Hello, readers!
Welcome to my fifth essay on my reboot for the Bloody Roar saga. Today I’ll be tackling the fifth and final installment of the official BR game series, Bloody Roar 4. It was on November 11, 2003 in North America that Hudson Soft first released this title, which was the very same date on which what the video game industry at least once knew as the PAL region received BR Extreme. There are several reasons, too, why many a BR fan—and, for that matter, why many a fighting game fan in general—dislikes this specific entry in the franchise. For one thing, BR 4 was the only Bloody Roar game that Konami co-developed alongside Hudson Soft and Eighting. Granted, this should come as little surprise, what with this specific era in video game history being the time when Hudson began merging with Konami, but I personally can’t help but notice how coincidental it is that such was the case behind the scenes of this game’s creation and that its gameplay is as notably different from those of previous BR games. Take, for example, each fighter’s Beast Gauge acting like its own separate health bar for his or her beast form. Sure, a player can still beastorize mid-battle, so long as his or her character has at least some Factor B available in his or her Beast Gauge, and he or she can charge his or her Beast Gauge up to full while in human form (and only in human form, of course) whenever he or she hits or takes hits from his or her opponent. However, when a fighter’s human form completely loses health—which it will quite quickly in contrast to other BR games, as many a player has learned—he or she will automatically beastorize, even if the player controlling him or her doesn’t specifically press the Beast button to get him or her to transform. This may sound useful at first, but at the same time, imagine sending your opponent sky high with your best combo when suddenly, before you can complete said combo…BAM! The poor sot immediately enters beast mode upon losing all his or her human health, which in turn breaks up the flow of the fight by knocking your own character flat on his or her hindquarters and leaving him or her wide open for a nasty retaliatory combo from his or her newly transformed opponent. Speaking of Beast Mode, though, BR 4 also has a feature called Charge Power via which a player can press and hold down the Beast button while his or her character is in human form and fill up his or her Beast Gauge at the expense of his or her human form’s health, which he or she will never be able to get back. From this information alone, you’ve no doubt garnered the impression that the game wants its players to stay in beast mode as much as they can to win, as at least two other BR fans have stated on the Internet for all the world to hear. I wouldn’t blame you for coming to that conclusion, either, as I personally have seen from many a BR 4 longplay on YouTube that the most successful players of this game are those who subscribe to that very logic when they play. At any rate, the game’s treatment of players’ health was a bald-faced deviation from how previous games had handled both health management and beastorization, which, according to some gamers, dampened the strategy from previous entries in the Bloody Roar line and made things a little bit more dumbed-down than they needed to be.
There are other reasons why Bloody Roar 4 is the most disliked game in the BR line. For one thing, Hudson Soft used to give each character who’d made it from one BR game to the next a new character model to demonstrate the passage of time between installments as well as an updated move set to boot. Such wasn’t the case with BR 4, unfortunately, which not only used the same character models from Primal Fury/Extreme, but also several stages from BR PF/E and BR 3, albeit with an additional artificially nocturnal filter to each stage’s redesign to convey the game’s overall darker mood…pun intended on the designers’ part alone, of course. Said designers likewise added forcefields to these stages that surrounded the characters and effectively shrunk the area within which they could fight to the point where Ryoho can barely fit inside them while in his dragon form. Granted, the writers tried to explain these forcefields from a plot standpoint (i.e., “Gaia” trying to contain the Unborn before it can wreak any more havoc upon Earth than it already had during the XGC crisis of BR 3), but their justification still made no sense in terms of explaining why everyone else on the roster outside of Xion and Nagi had to battle one another within confines of such otherworldly barriers. Even more of a drag was the fact that these same forcefields cut stage interaction down to a bare minimum, thereby proving to be even more archaic an addition to these arenas. Worse yet, Hudson had cut out kip-up and double-down ducking attacks from every character’s arsenal, and there were plenty of glitches that the designers had failed to fix prior to the game’s release, from in-game voice samples cutting out to Reiji’s molting feathers and the sewer stage’s flowing sludge causing framerate slowdown to the game freezing altogether at certain points. Similarly, though each of the characters had a story within which to progress in Arcade Mode to explain the game’s plot (save for BR’s designated franchise Easter eggs, Kohryu and Uranus, as well as Ryoho in his solo run), such stories came complete with awkward character model animation, even clumsier dialogue that the game’s translators did a half-hearted job at best of rewriting for the English-speaking audience (complete with typos galore), and—at least for the North American version—some of the most lazily directed and oft-ridiculed voice acting in fighting game history. It furthermore didn’t help that BR 4’s soundtrack, though not the worst I personally have ever heard in a fighting game, only had a fraction of the bite (if you’ll forgive the unintentional pun) that previous Bloody Roar game soundtracks possessed that made them as outstandingly and memorably adrenaline-pumping as they were. I know I’ve said before in the first article in this reboot proposal that the guitar riffs that composer Takayuki Negishi had Jun Kajiwara play for the likes of the first three Bloody Roar titles meant more to those games’ scores than I could ever begin to say, but trust me, people…I wasn’t saying that solely to talk out of my hat or be melodramatic. Indeed, those riffs gave both the songs they were in and the very games within which the songs themselves existed the identity upon which Bloody Roar as a video game line thrived up until BR 4. I only wish I could be as positive about the tone-deaf marketing Hudson gave the franchise’s fifth and as-yet final game, which came complete with an ad campaign for the local Japanese market featuring model, actress, and singer Yuko Ogura posing in leopard- (or, if one would rather, jaguar-) printed lingerie with cat ears and a tail, thinking that sex appeal was what the company needed to bring in new fans to the series. Guess what, though: It wasn’t. If anything, the whole photoshoot provided nothing more than another payday for Ogura, a handful of posters and trading cards, and more ammunition for detractors of the franchise to call BR fans “furries” as though the latter group only cared about the games having female characters (Shina, Jenny, Nagi, Uranus, and even Alice) who were “hot” and could transform into human-animal hybrids that happened to come complete with…if you’ll pardon the term…bosoms. Likewise, if sex appeal was indeed the ticket that Hudson needed to sell BR 4, then surely between their photo shoot with Ogura and the way they gave the whole “fan service” treatment to Nagi, whom they’d strapped a rocket to and promoted as the game’s poster girl as though she was Tekken 3’s very own Jin Kazama, they would have been able to sell more than ninety thousand units worldwide despite professional critics giving their product average review scores at best, leading to the game’s present Metacritic rating of 59. Yeah…even the quasi-realistic blood and violence that helped give this title its “M for Mature” rating didn’t help make BR 4 any more appealing to gamers, even with the consideration that previous Bloody Roar titles received a “T for Teen” rating for their portrayal of good old-fashioned fisticuffs with a lycanthropic twist. Also, it may be true that the first couple of BR games indeed featured about as much splattering blood as BR 4 does despite their getting away with a “T” rating, but the fact that the BR name managed to last another three to four games afterwards just goes to show that it takes more than blood to make a Bloody Roar game “roar,” if you know what I mean.
I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface, too, of what was wrong with Bloody Roar 4 from a promotional, technical, and presentational standpoint, and I’ve no doubt that at least most of these aspects could have been leaps and bounds better than what they’d ultimately come to be, had Hudson not rushed BR 4’s development and instead taken its time to give its game the TLC it needed to be the masterpiece that the BR series deserved. That, and the fact that the company had hired certain people to perform tasks for this entry for which they’d little to no professional or artistic training or credit, according to SCXCR’s discussion of BR 4 as part of his Bloody Roar Retrospective. As far as this collection of articles is concerned, though, the game’s story was arguably one of its worst features. In a nutshell, the plot revolves around “Gaia” (a.k.a. Gaia hypothesis) being the ultimate driving force that’s been acting upon the world, what with the initial emergence of zoanthropes since before the events of BR 1. So active is this force, in fact, that people within the game’s universe outright refer to it as being the ancient Greek primordial deity herself and cite it as being she who decides which organisms on Earth are allowed to evolve, exist as they already are, or suffer extinction over time for the sake of keeping the planet itself intact. In contrast to “Gaia” is the Unborn, a compound entity made up of the life energy of all Earth’s creatures that received the short end of the natural selection stick and thus either went extinct or simply didn’t get the chance to emerge via evolution. Understandably, then, the Unborn isn’t exactly happy that Gaia “cheated” it—or, rather, them—of the chance to roam the planet and prosper as per the case of the species who presently exist, hence the former’s initiation of the whole X-Genome Code incident as per BR 3’s original plot. Sadly, an entire year has passed since that debacle, and yet, the Unborn are still roaming the earth with their disciple Xion as their vessel, much to Gaia’s chagrin. She has thus awakened an ancient dragon within the body of a Buddhist monk named Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki, who apparently has no idea that he himself is a zoanthrope (even though dragon vessels like Ryoho, according to BR 4 lore, are a whole different category of being from what zoanthropes are supposed to be). Worse yet, the influence of the dragon within Ryoho upon the world is so intense that it can cause earthquakes like the one whose victims Alice starts off treating at the beginning of the story as well as put people into comas and arouse zoanthropes worldwide to lose control of their beast forms and engage in random acts of violence. The only one who can keep the dragon under control is Mana, a nine-year-old miko (Shinto shrine maiden) and priestess of Gaia, but the psychic powers with which Gaia has blessed her aren’t quite strong enough, as the original seal on Ryoho has come loose and needs to be completely removed and replaced. She thus heads off to seek help from random strangers (i.e., the game’s protagonists) to help her reseal the dragon’s power by…for the lack of a more accurate description…beating the living dickens out of Ryoho so that Mana can place a new seal on him, and all before the Unborn can send their charge Xion to kill him. Then again, if Xion can’t get the job done for whatever reason, then they can simply transfer their combined power into Nagi, a young woman who’d apparently tried stopping Xion’s genocidal rampage during the XGC incident despite her not appearing at all or even receiving mention in the original BR 3’s plot. Alas, Xion had managed to vanquish her for her meddling, but instead of dying from what otherwise would’ve been a fatal strike, Nagi had instead inherited a copy of the Unborn’s power from Gaia, thereby becoming a zoanthrope in her own right and, in turn, an eventual vessel for the Unborn to later control in their little anti-Gaia campaign. Something else: Nagi, at least according to BR 4’s dialogue, isn’t even in her original body. More likely than not, this is a mistranslation on the American localization team’s part, and we’re to believe that she simply isn’t her old self. That’s beside the point, however, for according to canon (or at least BloodyRoar.Fandom.com), the Unborn finally meet their end, Xion and Nagi are at last released from their influence, and Mana wonders aloud why the dragon didn’t calm down during the Unborn’s defeat. Ryoho’s explanation: Gaia didn’t awaken the dragon to fight the Unborn, but rather to protect the planet from what really is most likely to destroy it: humanity.
Yeah…I’m no fan of this story at all. Never mind the fact that it directly followed up the plot of BR 3, which had already heavily deviated from the saga’s initial light sci-fi premise to focus on its more fantastic elements like the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts and the Unborn. Rather, the very fact that this narrative almost utterly ignores the relationships between and even singular development of Bloody Roar’s previously established mainstays (Yugo, Gado, Alice, Long, Uriko, etc.) in favor of its four newcomers—especially Nagi, Ryoho, and Mana—as well as BR 3 debut character Xion is what makes this story as weak as it is. Ostensibly, it wasn’t bad enough that Hudson Soft had made Long and Shina characters that players had to unlock while Nagi and the tag team of Ryoho & Mana were available right off the bat, especially considering that the former two characters had been playable right from the start since their respective BR debuts. Shina I can understand to a point, considering that her story has her going missing while searching for an investigative team that got lost near the underground temple where Ryoho and Mana reside. Her story here isn’t all that different from what her father’s tale was in BR 2, if you think about it, save for that here we have Gado looking for his daughter rather than vice-versa. Long, in contrast, starts off his story having Mana approach him and ask for his help in resealing the dragon inside Ryoho, as per the case of several other readily playable characters (e.g., Alice, Uriko, and Bakuryu). It also doesn’t help that BR 4’s narrative introduces elements that are of an even heavier supernatural influence than those that BR 3’s story had injected into the franchise’s overall plot, what with the central theme being the feud between Gaia and the Unborn and, particularly, Gaia being so outraged at the Unborn wandering the earth yet that she’s had to awaken a dragon spirit from within Ryoho in order to protect Earth from them…only for the dragon itself to cause its own form of chaos via its very existence. Worse yet, while it’s bad enough that this specific tale wholly ignores the Tylon Corporation and the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, the fact that it even conveniently dismisses the importance of the Tabula—the very vessel that was supposed to contain the Unborn’s power—also leaves me shaking my head. Sure, BloodyRoar.Fandom.com states that Yugo’s ending in BR 3 was canon and that he did indeed shatter the accursed stone disc and in turn foil the Unborn’s plan to reshape the world in their image, but if that was the case, then what was their plan in BR 4? To strike a blow back at Gaia by killing the dragon within Ryoho before the dragon killed them? Would that give them the power they needed to reshape Earth, or would doing so merely be an act of vengeance? Also, let’s not forget that just as the case was with Prince Cronos in Primal Fury/Extreme, Ryoho, the game’s chief antagonist, isn’t even a bad guy at all but a noble soul who’s at the mercy of the beast within him and the chaos it’s causing all because the Unborn still exists within the world. Even Xion and Nagi aren’t villains as much as they’re at the mercy of the evil force controlling them, and even then, Nagi only became a minion of the Unborn in her story upon crossing paths with Xion and attempting to avenge herself for him [almost] killing her during the XGC crisis. Furthermore, the little clash that ensued between them was apparently enough in and of itself for the Unborn to determine that she was worthy enough for them to bring her under their control. Finally, despite this entry being the third to include Kohryu and Uranus, neither one of them receive any cut scenes and thus any character development at all during their respective arcade runs. Kohryu might have a one-off against Bakuryu during the latter’s Arcade Mode run, but the meeting between them does so little to build up the whole “Bakuryu I versus Bakuryu II” angle that it’s supposed to represent that the scene comes off as being little more than a waste. For Uranus not to receive any character development at all, on the other hand, only makes me wonder why Hudson had even created her to begin with, what with the company giving her the same kind of treatment in the previous two BR games.
One last thing: BloodyRoar.Fandom.com also states that after Yugo had destroyed the Tabula, Xion was able to break free from the Unborn’s influence. If that’s the case, then how did they manage to possess him again? Either I read something wrong, or the writers of this plot were even sloppier when they put it together than I’d initially thought.
All this said, I don’t think the entire plot of BR 4 was a total waste. After all, The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com does indicate that “Gaia”—be it Gaia hypothesis or the goddess herself—was meant to be the ultimate driving force behind the events of the Bloody Roar story, even if by no other means than the very evolution of zoanthropes in the first place. Granted, this website specifically was the only place I could find any reference to Gaia prior to BRs 3 and 4 and all the supernatural elements that those two games had introduced into the franchise, but it was still enough of an indication of what the original plot was meant to include…even if BRs 3 and 4’s attempts at calling back to it came off as being far more awkward on account of “Gaia’s” complete absence from the series’ plot up until them. Not only that, but I don’t think that the idea of a Gaia-centric cult was a bad idea at all, especially considering that the effects of “Gaia” could be quite tangible in the BR universe whereas many a skeptic in the real world could question the influence that the deities whom people worldwide worship even today have upon the planet. Besides, Gaianism as a philosophy and ethical worldview is a thing in our reality, even though it only shares expressions with earth religions and paganism while not necessarily identifying exclusively with any specific theology. That, and it stems from Gaia hypothesis, which makes the cult to which Ryoho and Mana belong seem all the more believable as a potential faction within the Bloody Roar world. My only gripe, then, with the cult of Gaia as gamers have come to know it in BR 4 is that Hudson could and should have done a better job in introducing the idea into the franchise. It’s the same case as with the Tabula and the Unborn in that it’s not its supernatural nature in and of itself that irks me about it, but rather the way in which Hudson had forced it into the story. Like I’ve said more than once in this line of articles, you don’t take a story that has its roots embedded within one genre of fiction and interject elements from another genre into it to the point where the latter elements overshadow the themes that the tale had originally possessed. Either insert the more fantastic elements of your sci-fi narrative (or vice versa) gradually, or your tale’s only going to become one big mess in the end as per the case of Bloody Roar’s initial canon.
Okay, I’ve stalled enough. It’s time for me to get to the meat and potatoes of this article and show you all how I’d rewrite Bloody Roar 4. As always, beware of spoilers for this and previous instalments of my take on the BR tale, so consider yourselves warned. Aside from that, off we go!
Bloody Roar 5: Predestined Evolution
Our story begins towards the end of Bloody Roar 4: Animal Kingdom (i.e., my rendition of BR Primal Fury/Extreme) and introduces a small band of pilgrims from the Curators of Gaia, a semi-religious faction of those who’d survived the South American Tylon bombing who’d remained missing after the facility had collapsed. Having lived off the land for six to seven years since, the Curators turned to Gaianism as a method of spiritual/holistic philosophy to help them endure their predicament, allowing their system of belief to evolve all the while in such a way that it has accepted the teachings of all the world’s major religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, the Abrahamic religions, etc.) as well as modern science—particularly that which concerns the phenomena of zoanthropy and everything even remotely connected to it. They still maintain their faith’s central focus upon the Gaia hypothesis, however, as their principle guiding force and as such “Gaia” herself as the supreme entity to whom all life forms, themselves included, share a connection. Also of note are the visions that their leader, a Buddhist monk named Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki, had seen during his daily meditations about a “promised land” where zoanthropes rule and live in peace with their human neighbors. Considering such a place to be perfect for him and his followers to live out the rest of their lives and perhaps even transform their sect into a much wider-known religion, Ryoho had sent out one of his most trusted disciples, disowned Tylon researcher Dr. Arata Tsukagami, and four more of his most skilled warriors to attest to his revelation’s validity. The journey proved to be long and troubled for the five pilgrims, but they had all arrived safe and sound upon the island that had become the new homeland for their fellow bombing survivors and had taken up residence within a long-abandoned Greek temple on the far outskirts of Défteri Lykoria, the very capital of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes.
