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Bloody Roar: Primal Fury / Bloody Roar Extreme

Although it lacks a proper number at the end, Primal Fury is very much a proper sequel to BR3, with the only thing carrying over being some of the stages. It’s also the first Bloody Roar to never get an arcade version, making it a permanent console exclusive. Primal Fury is almost universally considered the best game in the series, and because of that, it’s the one that sees the most play in competitive settings. If you’re only going to play one Bloody Roar game, this is almost certainly the one to go for. While the changes are even more subtle than the previous game, all of them make for a much more polished game.

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#bloody roar primal fury #bloody roar extreme #bloody roar #raizing / eighting #activision #fighting games #xbox #gamecube #transformation #anthro #hardcore gaming 101 #bobinator #review #video games #retro games

Book Launch Day! Ys and Other Falcom Classics, and Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and Other Konami Classics now available!

Two brand new HG101 books are out now!

via Bluesky

#kurt kalata #bluesky #hardcore gaming 101

Bloody Roar 3

Bloody Roar 3 is the game where the series really starts to feel like it’s really hitting its stride. It has some rough edges, however, which make it feel more like a prototype for the later Primal Fury. The new changes make for a game that certainly feels different from the previous game, and it stands out fairly well on its own merits.

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#bloody roar 3 #bloody roar #activision #arcade #hudson soft #raizing / eighting #playstation 2 #transformation #anthro #hardcore gaming 101 #bobinator #review #video games #retro games

Top 47K - ToeJam & Earl (and ChainStaff!)

Join the HG101 gang plus special guest Robbo, as they discuss and rank-err, revisit, the groovy duo’s funky roguelike for the Genesis/Mega Drive. Then stick around for ChainStaff, a violently quirky action-platformer about having an alien parasite attach itself to your head!

#toejam and earl #johnson voorsanger productions #sega #sega genesis #action games #chainstaff #mommy's best games #hardcore gaming 101 #podcast #top 47858 games of all time #video games #retro games #indie games

Bloody Roar 2

Released more than a year after the original game hit arcades, Bloody Roar 2 stands as an improvement on almost everything its prequel had. It’s often considered a favorite by series fans, and while it’s more of a matter of taste, it’s certainly a valid perspective to take. It certainly competes a lot better with the PS1’s many 3D fighters, although whether it beats the legendary Tekken 3 is a very iffy call.

Ys and Other Falcom Classics

Coming soon!

Bloody Roar

By the mid 90s, the biggest craze in the arcades had become the 3D fighting game, as popularized by Virtua Fighter and Tekken. Soon after, big developer in the arcade industry, as well as a few of the smaller ones, were determined to make their own push into the market. Not all of them succeeded – even titans like Konami or Midway were capable of putting out something like Battle Tryst or War Gods. Raizing, mostly known for their SHMUPs before this game, would eventually make their own try at the genre. For their part, they come out with a pretty fine series – not quite at the heights of the genre, but often well remembered all its own.

Top 47K - Quest 64 (and Queen's Blade: Spiral Chaos!)

Join the HG101 gang as they discuss and rank the N64’s infamous three-dimensional RPG. Then stick around for Queen’s Blade: Spiral Chaos, an SRPG that features very distinctive, bouncy visuals!

#quest 64 #imagineer #nintendo 64 #role playing games #queen's blade spiral chaos #bandai namco #psp #hardcore gaming 101 #podcast #top 47858 games of all time #video games #retro games

Bubsy 4D

The universe is full of many weird and wonderful things, such as Bubsy the Bobcat coming back for a second time. After the largely piddling pair of The Woolies Strike Back and Paws on Fire! in the late 2010s, Atari SA acquired the rights to Bubsy in 2023 and immediately sought to do something more serious with him. This started with 2025’s Purrfect Collection, which gathered all of his original games complete with a mind-boggling amount of bonus material that showed a greater reverence for the character. However, it would soon be followed by a surprise announcement of a new 3D platformer, created by Fabraz of Demon Turf/Demon Tides fame! It’s easy to assume this would be a quick reskin of the developer’s best known work like Bubsy’s previous comeback attempts, laced with cynical ironic jokes about Bubsy’s infamy. But Bubsy 4D manages to do its own thing, resulting in a solid (if perhaps too short and easy) adventure that manages to be charmingly funny and one of Bubsy’s better games.

Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle

Have you ever played a gamebook? Perhaps a ‘Choose your own adventure’? If you have, which ones? Have you tried Fighting Fantasy, or GrailQuest perchance? If you have, then you will be in familiar territory. Released internationally in 2026, written, illustrated and primarily developed by VanillaWare alumni Yoshio Nishimura; his take on the digital gamebook is Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle.

vgadvisor

#startropics #nintendo #nes

Top 47K - The Final Fantasy Legend (SaGa) (and Half-Life 2: Episode One & Two!)

Join the HG101 gang as they discuss and rank Square’s first handheld RPG. Then stick around for Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, enduring proof that Valve can’t count to three!

#final fantasy legend #saga #squaresoft #game boy #jrpg #half life 2 episode one #half life 2 episode two #valve #first person shooter #microsoft windows #hardcore gaming 101 #podcast #top 47858 games of all time #video games #retro games

Triangle Strategy

Originally released in 2022 for the Nintendo Switch and later expanded to additional platforms, Triangle Strategy represents the culmination of producer Tomoyo Asano’s long career in RPGs, alongside co-developer Artdink under Square Enix. It is also one of the early titles of the HD-2D artstyle: a blend of pixel-art characters, dynamic lighting, and cinematic camera work set within fully realized 3D environments. The aesthetic deliberately evokes the 16-bit era of JRPGs, especially a title like Final Fantasy VI.

Star Fox Guard

Released simultaneously with Star Fox Zero (and in some territories, bundled together with it), Star Fox Guard is a unique tower defense game starring Slippy Toad and his uncle Grippy, who runs a mining business. Taking place after the defeat of Andross, your job as a security commander is to defend these bases from a horde of invading robots.

Star Fox Zero

After the release of Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Command in the mid-00s, the franchise went dark for awhile, leading to an enhanced port of Star Fox 64 in 2011 for the 3DS. A brand new title, Star Fox Zero for the Wii U, wouldn’t arrive until nearly a decade later. While the game was conceptualized by Nintendo, much of the actual work was performed by PlatinumGames, they of Vanquish and Bayonetta fame. This company was chosen thanks to their chops with 3D action games. The “zero” in the title is an allusion to the fact that the game is sort of a reboot, but the fact that it uses the kanji in the logo can also be interpreted as a reference to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero aircraft flown by the Japanese in World War II, meaning it has some association with fighter airplanes.

Star Fox Command

A good year after Star Fox: Assault, Nintendo followed up with a portable entry, Star Fox Command. The back of the box indicates that it’s a return to the franchise’s roots, which is partially true. The game was co-developed by Q-Games, the company run by Dylan Cuthbert, one of the programmers from the SNES original. Otherwise, this is a pretty stark departure from the series’ norms, with almost nothing resembling its predecessors. In essence, this is basically a follow-up to Star Fox 2, which at that point wasn’t officially released and was only known to fans who used emulators to play the leaked beta.

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