Bloody Roar

Bloody Roar has kept somewhat the same controls over the series. A button each for both punch and kick, the beast (transform/attack) button, and a fourth button that has been either a throw button, a block button, an evade button (introduced for some characters in Bloody Roar 4 ), or a rave button (an early version of Hyper Beast form in the original Bloody Roar only). Bloody Roar is a 3D fighting game series in the same vein as Dead or Alive , Soulcalibur , Tekken , and Virtua Fighter . Although some characters have remained mostly identical throughout all five games, others have changed vastly.

For example, Yūgo has a new moveset with many different moves in Extreme/Primal Fury and 4 compared to his original in previous games, but Bakuryū has stayed almost the same apart from a few extra moves which are relevant to the games' evolution over time. Characters in Bloody Roar have standard moves and command moves. Standard moves are combination style moves from fighting games such as Tekken , where the player must press different buttons to create "combos", sometimes pressing the directional pad in one of eight directions at the same time. Command moves are special moves that require a rolling technique with the directional pad while inputting certain commands, like Street Fighter .

Each character has fourteen "suggested" combination techniques listed in the manuals for each game, most of these can vary in many different ways, allowing around forty to seventy combination techniques with each character. Every character also has at least eight command moves, which can be incorporated into cancel points for standard moves or combos. There are around twenty to forty cancel points in each character's combo palette. These cancel points, when utilized with command moves, can then be cancelled once more, allowing the player to begin a new strategy with adequate timing.

As well as this, the combat system has two types of dodging techniques: a heavy and light block that spans over three parts of the body, instead of the typical two in most fighting games; and "Scratch" techniques, which can break guards from dead angles and is a series of command counters, throws, and vanishing attacks. Bloody Roar 4 , the latest game in the series, may be the most complex one with the largest fighter roster of eighteen characters, and the ability to earn more moves by earning experience in "Career Mode".