It’s within their temporary home that the pilgrims discover a heavy stone disk lined with numerous glyphs around its edge that roughly resemble the visages of various animal breeds while its inner ring reads an ancient Grecian prayer dedicated to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and the moon as well as chastity, childbirth, and vegetation. Known as the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts, legend has it that this artifact once belonged to a long-forgotten cult of Artemis worshippers known as the Ecclisía Panselínou (“Full Moon Congregation”) who long performed bloody rituals involving human sacrifice to appease their patron goddess and from her gain the power of lycanthropy. Such power, in this cult’s members’ minds, was all the better with which to live off the land away from the petty, trivial, superficial ways of “proper” human society and prove their way of life among the rest of the animal kingdom to be superior to that of their more urbanized neighbors. Alas, Arata had already broken away from his fellow Curators to venture forth into Défteri Lykoria on a solo quest with the blind hope of finding and reuniting with his daughter Alice prior to his fellows’ discovery of the disk. That said, Zhen Wu—a former Henan Shaolin monk whom Ryoho had appointed as Arata’s second-in-command—can’t help but find the discovery a fascinating one, considering how he’d once read about the Ecclisía’s legend himself in an old history text before Tylon had captured and experimented on him and the rest of his fellow monks. He feels very much, too, that the Tabula represents an inevitability for which humanity is destined and proclaims to his fellow pilgrims that they’ve indeed arrived at the “promised land” that Ryoho has envisioned and that he and the others should return at once to their leader with the Tabula in hand to show him and the rest of the clan the truth behind their leader’s revelation. Arata, as far as Zhen is concerned, will be preoccupied well enough with his search for his daughter that he’ll barely, if at all, notice their departure as they make haste with their return to the other Curators and back, and once the clan is whole again, they may at long last rejoice upon relocating to their new home.
Before Zhen and the other Curators can begin their venture back, however, along comes Dr. Hajime Busizima straight out of escaping the Kingdom’s secret laboratory. Panting and wheezing from his mad dash, he nearly collapses upon the stairs leading into the temple before Zhen and the other Curators help him inside and have him sit down before the altar. They then immediately serve him a cup of tea that they’d brewed from some of the wild herbs they’d managed to forage for nearby, and after graciously sipping the warm beverage, Busuzima begins to tell the four of them his story about the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. According to him, the Kingdom’s promise of being a nation of sanctuary for zoanthropes from the persecution of mundane humans is nothing but a lie. He knows this because his superiors at the World of Coexistence had assigned him and a handful of other agents to investigate the premises to find out the truth concerning some ugly rumors that had been circulating around the airwaves about clandestine experiments upon zoanthropes that were allegedly taking place behind the scenes of the nation’s inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament. He didn’t want to believe the rumors himself, but after having come across a secret laboratory that lay beneath the very surface of Défteri Lykoria, he couldn’t help but blush with shame, fear, and disgust at how wrong he was when he and his associates discovered the bodies of several UZFT participants either floating within giant vats or lying prone on examination tables while scientists operated on them. One such type of operation involved the scientists extracting blood samples from their subjects, filtering the Factor B from their life fluid, and injecting the final product of said filtering process directly into other subjects’ veins. Other scientists still were fixing wires to their subjects’ heads that led from computers that sent shockwaves into the poor sots’ brains with which they no doubt used to collect their subjects’ memories, erase them from their minds, and store them onto nondescript flash drives that they’d previously inserted into their computers. From these two types of experiments alone, it’d become all too apparent to Busuzima at that moment what these scientists were up to: brainwashing and/or cloning their captives and from them and their clones creating a militia of artificial zoanthropes with which the Kingdom itself would no less employ to help them take over the world. Even without taking a closer look at any of the scientists’ faces and identifying them according to the WOC’s records of former Tylon employees, the whole setup wreaked of what the Tylon Corporation had been found guilty of six to seven years ago following the bombing of the conglomerate’s South American compound. On that note, then, Busuzima did the one thing that he could think of doing: confiscating as much evidence of the researchers’ crimes from their lab as he could and hightailing it out of there alongside the rest of his team. Unfortunately, he’d managed to become separated from his teammates during his flight and ended up at the temple, although he’s quite thankful that his four hosts were willing to offer him refuge for the time being before he found his way back to mainland Greece and turned his evidence in to the authorities so that if nobody else, at least they can do whatever they could to bring these unscrupulous perverters of science to justice.
Busuzima then unloads the pockets of his jacket and reveals to his hosts several small vials that he’d “confiscated” from the Kingdom’s lab, half of which contain samples of Factor B-laced blood from the experiments that he’d helped conduct. The other half of the vials he’s produced contain a pale blue fluid that radiate an aura so eerie that it makes the Curators rear back in awe, and as they do, Busuzima additionally removes from his pocket a pint-sized beaker filled with a gelatinous green goo that only further stokes the pilgrims’ perturbation. He then begins to explain each of these items. The vials of blood, first of all, he claims carry the blood of the UZFT participants whom the Kingdom’s scientists had drained from their test subjects while the glowing vials contain pure XGC-laced Factor B. It was this very substance, he explains, that the researchers would inject into their intended puppets after brainwashing them to make them stronger, faster, sharper, and more resilient than they already were and as such more adept soldiers for the Kingdom’s army than they already would have been. Sometimes the scientists would inject so much of this serum into the future soldiers that the latter would develop preternatural powers beyond those of ordinary zoanthropes and at times even mutate into different forms altogether. As for the green goo in the beaker, Busuzima claims that it’s what was left of one of the laboratory’s guards after one of his fellow WOC agents had been able to dispose of it in personal combat. Apparently, the Kingdom’s science team had forged it from some cellular substance or other that they’d managed to develop, cloned the original product, and formatted each reproduction to serve the scientists in one capacity or another. The artificial soldier from which this very substance was made, for example, the researchers had “programmed” to function as a guard, but who was to say that they hadn’t programmed other such masses to serve them as spies, assassins, saboteurs, and the like? Surely, this was the material from which they’d made the brunt of the Kingdom’s military. Busuzima is certain, too, that one of his fellow WOC operatives had gotten his or her hands on some evidence detailing the science team’s plans that would thus prove him right in his assumption. He only wishes, though, that he himself had taken such evidence from that specific teammate, had he known that the circumstances were going to end up separating him from the rest of his party. That way, he could at least have had enough evidence on his person to present to the authorities so that they can better help put an end to the treachery going on behind the scenes of the UZFT.
As he hears the words pouring out of Busuzima’s mouth, Zhen’s mind races with memories of his days as a test subject for Tylon’s Pharmaceutical Research Division. He winces, too, upon reliving the very instant in which the enterprise’s researchers awakened the beast within him that he never knew he’d had until that moment, complete with the sensation of the scientists’ research equipment shocking his Lycaonian gland awake and sending surges of some unknown foreign fluid rushing into his veins. It’s when he feels these very sensations coursing through him once more while gazing upon Busuzima’s thin-lipped, reptilian-eyed face and strikingly green hair that he finally puts one and one together and realizes something that he can’t help but feel surprised that he hadn’t recognized before. Once the recollection officially burns itself into his mind and Busuzima finishes his story, Zhen gets directly into the face of his and his fellow Curators’ guest and accuses him of spewing falsehoods of his own. Busuzima coils back in suspicion while the other three pilgrims approach their compatriot to calm him down, but Zhen stands steadfast and proceeds to share with them all that their esteemed guest is really a Tylon scientist himself—the very one, in fact, who’d transformed him into what he’s been for the past six- to seven-plus years. He then grabs Busuzima by the collar, slams him up against the side of the altar, and demands that he tell the truth about the Kingdom and whatever has been going on behind the scenes of the UZFT. Shaking with fright at the sight of the ex-monk’s face as he pushes it into his own, Busuzima gulps hard and regurgitates the whole truth about the Zoanthrope Liberation Front and how its leader Shenlong had drafted him to be its science officer and brought him with the rest of the ZLF to help hijack the Kingdom’s rumored laboratory, which turned out to be real. He carries on about how the Front had coerced the Kingdom’s science team into abandoning its original research to instead create for them the ultimate zoanthrope army using the DNA of various UZFT participants whom the ZLF itself had invited to the tournament under the guise of an official tournament committee. The vials he’d just shown them were indeed products of the experiments the Front had commanded the researchers to perform, and the green goo in the beaker he’d shown his hosts—despite being an accidental Tylon product—was the base material for the artificial saboteurs that the ZLF had the scientists create for their army. It used to be Tylon assassin Ryuzo “Bakuryu” Kato in its—or, rather, his—original life, but because of an unexpected reaction he’d had to the experimental drugs that Tylon’s researchers had injected into his bloodstream, he’d melted down and become what the Curators now see before them. At any rate, the Kingdom’s officials had finally found out about the ZLF’s plot to conquer the world and establish zoanthrope rule over it, and it had to take their forces combined with those of the United Nations, the FBI, and the World of Coexistence to bring them down and reclaim the lab. Busuzima, on the other hand, managed to escape the whole affair and was still on the run from the authorities as matters stood, and though he knows he probably should just be a man and turn himself in for his participation in such a nefarious scheme, all that he ever really wanted as a scientist was to use his talents in research and experimentation to better understand and preserve humanity from a biological standpoint, especially when it came to zoanthropy.
For a while, all Zhen can do is glower at Busuzima, but eventually, he lifts the scientist up off the floor and brushes him off, then clasps a hand on his shoulder and…forgives him for his transgressions. Busuzima’s eyes widen as he hears the ex-monk acquitting him, as do those of Zhen’s fellow Curators. Zhen, however, quite readily justifies his decision by explaining that his and his fellow pilgrims’ guest has been a victim of circumstance—a hapless fly of a soul who has found himself caught in a web of intrigue as spun by the spider known as the Tylon Corporation. It’s been via the manipulation of Gaia’s will that Tylon’s higher-ups have sought to quench their unchecked ambition, using their duplicity and collaborative resources to steer the course of the planet’s self-preservation to their favor and tricking even the most well-meaning of scientists into helping them prove their “superiority” over the earth rather than learn its secrets and apply them towards the greater good of the planet’s wellbeing. Busuzima is no exception to this rule, and rather than punishing him for adhering to his superiors’ orders and helping them interfere in Gaia’s plan and bend Her desire to satisfy their own, Zhen and his fellow Curators owe it to themselves to take him into their custody and guide him into fulfilling their goddess’s desire to preserve Earth. For a while, the other Curators can only stare at each other with dubious expressions at their secondary leader’s words, but after some consideration, they begin to see his point and officially welcome Busuzima into their company, much to the turncoat scientist’s relief and delight. Zhen then cuts in with the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts held high above his head and announces for them all to hear that from this day forward, a new era will dawn upon the land: a time in which zoanthropes will arise and take Earth back from baseline humanity, its longtime defilers, and either drive them into extinction or have them embrace Gaia as the one true deity of the earth. Everyone raises his or her fist in the air in praise of Gaia, after which they all plan their return trip to the rest of the Curators to share with Ryoho and the others their own revelation.
Rise of the Curators of Gaia and Return of the Sicyonian Society
Months pass since the liberation of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ underground laboratory, where Dr. Howard P. Jermyn remains under occupational arrest alongside his fellow scientists who’d sent out the distress call that had led to the Zoanthrope Liberation Front’s takeover of the facility in the first place. Dr. Steven “Stun” Goldberg remains there as well after having regained his memories, thanks to the KoZ lab reclaimers reinstalling them into his brain via the “black box” that had contained them, to help the local science team carry on with their previous medical research in lieu of Dr. Nezumi Nonomura returning home with his long-estranged wife Mitsuko and daughter Uriko. Eva Rosenberg—better known by her Tylon codename, “Uranus Gamma”—has also decided to stay in the Kingdom so that the researchers can do whatever they can to help her cope with the massive amount of XGC in her bloodstream that’s been making her revert between her human and beast forms erratically and keep it from destabilizing her body. Likewise, most of the members of the ZLF—including its leader Shenlong—have found a new home in maximum security incarceration following their mass arrest for their attempted conquest of the Kingdom and, eventually, the entire planet. Everything seems to return to status quo in the world until seemingly random outbreaks of zoanthrope violence start taking place across the globe, claiming the lives of all who haplessly find themselves in the path of the berserk zoanthropes in question. At first, there seems to be little connection between any of the incidents, seeing as none of the marauders seems to have any connection to the others, much less to any clandestine radical racial coalition in the same vein as the Front. Closer examination of the blood samples that the authorities have taken from each of these killers, however, reveals that each of them possesses a more complex strand than usual of the X-Genome Code flowing through his or her bloodstream. Investigators remain curious about how the perpetrators have come to accumulate as complicated a strand of the Code as they have, however, seeing as many of them didn’t even know they were zoanthropes in the first place. In fact, the brunt of them have past medical records indicating that they were once regular humans who haven’t undergone any form of direct surgery that would have granted them zoanthropy, which only intensifies the scramble by many a law enforcement agency to discover a common denominator responsible for causing these individuals for committing the crimes they have.
To make matters worse, a religious sect calling itself the Curators of Gaia has grown in influence across the world, having drawn the attention of countless zoanthropes and zoanthrope-sympathetic humans from every corner to adhere to the notion of zoanthropekind’s inevitable evolution from baseline humanity. According to their leader, a stalwart and charismatic Buddhist monk named Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki, Mother Gaia—the Spirit of the Earth Herself—has grown disgusted with humans for defiling Her domain with their ceaselessly expanding population and industrialization and the constant acts of violence against not only their own kind, but also against the rest of Her children (i.e., all the other organisms inhabiting Earth). Because humanity is just as much a part of the circle of life as any other living organism, however, She cannot bring Herself to directly damn it to extinction. Rather, She has elected instead to mutate the human genome so that a select portion of the population can manifest the physical attributes of Earth’s non-human species and as such possess the natural gifts said “chosen ones” need for surviving the inevitable apocalypse that humankind as a whole has brought upon itself via its destructive acts and at long last live harmoniously with nature. Similarly, seeing as more and more zoanthropes have emerged from obscurity over the past several years—including the yet-unexplained evolution of the once perfectly human perpetrators of the random slayings that have been taking place across the globe—Gaia’s intention for zoanthropekind to evolve from mundane humanity has become even more apparent. Such a predestination has been a long time coming, too, despite zoanthropy as today’s populace now knows it having only come to the surface within the past couple of deaceds. The ancient Greeks, after all, had particularly predicted the emergence of zoanthropekind, according to an ancient artifact that the Curators had chanced to discover not too long ago in a long-abandoned temple on a small island off the coast of Greece. Ryoho has even allowed history experts the world over to come and examine his sect’s find, the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts, and from what these authorities have been able to discern with their own eyes, the glyphs lining the artifact’s outer rim bear an all-too-uncanny resemblance to the crests that have appeared on many a “Coded” zoanthrope’s human skin. Of special note are the resemblances of certain glyphs to the crests of certain XGC-carrying zoanthropes who’ve been arrested for one violent crime or another since the very beginning of zoanthropekind’s discovery among humanity, including those of the individuals who’ve been responsible for the recent rashes of manslaughter. Even if such a detail is little more than a coincidence, as investigators have come to see it, a coincidence of this caliber is too significant to ignore, as far as anyone is concerned. All this in mind, humanity has a choice to make between embracing its eventual evolution into a species that is more capable of living in the wild as per Gaia’s grand design or to resist such a destiny and face the demise that it has brought upon itself, no matter how unwittingly. Predictably enough, many are those who scoff at the idea that a supernatural entity from ancient mythology has become the driving force behind so modern a matter as zoanthropekind’s coming-to-be, even with such scientific theories as the Gaia hypothesis existing and the official origin of biological zoanthropy remaining a mystery. On the other hand, the resemblance between the glyphs on the Tabula and the crests that most “Coded” zoanthropes have come to possess upon their person is just chancy enough to make some people wonder as to whether Ryoho and his followers might indeed be right. That combined with the embittered prejudice that countless zoanthropes still feel after suffering years of persecution from their less genetically blessed neighbors on top of a general cry for peace between the species across the globe constitutes for the order’s rise to prominence, the reach of its message, and the consequent increase in its membership amongst the masses.
