (aka the second health bar), and exploit that knowledge to turn him into a One-Hit-Point Wonder. In some cases, he even does himself in!
Awesome Art: The artwork of Naochika Morishita aka CARAMEL MAMA is beautiful to look at, having an intense edge that fits with the narrative of the second game. To many fans, playing the story mode is a great experience for watching his artwork. Sadly, he only contributed art for the second and third games as well as magazine adverts found in V-Jump at the time of those games' release.
It's vastly overlooked due to this series' cult-like status, but some of the music is top-notch. Take the opening to 3 for instance.
The soundtrack from 2 should also be called to attention, as it sounds like the long-lost cousin of Guilty Gear. The arcade version's music is no slouch either.
It goes back to the first game. This is Uriko's boss theme.
Shenlong, mostly in his first appearance. An evil clone of Long who was Nightmare Fuel incarnate thanks to the story mode, and who played identically to Long from the first game. His appearances after the second game weren't as well-received, though some appreciated how his blood feud with Long mellowed out as well as his Odd Friendship with none other than Uriko.
Fox developed a fanbase over the years, despite only appearing in the first game in the series. He was one of the most requested characters fans wanted to see come back, and his beast form is very popular with furries. Some even prefer him over Jenny.
The most prevalent of these are the connection between Uriko and Uranus, due to Uranus possessing the abilities Uriko had when she was the Final Boss in 1. The common theories are that she's either Uriko from the future or a clone of Uriko.
Related to that connection is whether or not there's a connection between Uranus and Cronos. In 3 and Primal Fury/Extreme, each character fights a person that is somehow linked to them; for example, Kenji/Bakuryu fights Yugo on the last stage to prove his worth to his big brother. Cronos faces Uranus, instead of Ganesha or Yugo, who are connected to his storyline (being his bodyguard and rival respectively).
It's speculated that Uranus may be the wife of King Orion, which would make her Cronos' mother. Supporters point out that Cronos' backstory says his mother was killed in a war along with his best friend, Jane (aka Shina), the latter of whom was revealed to be alive. The similarity of Cronos and Uranus' names (both Greek deities) are also taken as a hint at a deeper connection. Detractors point out that Uranus and Cronos look nothing like each other, and more importantly that official sources state there's only a five- or six-year age difference between the two. Uranus' lack of an ending sequence in all of her appearances doesn't help either of these arguments.
Fan Nickname: Crowanthropes for Reiji's human-sized Crow transformation.
Xion was effectively the new face of Bloody Roar 3, being sold as this new and supremely powerful fighter with a unique Zoantrope transformation (which doesn't even use an animal name, just the edgy-sounding "Unborn" title); even the intro was dedicated to him beating the crap out of the entire cast. In this game, Tylon takes a backseat and the plot is changed into what would become the Gaia's Vengeance narrative of 4, and Story Mode was replaced with the standard Arcade Mode of the first game, just with introductions unique to each character along with the expected endings. This was somewhat ignored due to the game being an Even Better Sequel as far as game mechanics go, but at the cost of story presentation.
The same deal happened with Cronos with his unique Phoenix transformation in Primal Fury/Extreme, who was a major player in many characters' scenarios. However, the old cast was still around and relevant, with Cronos having interactions with half of them, and their individual plotlines weren't forgotten, although some newly introduced interactions might look like they came out of nowhere, like Cronos' relationship with Shina that is not elaborated upon (which may also factor to how Nagi was stated to have a relations with Yugo out of nowhere).
Finally, it is easy to forget that the practice of demoting part of the established cast was a thing that started in Bloody Roar 2 — that game took out five of the nine previously established characters (with Gado being relegated to Secret Character status) and replaced them with characters that played similarly (with the exception of Uriko, who played entirely differently from her appearance in the first game, and Busuzima, who was entirely new). However, with the exception of Jenny, all of them were heavily involved with the story of the previous game and had a connection with the established cast. Likewise, this game started the trend of introducing new characters closely related to the established cast with Kenji (adopted brother of Yugo/former pupil of the first Bakuryu) and Shina (adopted daughter of Gado), but the story was still a direct sequel to the predecessor game, something Nagi in the following game doesn't have the excuse of having.
