Old School Gamer’s Patrick Hickey Jr. chats with gaming developer Grady Hunt, who discusses his time on Bloody Roar on the original Sony PlayStation.
Old School Gamer Magazine: How did you get involved in the game?
Grady Hunt: I was working at Sony, it was the second or third title I worked on within a production/localization team. This group would take international titles that typically did not have strong marketing and distribution in the US. We would make recommendation to improve the quality of the experience for our local markets and (of course) do the translation/localization work.
Old School Gamer Magazine: What was the Hudson Soft team like to work with? Any fun stories?
Hunt: At that time, when working on a title from Japan we would work in teams, where there would be a Producer who worked on game issues and topics related to making the game better for the local markets and Project Manager who was a native Japanese/English speaking person who did all the translation work and was the liaison between the Producer and the Developer. Hudson Soft were excellent partners in this process, they were very professional and quick to respond to requests. My first job out of college was with publisher, Atlus Software in Irvine, CA. Atlus had developed or partly developed Bonks Adventure for Hudson Soft. I was also a fan of Bomberman and Adventure Island so it was amazing to get to work with them.
Old School Gamer Magazine: Any particular challenges? What changes had to be made for the US version?
Hunt: At this time in gaming, Tekken and Toshinden were the dominant fighting games on our platform. There were a bunch of lesser known fighting games that did not succeed. There was some question of whether not there was room for another fighting game. The game was very well made, it had excellent “feel” and the graphic quality was great, the details, shadows and effects were excellent for the time and of course the game hook of changing your human character to an animal which made it a bit more violent visceral. At Sony, we were all very excited and saw the potential of the title. At the time they approached us the game was called “Beastorizer” which did not sound right for the US/European markets. The name was changed to “Bloody Roar”. Here is a list of some of the differences between the US and Japanese releases:
1. CG head selection screen for characters select.
2. Sidestep feature accessible in the MAIN OPTIONS
3. US version will be Bloodier as the Blood and Vomit will be set as default features.
4. US version has new sound and voice over
5. Video sequence at the beginning is a bit different.
6. All US text and button standards are implemented.
Old School Gamer Magazine: What do you think makes the game special?
Hunt: It was surprisingly good, fun fighting game that had an interesting twist. It was fast and fluid with just a bit more strategy as you could switch your character to its beast form. Very solid, fun experience.
Old School Gamer Magazine: What was challenging about your job on this one? Any important lessons learned?
Hunt: I believe the issue of finding the balance between violence, blood and vomit (Alice character would vomit on ground when struck). I remember speaking to guys in our QA group who asked if we can make the game more over top in terms of blood and gore. For its time, it was pretty graphical with blood and gore and did not need to get pushed into being gratuitous. It would have made the game harder to take seriously. More is not always “better” balance it what it is good in gaming.
Old School Gamer Magazine: What do you think is the game’s legacy?
Hunt: I think the switching of characters from human to “beast” was the biggest creative twist of the game and those of us old enough to remember, will remember this feature as the dominant aspect of the game.
Old School Gamer Magazine: How would you like the game to be remembered?
Hunt: During that period of time, fighting games were the dominant games in the market, FPS did not exist on the console, this was a very good game for its time.