In conjunction with the Curators’ increased influence across the planet has come a sense of horror among baseline humans concerning the wellbeing of their half of humanity. On one hand is the trepidation at the very thought of zoanthropes ruling the world as per the will of an untouchable force such as “Gaia,” which by itself has provoked the terror and prejudice that countless mundane humans have long had for their more biologically blessed kin to return to the surface in a big way. On the other is the dread that many a regular human has of metamorphosizing into that which he or she personally doesn’t want to become out of the simple fear over being unable to control his or her potential zoanthropy and dealing with the health-hazardous effects of the X-Genome Code, should it somehow become part of his or her newly received genetic makeup. The mere fact that those who were responsible for the random acts of violence had acquired the Code through means that have yet to be discovered especially alarms the public and makes them dread the Curators’ prophecy even more, hence the return of a near-global anti-zoanthrope movement. Many is the anti-zoanthrope coalition that returns from obscurity during this panic, including—or, perhaps one should say, especially—the Sicyonian Society, whose members have reunited under the banner of sanctity for the human genome and the salvation for those who remain untouched by “Gaia’s” “blight.” Granted, it’s all too true for their liking that they’d garnered a reputation as genocidal maniacs during the original XGC crisis from the year before. Even so, they hope to redeem themselves of that reputation by hunting and putting down as many violent, out-of-control zoanthropes as they can before said zoanthropes can cause further havoc across the globe…albeit not necessarily by executing them this time around. After all, rumor has it that noted biochemist Dr. Saul Barkai of Israel has recently joined the Society’s ranks as a means of testing a serum he’s created called “Baseline” that allegedly targets the Factor B within a host’s bloodstream and rapidly breaks the substance down molecule by molecule to the point of neutralizing it completely, no matter how active said host’s Lycaonian gland may be. In fact, Barkai’s Baseline is rumored to be so aggressive against the hormone that it can make a direct “bee line” through a zoanthrope’s bloodstream towards his or her L-gland and attack it directly, shriveling it into a useless sac within mere minutes as it completely drains it of all its Factor B. Should there be any truth to these rumors at all, then not only has it become possible for medical doctors to reverse biological zoanthropy without direct surgery, but any zoanthrope who wishes to preserve his or her preternatural gift would indeed be in grave danger, should the Society have his or her name on its hitlist. Then again, there do remain those zoanthropes out in the world—particularly Ryoho and the rest of the Curators of Gaia—whose high standing and influence have made them a threat to mundane humanity’s survival. As such, the Society’s members aren’t above putting such harbingers of extinction out of the world’s misery by any means necessary and preventing them from helping to fulfill “Gaia’s will.”
With all this to take into consideration, the World of Coexistence more than has its hands full when it comes to restoring the peace between zoanthropes and mundane humans. What are the Curators ultimately all about? What more do they know about the rash of zoanthrope violence that they haven’t already shared with the rest of the world? Who else do the Sicyonian Society have its sights set on besides the Curators, and how can the WOC and its allies keep the Sycionians in check and prevent them from fulfilling whatever ambitions they might have as far as the present circumstances go? Whatever the case is, time is of the essence, and WOC President Yugo Ogami and his colleagues know all too well that nobody is going to simply hand them the answers to these or any other questions they might have. Therefore, it’s back to the battlefield for them all in the hope that they can more directly dig up the truth and put an end to the madness that has now enveloped the planet.
The Initial Seventeen
Yugo Ogami Home Country: Japan Age: 24 Fighting Style: Shoot Boxing Beast Form: Wolf
Original Backstory: The recent zoanthrope riots have stirred up too much concern within Yugo for him to simply sit back and ignore them. While out investigating the incidents to discover their cause, he hears rumors of a “Black Shadow” roaming the streets of Tokyo named Nagi Kirishima—a name he vaguely remembers from the first XGC crisis of last year. Oddly enough, though, he could have sworn that the young woman was still in the hospital following a near-fatal encounter she’d had with that “Xion” guy. At any rate, he sets off to discover the truth behind the matter and see how Nagi ties into all of this.
Reboot Backstory: As the president of the World of Coexistence, Yugo has his hands full when it comes to the investigation of the growing outbreak of XGC-induced violence and everything even remotely connected to it. On one hand is the growing global influence of the Curators of Gaia and their prophecy of zoanthropes eventually taking over the world while on the other is the Sicyonian Society returning from obscurity and resorting to its beast-hunting ways from the previous year. Frustrated at having to spread his resources thin to cover as much ground as he needs to squash this latest crisis, he nevertheless agrees to investigate the Society’s recent string of beast hunts and its alleged new secret weapon against the “children of Gaia.” If nothing else, getting his hands on a sample of Dr. Barkai’s Baseline, should it exist, will at least give him some clues on what he and the rest of the WOC can do to put an end to the worldwide zoanthrope riots that have been taking place. After all, he’d be a fool to think for one minute that the Sicyonian Society—no matter the ultimate motive of the party that’s behind it and its activities—would even consider allying itself with the WOC in bringing down those who are truly responsible for this second XGC outbreak, what with the WOC standing for social balance between the two species and the Society favoring mundane humanity within this ongoing war between them.
Alice Tsukakami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 24
Fighting Style: Gymnastics-inspired Jeet Kune Do
Beast Form: Rabbit
Original Backstory: Following a recent earthquake that has rocked Tokyo, WOC volunteer Alice has been offering aide to the disaster’s victims. While doing so, a young girl dressed like a miko shows up and requests that Alice tend to her friend, Ryoho. Her claim that the earthquake was her and Ryoho’s fault turns out to be the thing to pique Alice’s interest enough to abandon her post for the time being and approach the shrine where Ryoho and Mana await her attendance.
Reboot Backstory: As the WOC’s senior vice president, Alice has plenty of concerns when it comes to this second X-Genome Code crisis, the chief amongst them being the motivations of the Curators of Gaia. After all, the sect is—or, at the very least, was—the very sect to which her father Arata belonged prior to his and her reunion as father and daughter. From what she’s gathered from the news reports about them and their leader Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki, the Curators are little more than the religiously motivated equivalent of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front as far as each faction’s respective beliefs in zoanthrope superiority are concerned. More disturbing, however, is how the Curators’ whole philosophy surrounding “Gaia” and humanity’s eventual mass evolution into zoanthropes has slowly but surely proven itself to be true over the past several months alone. Though she can only guess as to what could possibly be guiding this whole disturbing process, her father insists that Ryoho was nowhere near the megalomaniacal cult leader that she and the rest of the public have come to know him to be and that someone behind the scenes has got to be influencing him to say what he’s been saying this entire time. Wishing to believe her father yet still expecting the worst from the circumstances as they currently stand, she heads off alongside him on their own investigation to see what information they can dig up to either prove Ryoho’s innocence or condemn him for the sinister agenda he’s been pushing.
Alan Gado Home Country: France Age: 50 Fighting Style: Military Martial Arts (Power Attacks) Beast Form: Lion
Original Backstory: As zoanthrope-perpetrated violence continues to rock the world, United Nations Commissioner Alan Gado can’t help but feel frustrated at his professional inability to step outside his office and directly deal with the incidents. He then receives word that his beloved daughter Shina has gone missing. Refusing to sit back and do nothing, he throws himself into battle once more to find and rescue her.
Reboot Backstory: United Nations Commissioner Alan Gado can’t help but feel frustrated at his professional inability to directly involve himself in the mess that has now come to encapsulate the world. On top of zoanthropes engaging in random acts of violence across the planet—some of whom apparently weren’t even zoanthropes to begin with until right before they went on their personal short-lived killing sprees—out of nowhere come the Curators of Gaia with a glorified doomsday message for the less genetically blessed half of humankind about its allegedly inevitable evolution into zoanthropes as per the will of “Gaia.” Worse yet, the Sicyonian Society has returned to prominence and begun its beast hunts once more, setting its sights on any zoanthrope whom it might suspect of being a threat to the preservation of the untouched human genome. Gado knows all too well, too, that the Society has long regarded him a threat to baseline humanity simply because of his hard advocation for zoanthrope rights and the elevation of zoanthropekind in world society. However, news quickly reaches him about his daughter Shina going missing during a mission she’s received from her latest employer, much to his already growing frustration. He pounds his fist on his desk hard enough to nearly splinter it in two at what his physical inactivity has already allowed, and though he knows the repercussions he’ll suffer from his fellow UN representatives for abandoning his office, he nevertheless cannot bring himself to sit by idly any more than he already has. Therefore, with his military instincts once again fully aroused, he decides to risk his possible assassination at the Society’s hands as well as losing the political profession he had once campaigned so hard to earn once upon a time so that he can rescue his beloved daughter from whatever fate has befallen her. After all, though she’s not of his blood, nor are either he or she humble enough to cross the emotional barrier that they’d unwittingly built between each other, he refuses to deny that he still has a place in his heart for her.
Long Shin
Home Country: China
Age: 33
Fighting Style: Xing Yi Quan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Tiger
Original Backstory: Long studies his own archive in the hope of discovering any information he can use in his own investigation of the zoanthrope riots that have been occurring globally. As night falls, he hears an animal’s cry from outside his home. He opens his door and finds a small white fox huddled up shivering in the entranceway. Feeling pity for the little creature, he brings it inside, feeds it whatever food he’s able to scrounge up for it, and—while it’s eating—notices a piece of paper tied to its front foot. He carefully removes the paper from the fox’s paw, unfolds it, and discovers that it’s a map to a temple. He gazes upon the famished, feasting fox and consolingly promises that he will see that it returns to its owner at once. After the fox has finished its supper, he takes it with him to the destination marked on the map. Unbeknownst to them, however, violent zoanthropes stalk the two of them beneath the shroud of darkness.
Reboot Backstory: Despite the efforts Long Shin has made in coming to terms with his zoanthropy and the history he’s lived on account of his succumbing to his condition’s more violent nature, he still suffers his memories of his father abandoning him and his late mother and sister in favor of pursuing his scientific discovery of biological zoanthropy. Nevertheless, the news he’s heard and read about the worldwide outbreak of XGC-induced zoanthrope killing sprees weighs heavily enough upon his mind to make him dig into his family archives in the hope of discovering some information he can use in solving the crisis at hand. Luckily, he does come across some old notes that his father had written concerning what seems to be the X-Genome Code. Alas, before he can read them thoroughly enough to digest exactly what aspect of the Code they’re talking about, he hears a feverish knock on his front door and an unignorably familiar voice calling out to him. He immediately sets his father’s notes down and rushes toward the door, and when he opens it, he finds his one-time student and former master’s daughter Lanhua standing there with a panicked expression on her face. Long immediately welcomes her in and allows her to have a seat so that she can take a deep breath and explain the emergency at hand. Once she does, she informs him that upon arriving home from school, she has not been able to find her father anywhere. Even the assistant manager of his restaurant has told her that neither she nor any of the other employees have seen him since he went home early during the daily lunch rush, although she does hope he manages to bounce back from whatever illness has apparently taken him over. Worse yet, Lanhua has yet to come across a single bit of evidence that would give her the slightest clue about her father’s present whereabouts. Unable to deny his one-time foster sister the aid she needs, Long agrees to accompany her in her search for her father and immediately sets out with her to rescue the old man from whatever fate has befallen him.
Bakuryu (a.k.a. Kenji [Kakeru] Ogami)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 16
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: Mole
Original Backstory: On behalf of the World of Coexistence, WOC Junior Vice President Kenji Ogami conducts a field investigation concerning the zoanthrope riots when he comes across a little white fox in the mountains. The creature dances about like a frantic puppy, much to his dismayed distraction. He in turn tries to distract it with food that he just happens to have on him, but the creature merely follows him until he gives up and allows it to come with him. He wonders about its sudden interest in him, but before he can even begin to conjure up any kind of answer, it rushes off ahead, prompting him to follow it until he ends up crossing paths with a violent zoanthrope. Only now does he conclude that the fox was warning him about what is presently shaping up to be a fierce battle.
Reboot Backstory: The second X-Genome Code crisis has caused so much tumult across the world that the World of Coexistence has found itself having to stretch its resources thin in its effort to find out who or what’s responsible for the whole affair and what needs to happen for it to stop. All the same, Junior Vice President Kenji Ogami isn’t afraid to take risks on behalf of his older foster brother’s organization to see to it that whoever’s responsible for this whole mess suffers the consequences for whatever chaos he or she has helped cause. That said, while Yugo has decided to check out the Sicyonian Society and the Baseline serum that Dr. Saul Barkai has allegedly created for them, Kenji has elected to don the mantle of Bakuryu once more and perform some undercover work for the WOC by investigating the Curators of Gaia from the inside. Hopefully, his doing so will help bring to light just what the Curators are all about and what role they have in this whole affair, whether they truly are the masterminds behind the recent outbreak of zoanthrope violence or are simply a front for an even more corrupt faction whose agents have been pulling the strings behind this whole series of events.
Uriko Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 16
Fighting Style: Xing Yi Quan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Half-Beast ([Tabby] Cat)
Original Backstory: While walking through town one day, Uriko notices some grade schoolers prodding something. Upon closing in on the scene and seeing that the children are poking at a little white dog, she shouts at them to knock off tormenting the poor creature. They scatter in all directions upon hearing her snap at them, and out of gratitude, the little dog leaps up onto Uriko and begins licking her face. As it does, Uriko checks its collar to discover its name as well as that of its owner, but she finds nothing. She thus decides to name the little dog “Pakupon,” who then leaps out of her arms and tugs the hem of her clothing with its teeth as if trying to pull her off somewhere. Unable to resist her curiosity, she follows little “Pakupon” off on a great adventure.
Reboot Backstory: This is probably the only character arc I’d keep from the original Bloody Roar 4, although not without tweaking it. After rescuing “Pakupon” in her Ninetails form from her unwitting tormentors, Uriko decides to bring her home and take care of her until she happens to discover one way or another her owner and return her to the bereft individual. By the time she brings her new friend back to her house and tries to scrounge up some food for her, however, Mana reverts to her true form—much to Uriko’s surprise, too, considering that while zoanthropes are one thing, a zoanthrope like Mana whose beast form is one hundred percent animal rather than the anthropomorphic equivalent of one is a wholly new notion to her. Nevertheless, she lends an ear to the young miko when she asks for her help in rescuing her foster father Ryoho and the rest of the Curators of Gaia from the influence of Zhen Wu, the man responsible for taking the sect over and turning it into the glorified doomsday cult it has become. According to Mana, Ryoho was a strong, wise, and compassionate leader for the Curators before Zhen and three of the four other pilgrims whom Ryoho had sent to search for the “promised land” (a.k.a. the Kingdom of Zoanthropes) returned months later with the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts and proclaimed the clan’s new mission to be the fulfilment of the “prophecy” of zoanthrope supremacy that Zhen swears the Tabula has inspired him to bring about. Mana was even right there in Ryoho’s tent when he and Zhen had their heated argument over the latter man’s mad scheme, and it was Ryoho himself who told her to flee the premises when he and Zhen came to blows with one another. She thus has only the faintest idea as to why her mentor would at all succumb to accepting Zhen’s insane vision and insist that he and the rest of the clan fulfill such a cruel objective. She likewise feels plenty of remorse for having left her foster father and the rest of the clan behind in her quest for outside help, but helpless all the same in her ability to take control of the situation otherwise. Zhen, after all, is no ordinary man, even amongst zoanthropes, as he possesses enough cunning, influence, and physical power to overcome any threat to his plans that might come his way, no matter how great or small said threat may be. Even so, if no one has the courage to stand up to him now and put an end to his machinations, the very world as the masses know it will forever be lost to an age riddled with even more prejudice and violence than what’s already present.
Uriko takes Mana’s plea into account and agrees to help, but not without first informing her parents Mitsuko and Nezumi—her father particularly, seeing as he’s been conducting his own investigation into the zoanthrope riots and is convinced that he has discovered what it is that has been responsible for them as well as a means by which to reverse it all. Undoubtedly, then, he would want to lend the two girls his support in getting down to the bottom of the matter. Uriko’s mother, too, is no stranger to butting heads with those who would mess with her family and wouldn’t hesitate at all to help put an end to Zhen Wu’s madness, and Uriko’s foster sister Alice, being the senior vice president of the World of Coexistence, is more likely than not already probing into the Curators’ activities at this very moment. At first, Uriko’s promise only makes Mana’s chin tremble in trepidation, which she openly expresses when she claims that she doesn’t want Uriko’s entire family risking its livelihood for her sake by getting tied up in this chaos. Uriko, however, further assures the young miko that her family has, by one means or another, already gotten neck-deep into this ongoing tumult that has surrounded zoanthropekind and that every member of it—blood and non-blood relations alike—will be more than glad to lend Mana a hand in helping her foster father regain his senses and effectively take back the clan from Zhen’s clutches. That’s what families do, after all, or at least the Nonomuras: They fight together for what they believe in and don’t stop until they achieve justice. Mana then smiles at Uriko’s comforting words, although Uriko can still see the worry in her new friend’s eyes and decides that the very least she can do is take her to the family shop at once and give her mother the lowdown at once so that the family can come up with a plan on how to approach the Curators’ rescue as soon as possible.
Jennifer “Jenny” Burtory
Home Country: England/Great Britain
Age: Unknown
Fighting Style: Tae Kwon Do (“Lower Body”)
Beast Form: Bat
Original Backstory: In her normal life, Jennifer Burtory is high society’s top model. Secretly, however, she’s one of the best infiltrating operatives to have made a name for herself in the world of espionage. Her latest mission is to find out the truth about the “Water Dragon” and the “Nine-Tailed Fox”—two creatures from Japanese legend that, according to countless rumors that have been floating around certain information circles, exist in the real world. Jenny personally doesn’t believe in legends, but as a means of relieving herself of her boredom, she sets off to seek the truth behind the rumors anyway. Her week-long investigation proves to be fruitless, however, but right before she considers calling it quits and fabricating her report, a small white fox passes her by. Finally! Just the lead she’s been looking for. Naturally, then, she follows the creature as it scampers off, and before she knows it, she comes across an abandoned temple and the haggard Buddhist monk who resides within it.