Uranus. She has most of the traits associated with Final Boss Uriko from the first game — the lightning powers, Teleport Spam, etc. From the beginning, she outclasses her foes, but upon accessing her Chimera form, her strength increases exponentially without losing speed. She can also immediately switch between her human and beast forms. Her Hyper Beast Mode, on the other hand, allows her to retain her human shape, but gives her the moveset of her beast form. For these reasons, it's no wonder that Uranus is usually banned from competitive and Tournament Play.
Ryoho, being an outright SNK Boss, is no better. For one, you fight him alongside Mana (who is in her Ninetails form). Mana usually serves as a distraction, allowing Ryoho to follow-up with devastating blows, the worst of which is a stance which unleashes a powerful punch the longer he holds it. Should he fall, Mana sacrifices her health to recharge his, taking her out of the battle, but giving Ryoho a second wind. His beast form, the Dragon, is the largest of all the fighters, with tremendous range, an OHKOfirebreath attack, and resistance to flinching. Like Uranus, he stays as a human in Hyper Beast Mode, and gains the fireball projectiles of his beast form. His dragon form happens to be the final boss too. The good news for that is that his health bar will already be emptied, so you could win just by simply dodging until either his beast gauge goes empty too and just inflict a few punches, or wait out the time limit.
Furthermore, one gameplay mechanic in Bloody Roar 4 allows you to sacrifice your health to charge your beast gauge. If a player would take control of Ryoho and use this, they will find that his health will not be subtracted, allowing Mana to spam Beast Drives with no apparent consequence.
The below-mentioned "WHAT DID YOU DO TO NAGI!?!?!?!" meme became this in 2021 with the release of Scarlet Nexus, wherein male protagonist Yuito has adequate reason to shout this exact same line upon learning that his older brother Kaito authorized his best friend Nagi to undergo personality rehabilitation and fight against Yuito. Granted, this situation doesn't have its dramatic impact undermined by narmy voice acting and tragically ends with the death of that particular Nagi.
For as much as people point out how similar the lore of the series is to X-Men, YouTuberThorgi's Arcade notices that the events of Primal Fury make the series beat their supposed inspirations to a punch with a plotline: the Zoanthropes forming their own reclusive nation after times of human discrimination; effectively predating the Krakoa arc of X-Men comics.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Not many people like the "move-practicing" aspect of the games. The series did move away from this starting with the PlayStation port of Bloody Roar... only to fall straight back into it from the third game onward, culminating in Bloody Roar 4, widely seen as the series' lowest point in this regard.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO NAGI!?!?!?!"ExplanationFrom Yugo's Arcade Mode in Bloody Roar 4, Yugo's angry but poorly delivered question to Xion when the two cross paths after the former fought against Nagi's Spurious form one stage prior. For bonus points, it's not even subtitled correctly in-game. ("What did you do to Nagi!!!") This being one of the first lines of voiced dialogue players will hear thanks to being in the game's opening sequence pretty much immortalized it, as did SCXCR's frequent potshots at BR4 liberally using this clip to showcase the quality of voice acting in this installment.
Busuzima's upward bicycle kicks, which are useful to troll your opponent with in Versus Mode.
Popular with Furries: As can be expected, since the fighters all morph into beast forms during play.
Ron the Death Eater: Many portrayals of Cronos in fanfiction often involve bashing him to no end and making him a gay, whiny, emo/snobbish brat who often is killed in various different gruesome ways. He was never really shown as wangst-ridden, spoiled, or gay either (bar the mistranslation noted in his section of the characters sheet).
The Scrappy: Most of the fandom doesn't take lightly to the new characters introduced in 4 (though of the four, Reiji and Mana seem to get the least flak), which also overlaps with the fandom's hatred for 4 in general. To elaborate: Those characters (Nagi in particular) take center stage in front of all the other characters in all forms possible (the DVD packaging, the advertising, the introduction video, even the character select screen has Nagi immediately selected rather than Yugo), while the veteran cast have little to no relevance to the overall plot whatsoever, with the exception of Yugo and Xion, but that is mainly due to their relationship with Nagi (Yugo was apparently an object with her at some point and Xion is implied to be her brother).
