Bloody Roar: Primal Fury has the advantage and disadvantage of being the first fighting game available for the GameCube. Inevitably, the game will draw comparisons to the best the competing consoles have to offer, such as Virtua Fighter 4 for the PS2, or even Soul Calibur for Dreamcast.

This game will not stand toe to toe with either of these games or with any of the other established greats of the 3D fighter genre, but it certainly does hold its own and deserves to stand tall among them.

The big thing that differentiates Bloody Roar: Primal Fury from the others is the lack of depth to the game. Even when first perusing the manual, it becomes painfully obvious that in comparison to a large myriad of moves for each character in a game such as Soul Calibur, Bloody Roar features about a dozen or so moves and combos for each character in the manual. So, at first glance the game seems incredibly simple.

Fortunately, the game does pick up steam, and where it does so is in the Beast transformation feature. A long standing trademark of the Bloody Roar series, the Beast transformations allow each character to turn into their beast form for a limited amount of time, during which they will have extended power. The conservation and utilization of the beast power becomes very critical at higher levels of play, and while it still doesn't match the depth of other fighters, it manages to be just deep enough to be enjoyable by even hardcore fans. Of course, the simplicity of the system caters very well to the casual audience, which is a great thing when you just want to bring some friends over, pop in a game, and just have some fun with them.

All in all, Bloody Roar is a good-looking, solid game that can be great fun for nearly any type of gamer. Sure, you won't get the satisfaction of mastering an impossible character like Akira in Virtua Fighter, but there lies a certain charm in the simplicity of a game like Bloody Roar.

Besides, any game where I can combo into a beast transformation, follow it up by shattering the wall with my opponent's reeling body, and then juggle them with a super combo grab which launches them into the adjacent street where they get hit by oncoming traffic as I pose in victory is A-OK by me.