Reboot Backstory: The recent string of zoanthrope riots has brought much concern to Jennifer Burtory, and for some time, even she has trouble discerning for herself as to how many of the perpetrators could degenerate from ordinary humans throughout their entire lives into bloodthirsty, XGC-fueled killing machines overnight. Quite frankly, she’s tempted to make the wisecrack of there being something in the water in each of the hometowns from which each perpetrator hails, even if each of the marauders committed his or her respective crime in a notably different corner of the world apart from the rest. Then again, the very notion of a contaminated water supply is enough to give her the hunch to investigate London, the locale closest to her where one of the slaughters had taken place. She hence checks in with the Department of Water & Sanitation in East London and comes across some notes that the department’s analytical chemists have left that detail a foreign chemical agent that has, in fact, polluted the city’s water supply. From what she can gather, she concludes that this foreign substance is none other than pure Factor B with a high concentration of the X-Genome Code and that those who’d perpetrated the massacres had happened to ingest this substance into their bloodstreams prior to their metamorphoses into zoanthropes. Granted, Jenny’s specialty is espionage rather than scientific research, but she does have an idea concerning just who can help her solve this mystery. Her mind made up, she quickly makes a copy of the waterworks chemists’ notes and departs for Japan to see if Dr. Nezumi Nonomura can indeed help her get to the bottom of the matter and do her part in putting an end to this reign of terror that has now befallen the world.
Mitsuko Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 42 (originally 46)
Fighting Style: Wrestling (Japanese Strong Style)
Beast Form: Wild Sow
Original Backstory: None. Hudson Soft had discontinued Mitsuko’s presence within the Bloody Roar franchise following BR 1.
Reboot Backstory: Mitsuko tends to the family shop dutifully with the radio playing cheerful ambient music in the background to help take her mind off the madness that’s been going on around the world, what with those maniacs from the Curators of Gaia spouting off their little doomsday prophecy about global rule by zoanthropes and the disturbingly coincidental zoanthrope riots. Suddenly, in bursts Uriko with a little white fox tagging along right behind her. At first, Mitsuko beams upon seeing her daughter enter the family store, but before she can say a single word, Uriko begins to speak excitedly about the Curators and their apparent aim to take over the world. Not wanting her customers to overhear the disturbing news her daughter is sharing with her, Mitsuko calms her down and offers her a seat at her desk in the store office, then turns to the small dog-like creature that’s begun tugging at the cuff of her jean leg. Tempted to smile despite the circumstances, she asks Uriko who her little furry friend is. Before she can answer, the fox transforms into a young girl in Shinto priestess garb who introduces herself as Mana and tries to calmly tell Mitsuko her story about her ties to the Curators of Gaia; their usurpation by the crooked Zhen Wu; the fall of their original leader Ryoho to Zhen and his followers; and the Curators’ new mission in fulfilling the “prophecy” as their new leader has seen in their latest “holy” symbol, the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts. Uriko makes sure to chime in and fill her mother in when Mana finds herself getting choked up and tripping on her own words as well as to explain how she and Mana first met a mere hour or two ago. Mitsuko absorbs all she can from both girls on top of musing over Mana’s interesting case of zoanthropy and takes a deep breath before she makes up her mind about what the three of them should do about the whole situation. Eventually, she decides to get in touch with her foster daughter Alice, hoping that she or someone else at the World of Coexistence has come across any kind of lead that the three of them could follow. Granted, the WOC no doubt already has their hands full with all the turmoil that’s happening, but the least she can do is offer them a helping hand, especially considering her “veteran” status in struggles like these. Also, it will do them all good to catch up with Nezumi before the three of them head out to follow whatever lead—if any—Alice would be able to give them all, considering how useful her husband’s pharmaceutical background would prove to be. Aside from that, Mitsuko has no intention of wasting any further time than she more likely than not already has, and as soon as closing time arrives for her shop, she promises to arrange things so that a family friend can take over until she, Uriko, Mana, and Nezumi all get to the heart of the matter and put a stop to Zhen Wu’s misdeeds.
Hans Taubemann
Home Country: Germany
Age: 29
Fighting Style: Koppojutsu
Beast Form: Fox
Original Backstory: None. Hudson Soft had discontinued Hans’s presence within the Bloody Roar franchise following BR 1.
Reboot Backstory: Once again, zoanthrope-induced violence has taken the world by storm, much to the grim dismay of Hans Taubemann. Though only a bodyguard for United Nations Commissioner Alan Gado, working closely with his employer has nevertheless given him a strong taste of the situation and the UN’s efforts to bring the killing sprees to a stop…which, according to what he keeps hearing in the news, don’t sound like they’re adding up to much. He can tell all too readily, too, from the grimaces on Gado’s face and the tense growl in his voice during their conversations how frustrated the man is at the notion that the UN has forbidden him to involve himself directly in the investigation. Worse yet, he’s heard of Gado’s daughter Shina suddenly disappearing during a mission that her most recent employer had assigned her, and those glorified poachers known as the Sicyonian Society have returned to prominence and gained the support of regular humans worldwide as their last beacon of hope in the wake of the increasingly hostile zoanthrope “menace” and the Curators of Gaia’s “prophecy” of rule by zoanthropes. Obviously, then, Hans has his work cut out for him, what with his boss once again having a target on his back for the nation’s most notorious beast hunter brigade to strike and the man’s daughter and his own close friend having gone missing, no doubt abducted by either the Society or those doomsaying radicals amongst the Curators. His options are thus broad, but he’s nonetheless made his mind up to rescue Shina so that Gado doesn’t have to and, in the process, make himself an even easier target for the Society to track and take out.
Gregory “Greg” Humain
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 46 (originally 42)
Fighting Style: Wrestling (Freestyle Catch Wrestling)
Beast Form: Gorilla
Original Backstory: None. Hudson Soft had discontinued Greg’s presence within the Bloody Roar franchise following BR 1.
Reboot Backstory: FBI Agent Gregory Humain sits at his desk shaking his head at the news story he’s just finished reading about the Curators of Gaia and the whole “rule by zoanthropes” prophecy that their leader “Ryoho” has apparently been preaching. For the life of him, he cannot understand how anyone, human or zoanthrope, could possibly buy into such a glorified conspiracy theory. Sure, he can’t help but account for the recent rash of zoanthrope-induced slaughters—and by zoanthropes whose medical records indicate that they had once been perfectly ordinary humans up until the incidents, no less—but their timing seems all too conveniently coincidental to him. Then again, he tells himself, even the most educated person can cave in to his or her emotions during times of great distress, as history has shown him and others time and time again. Alas, he knows all too well that he can’t afford to let his own feelings get the better of him, even though a huge part of him still wants to kick himself square in the posterior for once again letting former Tylon Corporation scientist Hajime Busuzima slip through his fingers during the whole Kingdom of Zoanthropes episode several months ago. He likewise can’t help but think that even if Busuzima isn’t somehow behind this whole rigmarole with the Curators, the zoanthrope slaughters, and even the return of the Sicyonian Society in one fashion or another, then surely as history has proven to him on more than one occasion, he’s sure to get himself tied up in it somehow. It certainly would have to take someone of Busuzima’s twisted brilliance to pull off a mess like this, that was for sure, and quite frankly, sitting by at his desk and fuming at himself for botching yet another attempt to arrest one of the world’s most devious manipulators of the human genome wasn’t going to put a stop to it all. Therefore, he stands up, stretches a little bit, and picks up a list of leads to follow from his desk that he’d been reading only a minute ago or so and sets off to see to it that justice is once again served.
Wayne [Wanahton] Farland
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 30
Fighting Style: Judo
Beast Form: Bull
Original Backstory: None. Wanahton is based on an unused character concept as showcased in BR 1’s in-game gallery upon being unlocked.
Reboot Backstory: Though FBI Agent Wayne [Wanahton] Farland had already known about the work that he and the rest of the Bureau had cut out for them, what with Dr. Hajime Busuzima having evaded their capture several months ago during the whole Kingdom of Zoanthropes fiasco, at least he could breathe a little bit easier knowing that most of the other members of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front were now behind bars. Sadly, a whole new series of zoanthrope-caused massacres has begun springing up across the globe to remind him and his fellow agents of just how fragile and short-lived peace and prosperity can be. The news about many of the perpetrators of these killings having once been completely ordinary humans prior to committing the crimes that they had, however, interests him quite a bit…albeit in the most morbid sense possible. Clearly, they had to have encountered some foreign substance that would have triggered some sort of “evolution,” for lack of a better word, within them—a process so strong that it threw their minds of whack, hence their doing what they did. Granted, that’s just Wanahton’s guess, but if he’s at all correct in his assumption, then he knows all too well whom he must investigate to get to the bottom of this specific crisis: the Curators of Gaia. After all, their leader Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki’s little prophecy of zoanthropes inheriting the earth and baseline humanity either dying out or being forced to evolve into something that many of them fear becoming sounds all too coincidental for his liking. Besides, who knows? If the Curators are indeed responsible for this latest crisis, then they’ve surely needed someone to carry out the scientific end of their precious plan to conquer the planet ZLF-style. Busuzima, perchance? Well, if that was the case, then if nothing else, at least Wanahton’s senior partner Greg would no doubt be glad to finally throw that despicable lab lizard back in prison where he belonged. Then again, there was one other person whom he believed would be a great asset against the Curators for more reasons than one…
Johan Rosenberg (formerly Xion)
Home Country: Sweden
Age: 23
Fighting Style: Savate
Beast Form: Cockroach (originally “Unborn”)
Original Backstory: Xion recollects the incident he’d gotten himself involved in the previous year. A woman stood before him—a mundane human woman. She was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear her words. All that he knew was that what stood before him was the truth, and he needed to remove it from his path. Other zoanthropes may have wanted to live together with humans, but that had nothing to do with the Unborn. He thus struck the woman down and muttered to himself as he stood over her fallen body that humans were making a mistake in trying to defeat him. As he reflects upon himself having said those words at the time, he wonders if they had indeed been his own. In fact, there’s but one thing that he does know: the fact that zoanthropes are now coming for his blood once more. The battle has just begun…
Reboot Story: After allowing the Zoanthrope Liberation Front to draft him into its ranks and hence helping it hijack the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ secret laboratory as its first step in claiming the world from baseline humanity, Johan Rosenberg couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with doubt about the morality of his actions. Yes, he’d fallen prey to Dr. Grant Maxwell relieving him of his memories and senses to turn him into a killing machine for his Sicyonian Society, and because of that, he’d wished to redeem himself for his deeds upon having his fellow Society pawns Shenlong and Reiji free him from his brainwashing. Still, he secretly questioned his allegiance to a faction that represented the very opposite end of the whole war between zoanthropes and regular humans—a faction that he ultimately only served because his instincts told him that proper society would never accept him again after his participation in the beast hunters’ little “game” and that the ZLF was as such the only family he’d have left following his parents’ murder and his older sister’s disappearance. In the end, then, when the Front ended up on the losing end of its efforts to turn the KoZ into its personal base of operations for conquering the world, Johan—who continued to go by his Society codename of “Xion” at the time—turned himself in to the authorities and confessed his whole story to the FBI specifically once they had him in their custody. Naturally, then, he went to prison for his participation in the KoZ hijacking, but the Bureau promised him that should he serve his sentence and allow government scientists to run a few tests upon his body to make sure that his zoanthropy stayed under control, its agents would give him a chance to earn his way back into polite society.
It’s been several months since Johan’s arrest, and he has cooperated with the Bureau’s every instruction since it put him behind bars in the maximum-security prison that he now calls home. Along comes FBI Agent Wayne Farland, however, to check up on him and, believe it or not, to inform him of an opportunity by which he can earn himself an early bail and even a clean criminal record. He tells Johan everything about the recent zoanthrope-executed killings worldwide and how the Bureau has come to suspect the Curators of Gaia—a cult of doomsaying pro-zoanthrope Gaia worshippers who’ve convinced the world of humanity’s eventual evolution into zoanthropes—of being behind the massacres. He also tells Johan that he’s offering him the opportunity he is because he believes that his strong religious upbringing and moral conviction will no doubt fuel his desire to come out on top of things just as much as his fierce fighting style and zoanthropy will. After all, Johan did turn himself in in the first place following the ZLF’s takeover of the KoZ’s laboratory, and he has complied fully to the conditions of his arrest. If nothing else, that at least shows his ability to cooperate with the FBI in what they wish to accomplish. Johan can’t help but have his suspicions, however, and quickly asks what the catch is to what so far sounds like a glorified suicide mission for an admitted ex-affiliate of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front. Agent Farland responds by bringing up the notion that he will be accompanying him not only to monitor his activity while out in the field, but also to keep him as safe as humanly possible while he’s out in the field. Besides, Johan will surely appreciate having someone watch his back considering that the Sicyonian Society has returned from obscurity to represent the interests of zoanthrope-fearing humanity and use its alleged latest weapon—a serum called Baseline that can cancel out Factor B within a zoanthrope’s blood to the point of utterly relieving him or her of his or her zoanthropy—in its renewed quest to dispose of zoanthropekind. It’s the very name of this latter faction that brings Johan’s blood to a boil, for he still can’t forget all the innocent zoanthrope blood he’d spilled when Dr. Maxwell had “enlisted” him in the Society and had him carry out his dirty work. Granted, the Bureau is expecting him to help in quelling the Curators’ alleged ZLF-esque plan to dominate the planet, but the chance to avenge himself for what the Society had turned him into is nothing to snub in the slightest, either. He thus promptly agrees to Agent Farland’s proposition, shaking hands with his new partner as he plans to earn his way back into the world’s—and God’s—good graces once more by striking back at both sides of this insane war that has divided the world against itself.
Trueno Rodante (a.k.a. Salvador Reyes)
Home Country: Mexico
Age: 25
Fighting Style: Lucha Libre
Beast Form: Armadillo
Original Backstory: None. Trueno Rodante is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR 3.
Reboot Story: As regretful as Salvador is that he didn’t win the inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, he’s likewise relieved with the idea that he’d at last come to grips with his strand of the X-Genome Code during his participation and was able to keep himself in control of his mental faculties throughout the affair, not once knuckling under its influence. Granted, a large part of him still wishes that he’d been able to keep himself in check during that dreaded first (and only) night he’d spent wrestling for the largest lucha libre promotion in all of Mexico, but much to his regret, there’s nothing he can do about that now. He’s quite glad all the same that he was able to make peace with the younger brother of Óscar Guerrero, the original Latigazo and his opponent/victim, and was able to help young Íñigo understand what had happened to him during his match against Óscar—even if his doing so no doubt made him sound as though he was trying to excuse the murderous behavior he’d put on display during that encounter. Thankfully, his ability to refrain from killing the vengeful heir to Óscar’s mask and lucha libre personality even as he defeated him in their confrontation was enough to show the second Latigazo that he did have enough of a conscience to hold back from slaughtering those who fought him and that his face-to-face with Óscar was a matter of him capitulating to a condition that he didn’t know he had at the time. It was only then that Íñigo realized that Salvador wasn’t the monster he was convinced he was and the two parted company amicably, albeit not without promising one another that they’d cross paths again to once more test their lucha libre prowess against one another.
Several months later, Salvador hears through the grapevine about a second XGC crisis in which zoanthropes across the globe have ended up killing scores of people, no thanks to their possession of the X-Genome Code and the effects of their condition having taken them over the same way it had him a year prior. Worse yet, according to what else the news stories he’s read and heard have said, many of those who were responsible for the killings weren’t even latent zoanthropes, but rather perfectly human prior to having their strands of the XGC get the better of them. Salvador can’t help but shake his head sympathetically as he hears and reads these people’s stories with each one sounding worse than the one before. When he learns about the Curators of Gaia, however, and their prophecy of humanity’s eventual evolution into zoanthropes, whether they want to become so or not, he can’t help but get bad vibes about the whole thing. It all sounds far too familiar to him—almost like a plot of sorts that the so-called “Zoanthrope Liberation Front,” those terrorists whom the authorities had captured from behind the scenes of the UZFT, would concoct. In fact, these “Curators of Gaia,” as they called themselves, seem like nothing more than a more religiously motivated version of the ZLF, if he didn’t know any better, and if they at all are, then that’s even more reason for him to go out there and stop them—and not even as a means of further redeeming his lucha libre persona, Trueno Rodante, either. Honestly, that last bit may sound nice to Salvador’s ears, but the idea of helping to vindicate those who were on the receiving end of a power-hungry conspiracy is all the motivation he needs to seek justice, even if he is still within the custody of the FBI following his involvement in the first XGC crisis from the previous year. At any rate, he dials the office of Bureau Agent Gregory Humain immediately to announce his intent of involving himself in whatever investigation the agency might be conducting on the Curators, hoping that Humain and his colleagues can give him the information he needs to hunt them down and expose them for the vile plot he’s sure they’re conducting.
Dr. Arata Tsukagami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 49
Fighting Style: Wing Chun
Beast Form: Dolphin
Original Backstory: None. Arata is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR PF/E.
Reboot Story: Upon at long last reuniting with his estranged daughter Alice during and after the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament and agreeing to go back home to Japan with her, Arata first hoped to stop and reconvene with his fellow pilgrims from the Curators of Gaia to inform them of his decision. Alas, by the time he and Alice had reached the abandoned Greek temple on the outskirts of Défteri Lykoria where he and the others had been staying, he noticed that they’d all up and left, supplies included. Only two things remained of them, the first being the tracks they’d left in the soft dirt outside the temple. Strangely enough, Arata had counted five sets of footprints leaving the temple rather than the four he’d expected to see. That led to the second thing that his entourage had left behind: a note scribbled hastily on a scrap of parchment that read something in a bizarre script that Alice couldn’t quite decipher herself. She thus handed it to her father, and upon noticing that it was in the runic script of the Curators—a kind of all-inclusive, twenty-eight-letter version of the Greek alphabet—he began to read it. As he did, he discovered that it said, albeit roughly, that his compatriots had left the premises with one of the scientists from the Kingdom’s laboratory in tow and that they were all headed back to the Curators’ original encampment to inform Ryoho that they had indeed found the “Promised Land” and that they would be awaiting Arata there, should he ever return from his search for his daughter. Unable to contain his excitement, Arata eyeballed his companions’ tracks and took one step towards them with the intention of following them. Alice, however, grabbed him by the arm and assured him that his associates would be alright, wherever they were headed. Her own colleagues from the World of Coexistence, on the other hand, were about to head on home soon at that moment, meaning that she and Arata would have no time to stick around and search for his fellow pilgrims. Reluctantly, he agreed and headed on back with Alice to the capitol to take a plane back to Japan with her fellow WOC operatives, albeit not without wondering just how well they would fare their journey.