The arcade version of Bloody Roar 1 (known as Beastorizer) was a fairly crude mash fest with poor controls, crap A.I., a wannabe SNK Boss that can be defeated by blocking and punch spamming, and no balance whatsoever. Next came Bloody Roar 2, which was a wonderfully elegant game — the first game's engine was refined, making it easier to pick up and play, while also making it nearly impossible to move spam, dramatically improving the A.I., and fixing up/tweaking the mechanics. Thus, you had a game that was simple to pick up yet had a surprising amount of depth, and would screw you over if you didn't learn the intricacies. It also helps that the PS1 port added a story mode that made every character's individual storyline connect with each other, came with their own ending (almost all of which are canon), and even had routes for the unlockable characters (Gado and Shenlong).
Depending on how you view it, Bloody Roar 3 can be considered an Even Better Sequel due to being faster while still maintaining 60 FPS, featuring some semblance of a parry system, giving a couple of characters who borrowed many moves from previous characterstheir own movesets (such as Shenlong and Jenny playing far more differently from Long and Fox), and a bigger focus on 3D fighting*Previous games did give you the option to sidestep, but this one was more focused on it due to it being on by default and actively encouraging you to use it, especially since air combos were easier to pull off. The downside is that Story Mode was simplified and integrated into Arcade Mode (like almost every other fighting game to date), and the story in general was deemed lacking compared to the previous game.
Primal Fury/Extreme is often considered the best in the series (or at least the most remembered one). Aside from having improved graphics, an amazing soundtrack, and the best voice acting by far (thanks in part to the use of professional voice actors, many of whom were well-known for their work on the Metal Gear Solid series), it features endings for most of the characters in the form of animated cutscenes.
Stun used to be a top-notch scientist at Tylon, but was captured by his friend/rival, Busuzima, when he learned about the evils of the organization. Busuzima then used Stun as a guinea pig in an attempt to create the first man-made Zoanthrope. The experiment "succeeded" and mutated Stun into an insect-man-beast that was unable to fully change back to human. The unstable nature of his form meant he was in constant agony. Stun vowed revenge on the company and the person who deformed him, but the pain proved too great for him to bear. He died bitter, miserable, and alone. Even when he apparently turned out to be alive, he's still searching for a way to get himself back to normal.
Ryoho arguably qualifies as well. Sure, he's a strong badass who can handle Zoanthropes in his human form alone (sometimes with help from Mana's beast form), but that doesn't change the fact that he has a dragon form that could decimate the world at any moment if the seal is weakened, which can happen if other characters manage to weaken him enough, or if Xion wills it to happen due to being possessed by the Unborn. What this basically means is that Ryoho is in harm's way at all times, and has to stay alive until his dragon form is subdued or else risk killing everything around him. This is also not helped that of all the endings, two result in him getting murdered in front of Mana!
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Bloody Roar 4 changed how the health system worked. Everyone would agree this was a dumb move. Fans were also not fond of the new characters, poor A.I., ease of Button Mashing (going from being next to impossible in 2, to being a way to get an automatic combo in 4), the change to the series' image, and the inexplicable negation of a good deal of the Character Development the previous entries had.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Tylon Corporation arc may be a cross-derivative between X-Men and Resident Evil, but the fans generally agreed that it was well-executed. However, the whole plot is canned after 2, and afterwards came Xion and his edgy-sounding "Unborn" form, which would culminate into a Gaia's Vengeance arc in 4, which is largely considered lackluster and not favorably comparable with the Tylon arc.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some secondary characters don't receive a whole lot of development, such as Namaniki and Momo, who could have easily been written out of the storyline. Not to mention the existence of the fish god was pretty much forgotten. Weird, considering it may have been interesting to see two gods conflict with each other.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Elements of previous subplots (especially the first half) are not referenced in later chapters, such as the aforementioned fish god.
to 3 for instance.