The months pass by, and Arata has managed to live a peaceful and productive life with Alice, having taken on a job within the pharmacy of the hospital where Alice used to work prior to founding the WOC alongside Yugo and Kenji. Such a peaceful existence suddenly changes for the worse, sadly, when the news breaks out about what the media has claimed to be the second XGC crisis, what with so many zoanthropes having succumbed to their respective strands of the X-Genome Code and losing control of their zoanthropy. What makes the matter even more disturbing, according to Arata’s ears and eyes, is the report that many of these zoanthropes had been ordinary humans prior to their going berserk. Could there be some chemical agent at work that had entered their bodies and somehow made them develop a Lycaonian gland, Arata wonders, or did they already have L-glands that their doctors hadn’t detected that finally awakened under some peculiar set of circumstances? Those are the only explanations he can provide to answer how or why an individual otherwise biologically identified as a regular human would suddenly develop zoanthropy and go on an XGC-influenced killing spree shortly after. More disturbing yet, though, is the coincidence concerning the Curators of Gaia, his former clan, making waves in the media by announcing unto the world some bizarre prophecy about how Gaia Herself has chosen to force all of humanity to evolve into zoanthropes as a means of creating a new world order to preserve the environment. Worse yet is how such words are coming directly of the Curators’ leader Ryoho himself—a man too rational and reserved to be rambling such insanity, according to Arata’s memory. It doesn’t help, either, that Ryoho claims that the prophecy he’s foretelling comes with proof in the form of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts, the Curators’ apparent new holy symbol, which he claims his subordinates—Arata’s fellow pilgrims—had discovered in that abandoned temple where he and the rest of them had stayed during their journey to find the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Indeed, one look at the thing as the media have come to present it is enough to send chills down his spine and wonder why he’d never seen the thing himself during his stay on that remote Greek island—especially with all those telltale glyphs upon it that remind him of the crests that “Coded” zoanthropes sport upon their human forms’ flesh.
At any rate, Arata can sense that something isn’t right with Ryoho, and he has every intention of finding out just what has gotten into him. Thankfully, he has Alice along to accompany him on behalf of the WOC, and with her help, he intends to discover the truth behind his former clan and this apparent doomsday vision they have received from this “Tabula” that his fellow questers have uncovered.
Lanhua Xu
Home Country: China
Age: 17
Fighting Style: Baihequan (White Crane Style Kung Fu)
Beast Form: Crane
Original Backstory: Not much of one. In a nutshell, Lanhua—better known as “Lanfa” on account of a translation error—is the daughter of the old man with whom Long had stayed between the events of BRs 2 and 3. It was at the beginning of Bloody Roar 3 that she fell ill in reaction to her strand of the X-Genome Code manifesting within her body, and because she reminds Long so much of his own late sister Lin Li, he feels that the least he could do to atone for having inadvertently killed Lin Li long ago when he lost control of his own beast form is to venture out and get to the bottom of the XGC crisis in hopes that doing so would lead him to a cure for Lanhua’s condition. She fully recovers at the end of Long’s playthrough in BR 3, thankfully, but alas, she makes no additional appearances in the series afterwards. As such, despite clearly being a zoanthrope on account of her carrying the XGC in BR 3, her beast form has never been disclosed.
Reboot Story: Lanhua returns home from school one day to discover her home in shambles: furniture overturned, books toppled off their shelves, and miscellaneous other furnishings smashed to bits. Worse yet, she cannot sense her father anywhere. She runs frantically through the house, calling out to him and searching every room and hallway, but she cannot find him or any clue as to what has happened to him outside of the ruination she’d just walked into. Frustrated and exhausted, she calls her dad’s restaurant and asks his assistant manager if he’d arrived at all, only to have the woman tell her that neither she nor anyone else at the bistro had seen him since he took the afternoon off…although she does hope he feels better after recovering from whatever ailment had suddenly taken him over. She then calls the police and reports the situation to them, and much to her relief, they arrive shortly and begin a thorough investigation of the premises. She answers the head detective’s questions as completely as she can, too, while the other officers root around for clues, but by no means does she find consolation in the man’s post-interrogation promise that he and his subordinates will get to the bottom of the matter. No…she knows deep down in the pit of her stomach that there’s only one person who can truly determine her father’s whereabouts. That in mind, she patiently waits for the police to leave her home, and once they do, she immediately locks the place up and heads for the home of her former sifu, Long Shin, knowing that he would have what it would take to track down the most important man in her life.
Dr. Nezumi Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 42
Fighting Style: Tenjin Shinyo-Ryu Jujutsu
Beast Form: Rat
Original Backstory: Once upon a time, Mitsuko Nonomura had a husband, and Uriko had a father. That’s it. No official documentation about “Mr. Nonomura” exists, as I’d already shared in my first article in this series, outside of some bonus concept art that the player could unlock in Bloody Roar 1’s art gallery and a picture used in Uriko’s entry in the V-Jump book for BR 2 of him and Mitsuko sitting together in the distance on some beach while Uriko and Alice head for the water. Other than that, Hudson never bothered to include him in any storyline, save for a passing reference here or there in Uriko and Alice’s backstories for certain installments of the BR line.
Reboot Story: Though he’s happy to be back home in Japan with his wife and daughter, pharmacist Nezumi Nonomura nevertheless can’t help but feel restless in his efforts to return to his self-employed way of life. It isn’t so much a matter of him trying to relearn all the treatments he’d created back in the day, even though he’s spent several years away from his recipes and his need to distribute their end products to those who’ve requested them to treat X, Y, and Z ailments. Rather, it’s the simple lack of any test of skill in his job. Sure, working for the Tylon Corporation for roughly a decade turned out to be an occupational nightmare that’d taken him on a wild ride that he only could have dreamed about when he first started his pharmaceutical career. Even so, at least when he was on Tylon’s payroll, the tasks its higher-ups had assigned to him and the challenges said tasks had posed had given him just the motivation he needed to stay sharp as a practitioner in his field. His first few months back operating the pharmacy in his and Mitsuko’s store, on the other hand, have merely felt old hat to him, even after he’d reacquainted himself with many of his old clients, all of whom have welcomed him back enthusiastically upon discovering his return.
That all soon changes, though, once the news breaks out about the random acts of zoanthrope violence that have begun to break out all over the globe. Indeed, the stories Nezumi’s heard so far would have crushed the soul of a less-hardened individual than he, but at long last, along has come the trial of his knowledge that he’s long sought for. Not only that, but upon his learning that many of the zoanthropes who’d been responsible for the various killings used to be perfectly human prior to carrying out their gruesome XGC-fueled deeds, he’s hypothesized that they had to have been exposed to some foreign substance that’d triggered their “evolution.” Luckily for him, the WOC have been swift to include him in their investigation of the whole affair, especially when it comes to working with the local government in Tokyo, home of the organization’s primary headquarters. In fact, it was from working with them and the city’s Bureau of Waterworks that Nezumi learned that his hypothesis was right, for the BoW had discovered themselves that Tokyo’s water has indeed come to carry traces of XGC-laced Factor B. Presently, the BoW and the WOC are jointly trying to discover the cause of such contamination, but when it comes to reversing it, Nezumi is more than up to the task of trying to creating the ideal serum for such a cause and has received the BoW’s word that they will offer him as many samples of contaminated water upon which he can test his experimental concoction. Once he’s created the ideal substance, furthermore, he plans on administering it within Tokyo’s water supply to rid the city of this most peculiar of pollutants, then provide the rest of the world whose water supplies have suffered similar circumstances with a similar cure in the hope of ridding such a blight once and for all.
Latigazo (a.k.a. Ignacio “Íñigo” Guerrero)
Home Country: Mexico
Age: 21
Fighting Style: Lucha Libre
Beast Form: Iguana
Original Backstory: None. Latigazo is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR PF/E.
Reboot Backstory: Íñigo couldn’t help but show surprise at his loss to Trueno Rodante in the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, but it wasn’t even the loss itself that had taken him aback. Rather, it was the fact that his opponent had spared his life rather than finished him off as he had his brother Óscar and even went as far as to hold his hand out to help him back to his feet after having knocked him to the ground. Once Íñigo was standing again and had dusted himself off, he caught a glimpse at Rodante’s face and noticed the grimly relieved expression he wore. Curious, he asked his adversary what was wrong with him, to which Rodante replied by explaining what it was that had led to him taking Óscar’s life during that fateful match. Íñigo paid close attention, too, to his opponent’s voice and mannerisms as he recounted his tale and could tell for himself that the man was doing everything in his power to not make excuses for himself—to take responsibility for his actions and show gratitude for at last being able to master his strand of the X-Genome Code before it completely took him over and made him succumb to the bloodlust with which it’d bestowed him. The story in turn had left Íñigo in a state of sincere reflection about other zoanthropes’ beastorization processes, including his own, for while he couldn’t help but read and hear about the XGC crisis from months prior with at least a hint of skepticism, he had to admit that he himself had felt himself losing control of his own mental faculties upon taking on his beast form. Luckily, such had happened to him only for a brief while, but even then, the feeling was intense and—dare he admit it—quite alarming. He could only imagine, then, how Rodante must have felt when he and Óscar had had their match and the former had succumbed to his bestial urges and slain the latter. It was upon achieving this realization that the younger Guerrero brother was able to forgive Trueno Rodante for his transgressions, shake hands with him, and depart the tournament with more peace in his heart than when he first entered it.
Months later, news of a second XGC-related crisis has flooded the airwaves. Story after story has come out about zoanthropes worldwide capitulating to their respective strands of the X-Genome Code and killing countless innocents while under the influence of their condition. Reports have even emerged informing the masses that some of the perpetrators responsible for such madness used to be perfectly mundane humans prior to going on the rampages they had. Worse yet is the coinciding drama that arises from the rapidly growing influence of the religious group known as the Curators of Gaia and their prophecy of all humanity evolving into zoanthropes as a means of surviving the apocalypse that it has unwittingly brought upon itself via its long history of environmentally unfriendly behavior. Íñigo particularly can’t help but raise an eyebrow at this last bit not only because of its utterly fantastic nature, but also at the fact that so many other zoanthropes and zoanthrope sympathizers have apparently flocked to the Curators’ banner, making him feel as though he’s the only one who sees the situation the way he does. Alas, he hasn’t the mental or emotional stamina to involve himself directly in the whole mess, preferring to instead focus on his lucha libre training and subsequent wrestling career. That is, of course, until yet another zoanthrope killing spree takes place in his own home city, the perpetrator which just happens to be a fellow student of his father’s—a close friend of his since junior high school named Sara “Sarita” Cueto. This particularly perturbs Íñigo not only because of how he and Sarita had always gotten along with each other since their “tweens,” but also because he’s never known her to have had any kind of mean streak, much less a murderous one. Consequently, he’s never known her to be a zoanthrope, either, but that was besides the point. What mattered was that the whole business of zoanthropes rampaging across the globe had finally affected Íñigo personally and that he could no longer resist the urge to do something—anything—about it. He therefore decided to put his dreams of lucha libre stardom on hold and set off on a journey to see what he could do to put a stop to this second XGC crisis and specifically save Sarita from whatever had taken her over. Surely there had to be something he could do to get to the bottom of this mess or, if not that, find someone out there who could help him do so.
The Unlockable Twenty-Four
Arachne (a.k.a. Nagi Kirishima)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 18
Fighting Style: Goju-Ryu Karate
Beast Form: Iron Spider
Original Backstory: During the XGC crisis the previous year, Nagi Kirishima had gone out of her way to stop Xion’s killing spree and received a mortal wound for her troubles. Rather than out-and-out dying, however, Nagi has received from Gaia a copy of the Unborn’s powers, which in turn has made her a creature known as the Spurious. Naturally, then, this power has allowed her to survive her assailant’s attack, although it’d remained dormant within her on account of Yugo (whom she knows personally…although how has never officially been fully explained) and the other protagonists having put an end to Xion’s rampage and the XGC outbreak. Unfortunately for her, the global zoanthrope riots have awakened the Unborn’s spirit within her and made her susceptible to its influence over not only Xion, but her as well. As such, she seeks Xion to—at least according to her own mind—exact revenge against him for dealing her the fateful blow that he’d given her, not knowing that her doing so would only strengthen the Unborn’s control over her, should she indeed return Xion the favor.
Reboot Story: Having discovered the truth behind the Sicyonian Society as the late Dr. Grant Maxwell had been running it the previous year, Nagi Kirishima had walked out on the organization for what she’d hoped would be for good. Even a full year hasn’t been enough for her to overcome the memories she has of her discovering Maxwell’s true intentions in using her and her fellow beast hunters to collect blood samples from the XGC-carrying zoanthropes he would send them out to either capture or slay, for when her own aunt Haruna announces the Society’s return and invites her to help her fellow teammates confront the growing threat of worldwide zoanthrope violence, she hesitates to enlist for a second time. Sensing her niece’s frustration, Haruna tries to convince her that the Society has forgone its original model of hunting down “Coded” zoanthropes for their blood in favor of the far less lethal and hence more ethical approach of neutralizing their targets’ zoanthropy with a chemical agent its creator, famed biochemist Dr. Saul Berkai, calls “Baseline.” Granted, the Society just might have to cave in when it comes to its deadliest prey and flat-out slay them in the interest of keeping the public safe, but it plans on keeping the bloodshed to a bare minimum this time around to maintain the public’s trust in its cause to prevent the Curators of Gaia’s “prophecy” from coming true. Besides, Haruna reminds, even when Nagi was in league with the Society the previous year under the codename “Arachne,” she specialized in capture and paralysis, meaning that her method of operation this time around would be no different from what it was when she was under Maxwell’s employment. Not only that, but if she were to trap any particularly violent zoanthropes now, the Society would make sure that they received the help they needed following the healthy dose of Baseline necessary to rid each of them of the very condition that was driving them all to end so many innocent lives. Nagi considers her aunt’s assurance of the Society’s redemption for some time, then eventually agrees to once again don her iron spider cyberthrope suit and become Arachne for the sake of putting an end to whatever grand scheme is threatening to unfold, vowing to resign from the Society permanently once she’s helped it dissolve the Curators and scattered the psychotic cult to the seven winds.
How to Unlock: Beast Story Mode with Yugo.
Otrera (a.k.a. Haruna Morimoto)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 37
Fighting Style: Jeet Kune Do
Beast Form: Iron Rabbit
Original Backstory: None. Otrera is an entirely new character I personally created for my reboot of BR 3 as based on a discarded concept for the game’s original version that Kenji Fukuya had conjured up concerning a mechanized beast form for Alice that would have come fully equipped with flight and hovering capabilities. For more information, feel free to check out this interview with him as preserved by the website Shmuplations.com.
Reboot Story: Though the Sicyonian Society had fallen the previous year, Yun Chi Manufacturing, Inc. electronics engineer Haruna Morimoto has yet to relinquish her belief in the organization’s mission to protect mundane humanity from the threat of zoanthropekind. The relatively rapid return to power of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front following the Society’s initial fall was enough to prove her fears correct, even if the United Nations had foiled the Front’s plot to take over the then-recently established Kingdom of Zoanthropes and use it as its base of operations. The recent outbreak of zoanthrope violence, however, has only further solidified her dread, and the growing influence of the Curators of Gaia and their insane ramblings of “Gaia” establishing a “new age” by forcing regular humans to “evolve” into bloodthirsty, XGC-driven zoanthropic killers has only further escalated the matter. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised at all if there was some sort of connection between this second XGC crisis and those mind-warping religious radicals—all the reason more, therefore, for the Society to return to prominence. Granted, not everyone on Earth had agreed with the Society’s mission, particularly the countless zoanthropes and zoanthrope sympathizers who still accuse its members to this day of being nothing more than just another coalition of beast hunters who want to drive zoanthropekiknd into extinction. Thankfully, however, the Society now has the respected and world-renown biochemist Dr. Saul Barkai in its corner and his latest contribution to science, the Factor B-consuming chemical agent he calls “Baseline,” in its arsenal to help reduce the world’s zoanthrope population without ending the lives of any of its recipients. End the curse of zoanthropy, end the cause of zoanthrope-based murders…and this time all with much less bloodshed than before. If that isn’t enough to encourage humanity to trust in the Society and look beyond its admittedly shady past, then Haruna—a.k.a. Society agent “Otrera”—isn’t sure what is.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Alice.
Jane “Shina” Gado
Home Country: France
Age: 20
Fighting Style: Military Martial Arts (Single & Continuous Attacks)
Beast Form: Leopard
Original Backstory: With zoanthrope violence having become a global phenomenon, Shina’s work as a mercenary is far from over, what with her most recent employers (nation name unknown) instructing her to go to Japan and search for a missing group of investigators who have disappeared around the region of a temple. Seeing the investigators’ disappearance as an act of provocation against it, Nation X promises her that it’ll call upon the aide of its special forces if necessary. The situation as Shina comes to discern it reminds her all too much of what had happened during the XGC incident a year before and how her then-employers’ motives had made her chose to turn her back on them for the safety of the world at large. She puts those feelings aside, however, knowing it’s not like her to rest for long, and before she knows it, she crosses path with a stoic Buddhist monk and his nine-year-old miko charge.
Reboot Backstory: With zoanthrope violence having become a global phenomenon, Shina’s work as a mercenary is far from done, especially with her latest employers acknowledging her success in helping to put down the Zoanthrope Liberation Front on two occasions and hence being the ideal recruit to help them do the same to the Curators of Gaia. Shina didn’t hesitate to accept the mission, either, feeling that their whole message of “Gaia” forcing humanity to “evolve” into zoanthropes as being a little too suspicious—nay…transparent—for its own good and wreak very much of an agenda that the ZLF itself would promote. Sadly, the infiltration she oversaw quickly went awry when the other mercenaries whom her bosses had enlisted to accompany her turned on her at the most critical moment of the mission, leaving her completely at the Curators’ mercy. She tried valiantly to escape her predicament, too, but the numbers game proved to be too much for her, and her efforts to fight back against them have only led to her defeat at their hands. That’s the last she remembers of her encounter with her new masters, however, as the rest has degenerated into a blur of emotions mixed with thought that has convinced her somehow to give in to the inevitability of Gaia’s will and embrace the change rather than combat it as her mundane human oppressors have instructed her to. After all, was it not they, her genetic inferiors, who sent her deliberately into the jaws of defeat to try and conquer an enemy they knew she couldn’t overcome, even with help? Was it not they who saw her as little more than an expendable biological weapon against that which they didn’t understand and thus decreed to be an unholy evil? Such is what the fluid that now flows through her brain is telling her, and until she at last clears her addled head of the foreign thoughts that now cloud her mind because of said substance, such is what she’ll continue to think, her loyalties having switched to the side of her captors so that they may now use her as a weapon in their self-righteous cause.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Gado.
Lance Underwood
Home Country: Canada
Age: 35
Fighting Style: Combato
Beast Form: Deer
Original Backstory: None. Lance is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: One of the five pilgrims whom Ryoho had sent on the clan’s search for the promised land, former zoanthrope mercenary Lance Underwood has long harbored within his heart the pain of having lost his platoonmates to the forces of the Tylon Corporation via a failed sting operation against its South American compound. The fact that Tylon’s scientists had soon afterwards took advantage of his natural zoanthropy and brainwashed him to become one of its mercenaries didn’t help, either, especially considering the many missions the multinational corporation had sent him and his new brigade on that resulted in the deaths of countless innocent people and the destruction of where they worked…and all to assert Tylon’s alleged supremacy, too. Naturally, then, when the time of the pilgrimage came to pass and Zhen Wu used the inspiration that he’d garnered from his discovery of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts to propose the Curators’ new agenda, Lance couldn’t help but rally behind it. After all, Tylon had only proven all too thoroughly how corrupt humanity was via its executives’ world-conquering agenda, and as one of said corporate suits’ former pawns, he felt a moral obligation to ensure such defilement never occurred again. Furthermore, if nothing else, at least the metamorphosis of all humanity into zoanthropes would convert the entire human race into one specie and as such effectively push the idea of racism further into obscurity, thereby encouraging a more cohesive global social balance. He only wished, of course, that Zhen’s idea to fulfill the will of Gaia didn’t result in so many zoanthropes succumbing to their newly attained bestial natures and slaughtering so many innocent mundane human beings. Alas, Zhen has told him, such was the unfortunate nature of what English biologist and sociologist Herbert Spencer called “survival of the fittest,” for if the strong are to inherit Mother Earth, the weak would have to perish. Such is a notion that Lance has begrudgingly accepted, particularly in the instance of the “weak” being those of a selfish disposition or some other kind of deprived moral character. Even so, he can’t help but ask himself as to how many good-natured people must perish for the Curators to fulfill the will of their patron goddess. One way or another, then—whether he stays true to his new master Zhen or follows his own conscience—he’s bound to discover the answer for himself.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Long.
Talita de Macedo
Home Country: Brazil
Age: 31
Fighting Style: Capoeira
Beast Form: Sloth
Original Backstory: None. Talita is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: Being one of the five pilgrims whom Ryoho had sent to discover the harmonious land that his visions had shown him, Talita was naturally there to hear Zhen Wu announce his vision for the Curators’ latest cause upon his and the others’ discovery of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts. Unlike her two compatriots Lance and Bitrus, however, Talita was hesitant to show support for Zhen’s cause right away. After all, though it was true that the Tylon Corporation had just as much turned her into a weapon of war as it did the others and as such exploited them all for the talents they either had possessed already or had received directly from their captors, she couldn’t help but feel as though Zhen was holding all mundane humans responsible for Tylon’s cruelty. Besides, who was to say that zoanthropes and regular humans couldn’t learn to live in peace with one another, had it not been for the corrupt multinational conglomerate stirring the pot and using their kind to do its dirty work and in turn make their entire lot look like evildoers? Sadly, Talita hadn’t the courage at the time to stand by her convictions, and her timid nature resulted in Bitrus, Lance, and Zhen all overruling her as they united under Zhen’s twisted manifesto. Months have passed since then, though, and upon witnessing one XGC-induced rampage after another by unsuspecting would-be murderers, she has finally brought it upon herself to abandon the Curators’ foul cause and bring Zhen to justice for defiling the sect’s once-noble purpose. How she plans on doing so, she can only guess, but she knows all too well that she must act with deftness and determination if she ever wants to see the Curators of Gaia redeem themselves and especially reverse whatever harm she herself has done via her own hesitance.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Bakuryu.
Bellerophon (a.k.a. Thaksin Singkham)
Home Country: Thailand
Age: 34
Fighting Style: Muay Lert Rit
Beast Form: Iron Snail
Original Backstory: None. None. Bellerophon is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: When he received his honorable discharge from the Royal Thai Army, Roi Ek (Captain) Thaksin Singkham was very much looking forward to spending the rest of his life peacefully and quietly with his wife and two young sons. Unfortunately, such was not the fate that he received, as what was meant to be a relaxing family night out on the town turned into the most tragic night of Thaksin’s life when an XGC-riddled zoanthrope happened to rampage through the city and assault the cab within which he and his family were riding on their way back home from the movie theater. Suffering injuries that left him in critical condition, he nonetheless survived the attack, thanks to the doctors on hand using advanced bionics to bolster his damaged organs and restoring his lost blood via transfusion. His wife and sons, on the other hand, all perished from their own injuries before the doctors could save them—news that pierced his soul like a knife when it reached his ears and left him seething for vengeance against the zoanthrope who’d perpetrated the attack upon him and his loved ones. He faced a new twist of fate, however, when the Sicyonian Society caught wind of his struggle and offered him a chance to avenge his late family, track down the zoanthrope responsible for its slaughter, and bring him or her to justice. He promptly agreed to the Society’s terms, especially upon hearing from its agents that countless other mundane humans across the planet have suffered losses akin to his own. Since then, the Society has fitted him with a cyberthrope suit shaped in the guise of a cone snail, complete with a Baseline-tipped harpoon with which he can neutralize the Factor B in his prey and a hard shell-like carapace of reinforced steel with which to further protect him from all but the sharpest of claws, horns, and fangs and the strongest of crushing attacks. He now serves the Society under the codename Bellerophon and has made a solemn oath to his deceased loved ones to avenge them and all who’ve suffered fates like theirs at all costs.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Uriko.
Stun
Home Country: None (predecessor from the United States of America)
Age: 37
Fighting Style: Pro Wrestling
Beast Form: Beetle (originally just “Insect”)
Original Backstory: A year has passed since the XGC incident, and the man formerly known to the world as Dr. Steven Goldberg now lives out his days struggling with the great pain that still courses through his body. Losing patience with his condition, he wonders how long he can live with his enhanced body acting up on him as it has been. If he is to have a long life, preferably without the constant agony he continues to feel, he needs a way by which he can preserve his physical form. Luckily, he hears news through the grapevine about a Shinto oracle who can seal zoanthropy and keep it from taking over a host’s body and mind. Though skeptical of this news on account of its mystical nature and his once being a man of science, Stun nevertheless decides to seek out this oracle, considering the tidings to be his last ray of hope as far as ending his suffering is concerned. Knowing that there isn’t much time left for him to achieve his relief, he thus heads forth on his latest life mission.
Reboot Backstory: To put things bluntly, this Stun is not Dr. Steven Goldberg, who—as you no doubt remember from the introduction of this story—has chosen to remain in the Kingdom of Zoanthropes to help the scientists there with their ongoing medical research. Rather, this Stun is a clone of Steven whom Busuzima had created to serve as his personal bodyguard as Steven had before him in my reboot of the first Bloody Roar game. That said, Stun here differs from his original in that his body is a more biologically advanced model on account of the KoZ scientists having used Steven’s reconstructed form as the basis of the common shock troop that the Zoanthrope Liberation Front wanted for their zoanthrope army back in my reboot of BR PF/E. Stun here, for instance, possesses a thicker exoskeleton to provide him with more resistance to physical attacks (punches, kicks, natural and manufactured weapon strikes, etc.) than Steven’s did, especially when he enters Hyper Beast Mode and trades in Steven’s Power Block for Super Armor as an Ability Plus. He also lacks Steven’s scientific knowledge and as such is little more than the grunt that Busuzima has always felt Steven had become upon transforming into the original Stun. That’s not to say that this clone of his is dim-witted, however, for he is intelligent enough to question who he is and what his purpose is in the world other than playing babysitter to a mad scientist who’s still reeling from his grandmother’s passing over two decades ago. Stun silently resents his “master,” too, mostly because of how he looks down upon him for being nothing more than “dumb muscle.” Then again, there’s also this thought that keeps nagging on his bitter mind about the ex-Tylon scientist having wronged him in some way. What it is, he can only assume, but who knows? Maybe one of Steven’s old memories lingers on within this Stun’s brain in some way.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Jenny.
Drakon (a.k.a. Ganzorig Purev)
Home Country: Mongolia
Age: 23
Fighting Style: Hung Gar
Beast Form: Iron Deinonychus
Original Backstory: None. Drakon is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 3.
Reboot Story: Having joined the Sicyonian Society the previous year as a means of redeeming himself for the XGC-induced rampages he’d gone on prior to having his Lycaonian gland removed, Ganzorig Purev can’t help but feel a cruel sense of déjà vu whenever he reads or hears about yet another XGC-fueled zoanthrope going on a killing spree of his or her own. The notion that many of the zoanthropes who were responsible for these acts of uncontrolled violence were once perfectly mundane humans who’d attained zoanthropy via yet-undiscovered means only further disturbs him. Then again, so do the reports of the religious sect known as the Curators of Gaia claiming that their goddess has arranged the human genome so that the entire human race will eventually metamorphosize into zoanthropes. As such, reforming the Society with his fellow former Sicyonians should ideally be one of the simplest decisions he’s ever made. Alas, Ganzorig never truly felt comfortable wearing his cyberthrope suit on account of the bad memories it gave him at the time as a piece of metamorphic hardware, and the discovery of what the Society’s former leader, the (thankfully) late Dr. Grant Maxwell, was performing behind the scenes with the “Coded” blood samples he and his fellow hunters would collect for him still sickens him to his stomach today. Still, if his reenlistment in the Society means saving humanity from the curse of biological zoanthropy and especially relieving people such as what he’d once been of their own inner beasts, then he’ll nevertheless screw in his heels and help his fellow agents take care of business—especially if the Society keeps its promise of keeping the fatalities among their targets to a bare minimum this time around.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Mitsuko.
Bitrus Adamu
Home Country: Niger
Age: 29
Fighting Style: Kokawa/Lutte Traditionnelle (West African folk wrestling) with Dambe (Hausa boxing)
Beast Form: Rhinoceros
Original Backstory: None. Bitrus is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: Being one of the five members of the Curators’ pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, Bitrus Adamu was among the three who were present to hear firsthand Zhen Wu’s plans for the clan upon the group’s discovery of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts. He was also arguably the most enthusiastic about supporting Zhen’s desire to fulfill the ideology that he’d read in the Tabula and manifest it as a prophecy of Gaia’s will to teach humanity a lesson in treating Mother Earth with the dignity and respect it’d long denied Her. After all, Bitrus had been perfectly content living amongst his fellow Nigeriens as a professional folk wrestler and an aspiring Olympic competitor for his country. He could have very well become the latter, too, had the Tylon Corporation not abducted him from his homeland, awakened his inner beast, and turned him into a weapon of destruction against its corporate rivals. Now he has no hope of ever returning to the life he once knew or living the life he’d planned for himself, no thanks to the branding he’s surely received on account of serving the multinational conglomerate, even if it was against his will. As such, any chance he’s able to take against Tylon and organizations just like it for exploiting zoanthropes is one he’s willing to. If only he realized how such further damage the fulfillment of what Zhen refers to as “Gaia’s Will” has already ended up doing and will continue to do so, lest someone put a stop to Zhen’s madness…
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Hans.
Myrmidon (a.k.a. Jerry Bagwell)
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 27
Fighting Style: Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP)
Beast Form: Iron Ant
Original Backstory: None. Myrmidon is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: A proud former officer of the United States Marine Corps and a devout Christian, Sergeant Jerry Bagwell found joining the Sicyonian Society following his discharge to be one of the simplest decisions he’s ever made. After all, as is natural with countless other regular humans, regardless of their personal religion, he doesn’t trust the Curators of Gaia or their message of their so-called “goddess” seeking to punish baseline humanity for its infractions against “Mother Earth” by transforming the entire race into zoanthropes. On the other hand, despite being one of the Society’s newest members, he’s already shown a particularly unsettling mean streak against zoanthropes that has proven to be socially detrimental to how the Society’s higher-ups wish for the public to perceive its organization. Should he let it get the better of him, they believe, he will no doubt be more of a liability not only to himself but also to the Society at large. As such, they’ve made a conscious effort to only deploy him against the group’s most dangerous prey and keep his activity as a Society field agent to a bare minimum and under high surveillance to make sure that he doesn’t cross any lines. Jerry has become all too attuned to his treatment within the group, however, and presently has every intention to prove his employers wrong for underestimating his worth by seeking out the Curators’ headquarters himself, storming the premises on a self-imposed solo mission, and bringing to justice the head of the Curators’ operation.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Greg.
Asterion (a.k.a. Dr. Zacharias Vouvalis)
Home Country: Greece
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Pankration
Beast Form: Iron Bull
Original Backstory: None. Asterion is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 3.
Reboot Story: Even before enlisting in the Sicyonian Society the previous year, history and mythology professor Dr. Zacharias Vouvalis had been taking note of the similarities between the Crests on XGC-carrying zoanthropes and the markings that have appeared on many an ancient Greek artifact. It thus wasn’t hard for him back then to draw the connection between real-life biological zoanthropes and the “Anthropoi Thirion” (“Beast People”) from the legends he’d read about within the very texts he’d taught out of at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The connection between the two races proved to be only stronger, however, when he received permission from Rao Mamurasaki, the figurehead of the Curators of Gaia, to take a closer look at the cult’s chosen holy symbol, the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts. His up-close examination of such an elaborate and esoteric work of stone was quite an eye-opening experience, to say the least, considering just how many Crest-like markings he’d seen lining the thing and even the Grecian prayer he’d read that encircled its inner rim. When Mamurasaki revealed the disc’s history to Zacharias as he’d originally heard from his second-in-command Zhen Wu, who’d found it while on an excursion to find the sect’s “holy land” (purportedly the Kingdom of Zoanthropes), Zacharias couldn’t help but feel even more unnerved. Then again, even the Tabula’s alleged origin and coincidental markings weren’t nearly as disturbing as the Curators’ warning to all humanity of a prophecy in which Gaia Herself would force the entire race to either “evolve” into zoanthropes or perish upon the arrival of the apocalypse that it’d brought upon itself via its environmentally hazardous acts. True though it was that many have been those among the public who’ve dismissed such a radical warning, the grim fortuity of the random acts of global zoanthrope violence that had begun to take place roughly around the same time was all the hint that Zacharias needed to draw yet another connection between myth and reality and conclude that the legends he’d read about were coming true. It was also the push he needed to join forces once more with former fellow beast hunters Gavriil Stavros and Haruna Morimoto and reform the Sicyonian Society with the hope of stopping the rumored holocaust and save the mundane human genome from extinction.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Wanahton.
Ethwasa Masondo
Home Country: England/Great Britain (via South Africa)
Age: 31
Fighting Style: Shequan (Snake Style Kung Fu)
Beast Form: Mamba
Original Backstory: None. Ethwasa is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR 2.
Reboot Backstory: Having escaped a second potential capture by the law for partaking in a plot to conquer the world under the banner of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, Ethwasa curses herself out for having fallen again for the Tylon Corporation’s treachery. True, it was former Tylon lab lizard Busuzima who’d helped the others evade capture by creating clones of them all from samples of their DNA to take their place when their enemies had foiled their takeover of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ secret lab, but the fact that their plot had ended as it had still upset her greatly. Now she and her compatriots have had to go into hiding with Busuzima’s puppet Shenlong still assuming leadership over them and the scheming scientist himself nowhere to be found. Then the news breaks out about zoanthropes going on rampages across the globe killing innocent civilians left, right, and center and a supposed doomsday cult calling itself the “Curators of Gaia” preaching about “Gaia’s Will” and all of humanity either evolving into zoanthropes or otherwise soon to face the consequences of their race’s mistreatment of the environment. Rumor even has it that the Sicyonian Society has returned from obscurity to put an end to the apparent outbreak of mundane humans transforming into murderous, XGC-riddled zoanthropes with the help of its latest weapon: a serum called “Baseline” that’s said to dissolve Factor B within a zoanthrope’s bloodstream and even directly shut down his or her Lycaonian gland. Naturally, Shenlong sees an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and discover for himself the very nature of the Curators, whom he sees as being potential allies in the ZLF’s collective desire to establish a worldwide “zoanthropecracy” over their former persecutors among mundane humanity. No doubt Busuzima has a hand in this whole mess as well, plying his craft on the unsuspecting masses in the name of Tylon’s sickening agenda. The whole thing certainly wreaks of his influence, if nothing else, and as far as Ethwasa is concerned, these “Curators of Gaia,” as they call themselves, seem to be little more than what the ZLF were as Busuzima had envisioned them, albeit with a religious bent. At any rate, Ethwasa’s made it her business to hunt down the Curators’ base of operations and find out what they’re all about, and if need be, she’ll be all too glad to sink her fangs into the tongue-flailing coward once and for all for his reckless duplicity and self-absorption.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Xion.
Kohryu (a.k.a. Development No. β-0389)
Home Country: None (manufactured in China)
Age: Roughly 1 year, 26 days off the production line
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: Iron Mole
Original Backstory: Kohryu is a product of Yun Chi Manufacturing, Inc., a robotics manufacturing firm that was once a department of the long-defunct Tylon Corporation yet remains active even today in the six- to seven-year-long wake of its parent corporation’s public fall. Modeling their creation after deceased Tylon assassin Ryuzo “Bakuryu” Kato and producing it on a trial basis, YCM’s engineers have programmed their creation with Kato’s battle data, which they’d analyzed and collected from the mass of green cellular sludge that Kato had melted into around the time of Tylon’s alleged collapse. Alas, they’ve lost control of Kohryu during a trial run, and the robot—apparently having developed a consciousness of its own—has gone on a killing spree, murdering every zoanthrope it comes across.
Reboot Story: The token artificial operative of the Sicyonian Society, Kohryu had suffered a dismantling defeat at the hands of Bakuryu and Wanahton during the events of the first X-Genome Code crisis a year prior, no thanks to the emotional strain that played havoc upon his system during the conflict. Society coleader and engineer Haruna “Otrera” Morimoto has since had to reconstruct and reprogram him in such a way to at least tone down the memories of his past life, which were no doubt responsible for sending his emotions—and, in turn, his internal mechanisms—into overdrive to the point of operational exhaustion. Much to Haruna’s dismay, however, a flaw in Kohryu’s system had prevented her from being able to completely erase his memory without also erasing his combat data. On that note, she’s reprogrammed him in such a way to make the memories of his past life more slowly manifest inside his consciousness and in turn his mind less likely to send his internal workings into the very same frenzy that had managed to fray them last time. Additionally, she’s lined his claws with Dr. Saul Barkai’s Baseline so that even a minor scratch from them can neutralize, no matter how minorly, the Factor B in his prey’s body, as well as tweaked the rest of his arsenal to make him even more effective in combat than before. It’s upon adding these final details to him that Haruna activates Kohryu and sends him back out into the field to help the Society protect the human genome from any further rampaging zoanthropes who would dare cave in to their XGC and prove true the “prophecy” of those rabblerousing doomsayers, the Curators of Gaia.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Trueno Rodante.
Golan Draphan (formerly Ganesha)
Home Country: Scotland (formerly Kingdom of Zoanthropes via Scotland, originally ungiven)
Age: 57
Fighting Style: Sumo
Beast Form: Elephant
Original Backstory: None. Hudson Soft had discontinued Golan’s (a.k.a. Ganesha’s) presence within the Bloody Roar franchise following BR Primal Fury/Extreme.
Reboot Story: After having defeated his former charge Prince Cronos during the inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, former zoanthrope mercenary Golan Draphan couldn’t help but kneel over the prince’s unconscious body and close his watery eyes mournfully. Muttering an apology to his fallen opponent, the man otherwise known as Ganesha tried to explain to the young prince that his defeating him in one-on-one combat was “the only way” and that he will one day understand why he had to do to him what he did. He then progressed through the tournament to suffer a defeat at the hands of Captain Hayagriva, who came to suspect him of betraying the royal family via his actions and as such showed Golan no mercy during their match, then had the rest of the Kingdom’s royal guard incarcerate him until King Orion called for an audience with him. It was during this audience that Golan explained to His Majesty the promise he’d made to avenge the people of the village where he and his fellow mercenaries had been stationed long ago on account of Cronos having razed it while under the influence of his phoenix beast form. Orion surprisingly enough understood Golan’s reasoning for attacking his son and expressed his condolences for the civilians who’d lost their lives and homes that fateful day as well as his understanding that Golan defeating Cronos was within the context of a sanctioned match. Even so, for Golan to go from Cronos’s trusted bodyguard to his personal assailant had shown a clear conflict of interest in him as someone assigned his professional position and put him at odds with the royal family, and it was for that reason alone that Orion made Golan relinquish his codename “Ganesha” and his position within the Kingdom. Golan solemnly accepted his termination and even agreed to leave the KoZ for good for the sake of its welfare, never to be a threat to Cronos, the royal family at large, or anyone else on the island ever again.
Months have since passed since Golan’s banishment, and though he’s managed to get by as well as he can, given his predicament, he still harbors a heavy heart concerning the mess he’s been through over the years. Living alone in a small farmhouse along the Scottish countryside, he does everything in his power to shake off the bad memories he’s endured during his days as a mercenary and especially between the desecration of that humble village in France up until his departure from the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Alas, his bitterness and sorrow all too often prove too hard for him to overcome, especially on the day in which he receives an unsolicited visit from a threesome of wandering priests. Claiming to represent the Curators of Gaia, a religious coalition for zoanthropes and zoanthrope sympathizers, the trio asks him to join their cause and help them spread the word of Gaia’s will to save the planet by mutating the human genome and as such rescuing humanity from the upcoming apocalypse that it has unwittingly brought upon itself via its many longstanding practices that have damaged the planet. The process has already begun, after all, they tell him, as Golan has no doubt heard and read for himself in the news about the recent string of zoanthrope riots across the globe in which many a zoanthrope has succumbed to his or her bestial urges and gone on to claim the lives of countless innocents with his or her own bare hands. In fact, many has been the report that a good handful of these zoanthropes had once been ordinary humans prior to their “evolution” and consequent respective rampages. Golan has indeed heard and read about the very instances the priests are describing to him, but he nevertheless wholeheartedly distrusts them and their crusade of misinformation, for the “prophecy” of which they speak in and of itself sounds nothing less than absurd. Likewise, if he didn’t know any better, he swears that he recognizes the very face of each of the three priests from his days as a slave of the Tylon Corporation. More specifically, each of them resembles a member of the mercenary unit Tylon had assigned him to, and though their eyes didn’t gleam with the cruel, soulless sheen of the corporation’s brainwashing, he can only wonder just what kind of “spell,” for a lack of a better word, that they’re nevertheless presently under. That said, Golan flatly refuses his guests’ offer and demands that they leave his home at once. Unfortunately for him, the three refuse to take no for an answer, and it isn’t long at all before a fight breaks out between him and the three strangers.
Golan tries to fend off his aggressors with all his might, but despite his martial prowess, his opponents prove to be more than a match for him at his own game, especially given their numbers advantage. It therefore isn’t long at all before they subdue him and take him hostage, then bring him back to their sect’s headquarters where their master Zhen Wu’s man of operations Dr. Busuzima proceeds to “indoctrinate” their prisoner to adhere to the philosophy that the three priests had fallen short of imbuing him with previously. The next thing Golan knows is that Gaia is right; humanity must either fully evolve to survive the apocalypse they’d unwittingly brought upon themselves or perish in the wake of it, and anyone who dares to defend the presence of the flawed baseline human genome is only interfering in the natural order of things and must be stopped at all costs.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Arata.
Chao Xu
Home Country: China
Age: 47
Fighting Style: Taijiquan
Beast Form: Toad
Original Backstory: This is the identity I’ve given Lanhua’s father and the “old man” with whom Long had lived during the events of Bloody Roar 3. Hudson Soft had never given him a name, much less any further characterization other than what I’ve already described him as being, nor did they ever include him or Lanhua in any later installments in the BR series.
Reboot Backstory: As a prosperous chef and restaurant owner as well as a respected kung fu instructor, Chao Xu has nevertheless had his fair share of hardships along the way such as losing his wife Chenghui several years ago to an incurable fever of then-indeterminate origin and nearly losing his daughter Lanhua to a similar ailment. Luckily, thanks in no small part to the efforts of a drifter named Long Shin who’d come to live with him and his daughter for roughly a year and trained with them both to keep his combat skills sharp, Lanhua has fully recovered from her sickness and had even managed to progress to the semifinals of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament. Sadly, despite her recovery and the consequent success of his ever-thriving Chinese bistro, chaos has once again entered Chao’s life when he happens to suffer a massive headache both during and after a particularly hectic day at his restaurant. Ordinarily, he could handle even the greatest hubbub that had ever filled his restaurant, but for some odd reason, the admittedly massive headache he quickly feels during the bistro’s usual lunch rush is enough to take his focus completely away from his cooking, and the icy sweat that gathers in beads upon his brow doesn’t help him, either. He thus has no choice but to stop himself, take the rest of the day off, and hand his duties over to his sous-chef before returning home and resting for a little while. After a two-hour-long nap, he then brews himself a quick cup of hot tea and takes another hour to engage in some tai chi to help him clear his addled mind. Oddly enough, however, the relief he’d experienced from his nap proves to be only temporary, as his headache returns with a vengeance and, in fact, begins throwing off his concentration even more than it had before. His thoughts then grow dimmer by the second, and the slow and methodical movements he tries to perform as part of his routine suddenly grow rougher and quicker as his muscles spasm to the point of driving his arms and legs to flail aimlessly as if he’s fighting off an army of assailants who aren’t there. Before he knows it, he beastorizes into his toad form and begins wrecking his very surroundings every which way he can from toppling furniture to smashing every knickknack in reach to punching and kicking holes in the very walls of his house. He even begins bounding from room to room in a desperate attempt to defeat his nonexistent attackers until he at long last hops—nay…leaps—straight out of the nearest window and onto the street, his limbs still flailing madly at the open air as he heads off aimlessly away from his ravaged abode and no doubt into harm’s way.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Lanhua.
Gláucia Duarte
Home Country: Brazil
Age: 25
Fighting Style: Vale Tudo
Beast Form: Shark
Original Backstory: None. Gláucia is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR 2.
Reboot Backstory: Though the world is convinced that the authorities have incarcerated the ZLF for their hijacking of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes so many months ago, the truth of the matter is that Gláucia and her compatriots had managed to escape capture, thanks to Busuzima taking samples of their DNA and using said samples to create clones of them all to take the fall for them, should their takeover fall apart on them as it had. That said, as thankful as she is to evade going to prison for a third time, she sees her luck as more of a double-edged sword than anything else. It’s not even so much her frustration with the Front’s lack of success as an organization that’s gotten under her skin, either, or even her failure to win the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament and its ultimate cash prize. Rather, she’s succumbed to a nagging sense of isolation and dread that’s been flowing through her mind and clouding her thoughts ever since the ZLF had to evacuate the Kingdom. The complications she’s had to suffer from her zoanthropy haven’t exactly helped, either, as her appetite for meat has only intensified even more than when she and the others had reformed the Front to the point where her stomach has begun to hurt like no other pain she’s ever known before. Heaven only knows, too, just how much meat she’ll have to eat to at long last satisfy her inhuman craving for it.
Sadly, she cannot hope to let her hunger preoccupy her, for the news of many an X-Genome Code-fueled rampage and the coincidental preaching of “Gaia’s Will” by the ever-rising doomsday cult known as the Curators of Gaia have reached the Front’s ears and presented it with a potential opportunity to take advantage of the situation. According to Shenlong’s intuition, Busuzima—having gone his own direction apart from the others in escaping the Kingdom’s hidden lab during their failed takeover of the KoZ—is somehow playing a part in this whole affair, and if he’s correct in his assumption, then he’d much rather bring the ex-Tylon scientist back into the ZLF’s fold as soon as possible. Then again, who knows? Perhaps the Curators would make worthy allies, should the Front send the right person to persuade them into uniting with the ZLF under one banner. The only way for him to know for sure, in that case, is to send a delegate to temporarily join them and discover from the inside exactly what they’re about. Without any hesitation, Gláucia volunteers to join her close comrade Ethwasa in infiltrating the Curators, hoping that her involvement in the Front’s investigation will help at least take her mind off the chaos and confusion going on inside her head, if not help her find the answer to her mess of a situation. Shenlong regards her in silent suspicion for some time upon hearing her accept his mission, but eventually accepts her pledge and allows her to enter the field. Alas, as she heads off to carry out her assignment, she remains unaware of her leader’s dubiety in her desire to act on the Front’s behalf and attempt to discover her secret motivation.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Nezumi.
Sierra de Huesos (a.k.a. Sara “Sarita” Cueto)
Home Country: Mexico (via Venezuela)
Age: 21
Fighting Style: Lucha Libre
Beast Form: Piranha
Original Backstory: None. Sierra de Huesos is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: The daughter of a hydroelectrical engineer from Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, Sara “Sarita” Cueto’s family relocated to Chicoasén, Mexico when a career opportunity came up for him to help manage the power plant responsible for operating and maintaining the Chicoasén (a.k.a. the Manuel Moreno Torres) Dam. She’d originally had trouble adjusting to her new way of life, but that soon changed when she first tuned in to a lucha libre program one night and drunk in what she saw. Sure, the whole show may have been little more than a stage play in which the men and women involved played the parts of superheroes and supervillains, but the exhaustingly acrobatic and hard-hitting performances that said men and women involved themselves in nonetheless captivated her and made her wish that she, too, could put on such a performance herself one day…and in front of so many jubilant fans to boot. Luckily, the opportunity for her to follow such a path came once she graduated high school, when she applied to a local lucha libre school to undergo training beneath none other than respected lucha legend Juan Carlos Guerrero, who also happened to be the father of Ignacio “Íñigo” Guerrero, a classmate of hers whom she’d become close friends with following her immigration into Mexico. Granted, she was also going to college to work on her “fallback” in the field of marine biology and working as a lab assistant to one of her professors, but Sarita all the same dedicated the rest of her time to her lucha training and excelled quickly to become one of Juan Carlos’s top students. She even managed to develop her in-ring persona of Sierra de Huesas (“Bone Saw”), drawing inspiration from her marine biology schooling and her fascination with the piranha, a fish native to the Orinoco River, the south bank of which her old hometown stands.
One day while training at the Guerrero family lucha school, Sarita suddenly starts feeling light-headed as cold sweat gushes upon her brow and chills her to the bone. She also begins to have trouble breathing—almost as if water is starting to inexplicably fill her lungs—and eventually passes out in the middle of class. Immediately, Juan Carlos dials 911 and, along with his son Íñigo, stays by her side until an ambulance arrives to take her to the local emergency ward. Unfortunately, she recalls nothing about arriving at any hospital, meeting any doctors, or anything else of the sort by the time she reawakens, for when she does, the first thing she notices is the blank white ceiling of her own bedroom and the sticky substance that coats her fingers when she brings them up to her face and casts her eyes upon them. Stricken with terror at the sight of her blood-soaked digits, she immediately rushes over to her bathroom sink to wash her hands clean of the blood that coats them, not realizing the bloody footprints she’s left behind until she turns around and gazes in wide-eyed horror at the sanguine trail and the patch of dried blood at the foot end of her mattress from which said path leads. Only then does she dare look down upon her feet and realize that they’re bare and as soiled as her hands just were, which throws her into a panic that nearly escalates into another fit of cold sweat and dizziness that she’d suffered at the lucha school earlier. Promptly does she stop herself, then, and take several deep yet labored breaths before she decides to call the police and inform them of what’s happened. They arrive soon enough, and after analyzing Sarita’s room and listening to her story, they take her into custody on suspicion of her being responsible for a series of recent killings within the area, locking her away within a high-security asylum to keep her under observation and find out for themselves what it is that’s gotten into her that would make her perpetrate the crimes she’s allegedly committed.
While an inmate at the sanitarium, the staff has determined that Sarita has fallen prey to the same affliction that several other zoanthropes across the world have: an excess of the X-Genome Code flowing through the bloodstream. It is because of this condition of hers that they’ve decided to keep her within their custody until they discover the most fitting cure for her—not that she has much of a heart to care for anything, of course, other than for this nightmare she’s living to be over. She doesn’t even know how she could have killed the people she apparently has in the first place—not only because she can’t recall a thing between her passing out during her lucha libre training and her waking back up in her apartment, either, but also because she cannot remember ever having any capacity for biological zoanthropy. She’s hence at a loss for what to do and is just about to cry herself to sleep when suddenly, one of the compound’s nurses enters her cell and administers an injection within her that she claims will temporarily calm her Lycaonian gland and slow down its secretion of Factor B into her bloodstream. After receiving the shot, Sarita’s desperation slowly but surely shifts into resolve—bitter, furious resolve over her mundane-blooded overlords incarcerating her for crimes they’ve come to hold her responsible for but have provided little proof to justify their bold accusation. Now here she sits within a padded room like a wild animal while they and the rest of their genetically inferior lot roams the outside world free to carry on their desecration of the planet, reaping Mother Earth of Her gifts and defiling whatever else She has had to offer them and receiving no comeuppance for their ungrateful nonchalance. Well, no more, she tells herself as her strength returns to her and she feels her skin sprouting thin green scales, her eyes bulging out of their sockets, bony fins jutting out of her skull and forearms, and the webbing between her fingers and toes spreading further down her fingers and toes. Most ferocious of all, however, are the razor-sharp claws that sprout from her fingertips and especially the rows of equally flesh-rending teeth that begin to line her mouth. Once the transformation completes itself, she gurgles fiercely in her throat as she peers from side to side nervously, then knocks the nurse out of her way, kicks down her cell door, and sprints off through the halls of the sanitarium, evading many a watchman along the way as she escapes into the streets outside to carry out her revenge against ordinary humanity in the name of Mother Gaia Herself.
How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Latigazo.
Proteus (a.k.a. Proteus Alpha, formerly Ryuzo Kato)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 72
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: Amoeba
Original Backstory: Not much of one. In a nutshell, Proteus is the liquefied remains of Ryuzo Kato after his untimely death at the end of the first Bloody Roar whom Dr. Grant Maxwell, in my version of BR 3, had “programmed” to serve as his doppelganger so that he could better make his escape from the Sicyonian Society’s “lodge” when its operations went awry. It is also the substance from which Yun Chi Manufacturing, Inc.’s robotics department retrieved the battle data for Kohryu.
Reboot Story: Having long lost its memory of its former life as the late Tylon Corporation assassin Ryuzo “Bakuryu” Kato, Proteus continues to serve its caretaker Dr. Hajime Busuzima as the prototype for many a zoanthrope soldier, assassin, and saboteur, albeit this time around for Zhen Wu and his redefined version of the Curators of Gaia. Alternately, as per my version of BR: Primal Fury/Extreme, there’s a version of Proteus that takes on the likeness and fighting style of whomever else on the active roster it’s supposed to represent that operates very much like Mokujin, Tetsujin, Combot, Kinjin, and Super Combot DX from the Tekken franchise. I’d plan to have it appear during certain non-Curators’ runs in Story Mode and, in essence, appear to be just like the character it’s mimicking, albeit with a green tinge to its flesh, hair, and garments.
How to Unlock: Win 10,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
Aristaeus (a.k.a. Gavriil Stavros)
Home Country: Greece
Age: 30
Fighting Style: Pammachon
Beast Form: Iron Bee
Original Backstory: None. Aristaeus is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 3.
Reboot Story: Being one of the top beast hunters for the original incarnation of the Sicyonian Society, former European Security Corps officer Lieutenant Gavriil Stavros initially joined the coalition with a firm belief in its mission to rid the world of Planet Earth’s most dangerous species—namely, zoanthropes. Much to his dismay, however, he’d stumbled upon a small laboratory hidden beneath the Society’s headquarters that its founder, former Tylon Corporation researcher Dr. Grant Maxwell, had been using to conduct his latest experiment: the creation of the ultimate zoanthrope weapon. To think, too, that the duplicitous coward had been using the XGC-laced blood samples that Gavriil and his fellow beast hunters had been collecting from their victims to complete such a project! Humiliated at not realizing until this moment that he should have known better than to accept Maxwell’s offer, Gavriil promptly shed his cyberthrope suit and walked away from the very mess that he had helped create, vowing to accept the fall of his comrades from the Hellenic Army at long last and to never concern himself with the battle against zoanthropekind ever again, no matter how severe his nightmares of the past would become. A full year has passed since then, though, and sure enough, an outbreak of zoanthrope-induced violence has started to rage across the globe. Worse yet is the “prophecy” of “Gaia” allegedly using “Her” “divine influence” to transform the mundane human genome and drive regular humanity to extinction in favor of zoanthropekind, who shall inherit the planet and reverse whatever damage that mundane humanity has done to it with its rampant technological advancement, population overgrowth, and negligence for the environment. The proclaimers of this Armageddon manifesto: a radical religious group known as the Curators of Gaia, whom many zoanthropes and zoanthrope sympathizers have already joined or otherwise shown their support for. More alarming yet is the fact that there is yet no faction available to look out for the interests of ordinary humans and protect them from this threat to their wellbeing—certainly not one large enough to pose a credible enough challenge to the glorified cult that the Curators have proven to be thus far with their inane doomsaying. As such, Gavriil has found himself forced to bring back to light the Sicyonian Society and reunite with his former fellow beast hunters under the promise of protecting ordinary humanity from its unwanted evolution into zoanthropes. He has even gone as far as to bring in the likes of Dr. Saul Barkai and his Baseline formula into the fold as a means of reinforcing the promise to the public of exposing “Gaia’s prophecy” and proving the Curators’ threats to be lies, which in turn elevates the Society’s profile beyond that of the band of glorified genocidal maniacs that the public had seen it to be a year prior during the first X-Genome Code crisis. With all this going for him and his fellow Sicyonians, he has come to reawaken the fire that’d once died out within him for protecting his fellow humans from the zoanthrope menace and showing the world’s zoanthrope population that its collective genetic blessing doesn’t automatically grant its members superiority over their more mundane brethren.
How to Unlock: Win 20,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
Skorpios (a.k.a. Dr. Saul Barkai)
Home Country: Israel
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Krav Maga
Beast Form: Iron Scorpion
Original Backstory: None. Skorpios is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4.
Reboot Backstory: Once an officer in the Israel Defense Force’s Medical Corps, Dr. Saul Barkai couldn’t help but take note during his service days not only of just how many zoanthropes had joined the IDF’s ranks, active and latent alike, but more importantly just how many of them were carriers of what the scientific world would later come to know as the X-Genome Code and, in turn, the side effects of bearing such a double-edged genetic disposition. Sadly, when he first discovered the Code for himself within a handful of the soldiers under his care, there was so little documentation about it at the time that he could only begin to treat it and help his fellow military men and women overcome their biological situation. After years of research on the Code, however, Barkai has managed to create a serum he calls “Baseline” that not only “cracks” the XGC in zoanthropes but, in more concentrated doses, has proven to be strong enough to completely nullify the Factor B streaming through a zoanthrope’s veins to the point of reaching and completely shutting down his or her Lycaonian gland. He has since perfected his formula and accepted membership into the Sicyonian Society to help bring an end to the second XGC crisis—particularly where it concerns correcting the mutation of those who’d perpetrated the countless acts of Code-induced violence across the world. The question remains, however, as to how far he’ll go in using his creation in the war against the X-Genome Code.
How to Unlock: Win 40,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
Dr. Hajime Busuzima
Home Country: Japan
Age: 37
Fighting Style: Zuì Quán, a.k.a. Drunken Boxing (“Deception”)
Beast Form: Chameleon
Original Backstory: A year after the XGC incident, Busuzima is unable to get any good results on his Ultimate Life Object project and, in his lonely and depressed state of mind, is ready to throw in the towel on it. When the zoanthrope riots become a world issue, however, he suddenly finds his faith in his project restored, especially upon hearing about rumors concerning a Nine-Tailed Fox and a dragon existing somewhere within the world. His plan now is to capture the legendary beast and, with its DNA in his possession, create a new kind of zoanthrope. He begins his search by heading for the mountains, where he sees a white fox that seems unaware of his presence. His gut tells him that he’s on the right track in discovering his quarry, and with all the stealthiness he can muster, he follows the tiny creature, hoping that it will indeed lead him to the dragon whose power he seeks to exploit.
Reboot Story: There’s not much else to mention here about Busuzima’s involvement in this part of the reboot that I haven’t already mentioned. Simply put, the guy manages to snatch up a handful of essential supplies from the KoZ’s hidden lab, escapes capture by the authorities when they storm the facility, crosses paths with Zhen Wu and his fellow pilgrims (minus Arata), spills the beans to them about who he is and what he was doing on the island, and ends up partaking in (and partially inspiring) Zhen’s mad scheme. He then becomes the Curators’ “chief scientific operator,” in a sense—the man responsible for setting Zhen’s plan (a.k.a. “Gaia’s prophecy”) into motion with the help of his scientific knowhow. It is he who has administered a sample of the raw XGC-laced Factor B he’d absconded with from the Kingdom’s secret lab into Tokyo’s water supply while having various clones of Proteus spread across the globe to contaminate other cities’ water supplies with additional samples of the substance. The Factor B in turn has corrupted the consumers’ bloodstreams upon their unwittingly ingesting it, which in turn makes its rounds through each subject’s circulatory system and eventually stimulate the development and growth of a Lycaonian gland within the subject’s brain, should he or she be a baseline human. Because such a gland proves to be so new and delicate for most of the subjects, it cannot properly regulate the heavily concentrated XGC within the host’s body and, in fact, often falls prey to the Code’s influence, resulting in involuntary beastorization during which the host’s brain (i.e., his or her “human self”) is completely at the Code’s mercy (i.e., his or her “beast self”). Naturally, then, any originally mundane human is bound to go berserk and perpetrate a killing spree as per the Code’s whim, should the subject beastorize for the first time. Then again, even naturally born active zoanthropes aren’t always of a strong enough mind to resist the XGC concentration that floats within the water that Busuzima and his servitors are responsible for polluting, and even their L-glands can succumb to the Code’s influence upon them, particularly those zoanthropes who’ve been fortunate otherwise to have not developed a strain of the XGC within themselves. Such is what makes Busuzima’s tampered water so dangerous and why an antidote to his XGC-fueled Factor B must be administered at once before it reduces countless other unsuspecting people, zoanthrope and regular human alike, to bloodthirsty monsters in addition to those who already have fallen prey to it.
How to Unlock: Win 60,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
Zhen Wu
Home Country: China
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Wu Xing Quan
Beast Form: Tortoise
Original Backstory: None. Zhen Wu is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 4
Reboot Backstory: Born and raised in Dengfeng, China and a devout follower of Chan Buddhism at the Shaolin Monastery, Zhen originally knew very little about zoanthropy and was especially oblivious to the fact that he specifically possessed a Lycaonian gland that had yet to awaken. In fact, the closest he ever came to learning about his own biological zoanthropy came to him whenever he meditated alongside his fellow monks, and even then, he only thought that the wise old tortoise who spoke to him in his visions was his personal spiritual guide and nothing more. Granted, his inner beast did direct him towards some books that the abbot had kept in the monastery’s library from which Zhen had read and learned about the history of “Anthropoi Thirion” (“Beast People”) and the legends that surrounded them and other human-animal hybrids from across the world, which genuinely fascinated him. However, it wasn’t until a band of zoanthropes under the control of the Tylon Corporation had stormed the monastery and had managed to defeat in battle and abduct him and several of his fellow monks that he truly came face to face with his destiny as a zoanthrope following a series of grueling experiments that Tylon’s scientists had performed upon him. In addition to the activation of his L-gland and hence his original beast form, Zhen received a dose of XGC-laced Factor B injected into his bloodstream that enhanced his original beast form’s natural attributes to the point of downright mutating it upon the Code’s activation, thus making him all the deadlier as a soldier for them to mobilize against their corporate rivals. They then temporarily took away his sense of self via their usual brainwashing process and deployed him regularly over his years of forced servitude to them against their enemies, recording the results of his excursions thoroughly to determine the efficacy of his powers, preternatural and scientifically bestowed alike. Eventually, however, the compound he’d come to call “home” fell under attack from outside forces, and he and several of his fellow test subjects fled the facility immediately after the bombing. Alas, the escapees had diverged into two separate groups with Zhen and his company being forced to live off the land following their escape and adopt a Gaia-centric philosophy that incorporated contemporary religion and modern science as a means of keeping spiritually grounded in their efforts to survive. Hence began the plight of the Curators of Gaia.
For years, Zhen served under fellow Buddhist monk Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki, the Curators’ leader, as a sub-leader and chief warrior among the sect. He took great pride, too, in educating the children and adolescent members of the Curators in the ways of the world, particularly history, literature, and literacy. Then came the day in which Ryoho assigned him and fellow Curators Lance Underwood, Talita de Macedo, and Bitrus Adamu to accompany Dr. Arata Tsukagami, another one of Ryoho’s top disciples, on a journey eastward towards Greece. It was according to a recent vision that Ryoho had experienced while meditating that there existed within the area a haven for zoanthropes where they could coexist peacefully with ordinary humans. Naturally, then, he wished for the five of them to discover firsthand if his vision rang true, and though their journey was a long and hard one, they had indeed reached the outskirts of Défteri Lykoria, the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Arata ventured forth to find out more about the city and the kingdom of which it was the very heart as well as to hopefully seek and reunite with his estranged daughter Alice while the remaining four stayed behind and awaited their compatriot’s return. It was during this time that Zhen discovered the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts located on the temple’s far wall, and as he removed the ancient stone disk and took a closer look at it, the legend he’d once read many years ago about the Ecclisía Panselínou (“Full Moon Congregation”) and the bloody rituals that it would perform to appease the goddess Artemis in exchange for lycanthropy started coming back to him with vivid lucidity. This reminder alone, combined with his memories of what he’d endured while Tylon had held him and the other Curators captive, stirs him up emotionally against his better judgment. Try though he might to earnestly calm himself down, however, Busuzima’s arrival at the temple and relaying of his escape from the Kingdom’s hidden laboratory only intensify the feelings that have been welling up deep within him. The next thing he knows, he’s proclaiming a new cause for the Curators to uphold, a new era for zoanthropes to follow, and even a new plan by which to make his newly acquired vision a reality.
Now the Curators have committed themselves to bringing about a future in which zoanthropes are destined to ascend to the top of the social ladder and the food chain and live harmoniously with what little is left of nature, no thanks to mundane humanity and the damage it’s done to the planet. By sending out agents to chemically alter each major city’s water supply with the same XGC-concentrated Factor B that Busuzima had shown them back in Greece, the Curators have seen to it to not only awaken and manipulate the inner beasts of both latent and active zoanthropes worldwide, but also transform unsuspecting baseline humans into their kind. How they can do that is shockingly simple, too, as the Code within the Factor B-laced water is so heavily concentrated that it can gather within the brain of a perfectly ordinary human and create a fully active Lycaonian gland roughly within an hour. Next thing the subject knows is that his or her newly formed L-gland starts flooding his or her bloodstream with heavily “Coded” Factor B—an otherwise foreign substance that heavily compromises even the body’s most basic functions. From there, his or her muscles start to spasm; his or her heartrate kicks into high gear to the point of nearly giving him or her a heart attack; his or her lungs begin to inflate and deflate rapidly with enough oxygen and carbon dioxide, respectively, to make him or her hyperventilate; and his or her brain’s mental capacity shrinks down to that of a feral predator. Subjects who are already zoanthropes experience the same thing, should they drink the Curators’ Factor B-laced water, as the XGC within it swiftly reacts with even the most dormant of L-glands to trigger beastorization so suddenly that it sends the target in question on his or her own one-beast rampage. Riots such as these in turn fuel the Curators’ propaganda about Gaia bringing about a holocaust of sorts against humanity for its crimes against Earth and selecting certain humans among the population to evolve so that they may come to thrive within the new era while those mundane humans who manage to survive the onslaught are left to fend for themselves in the wake of such a takeover. As such, the only humans who are theoretically safe from the soon-to-come zoanthropic rule are those who fully submit to “Gaia’s prophecy,” most of whom are zoanthrope sympathizers who’ve grown so sick and tired of the human-zoanthrope conflict that they’ve effectively turned their backs on their own lot to support their genetically superior yet more socially oppressed brethren. Heaven only knows, however, just what kind of fate awaits them, should Zhen and his Curators ultimately have their way in the end.
How to Unlock: Win 100,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
Mana Kamishiro
Home Country: Japan
Age: 9
Fighting Style: Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu
Beast Form: Ninetails (mythological Nine-Tailed Fox, a.k.a. “Kyūbinokitsune”)
Original Backstory: Mana belongs to a secret temple that supports both Buddhism and Shinto that had managed to escape the Meiji Restoration law that separated both religions. Possessing the powers of the Nine-Tailed Fox, she’d taken over her sister’s responsibility of guarding and maintaining the seal of Gaia’s dragon, Her ultimate weapon against Her archnemesis, the Unborn. Once on the run a year ago from various pursuers who wanted to exploit the supernatural powers with which Gaia has gifted her, Mana had fortunately made her way to the temple where Ryoho—the vessel for Gaia’s dragon and her current caretaker—had taken up residence. Sadly, he’d lost his memories following the Unborn’s attack on his temple during the XGC crisis and presently doesn’t know about his own powers. Unbeknownst to him, then, she makes sure that the dragon stays sleeping inside of him behind the seal.
Alas, the seal has begun to loosen, no thanks to the Unborn’s growing and ever-so-resilient presence on Earth, and the dragon’s disturbance has initiated earthquakes to occur and zoanthropes to riot across the globe. Worse yet, though Mana’s sister (who has remained a complete non-factor here in Mana’s original backstory until this specific point alone) was powerful enough a mystic to seal the dragon the last time Ryoho’s seal had come loose, Mana herself has yet to acquire such power on her own to do the same. She thus must find strong zoanthropes to help her reseal the dragon, which has set her out on a journey with Ryoho to protect their temple, knowing that her caretaker will soon learn the truth about himself.
Reboot Backstory: Mana knows little to nothing of the home from which the Tylon Corporation had abducted her or the family to whom she belonged at the time. She also knows nothing at all about whether she was a regular human or one with the potential to become a zoanthrope prior to the scientists at Tylon’s South American laboratory experimenting upon her with raw XGC-laced Factor B to transform her into a zoanthrope who can beastorize into a full-fledged fox rather than an anthropomorphic one. All she knows is the time she’d spent as the first successful Tylon lab experiment of her type and her subsequent life as one of the youngest Curators of Gaia following her escape with the clan’s leader Ryoho, who subsequently became her foster father under their and their fellow escapees’ extraordinary circumstances. She also knows all too well of Zhen Wu, once one of Ryoho’s most skilled and trusted subordinates, returning with three of his four fellow pilgrims from their journey to find the promised land from Ryoho’s most recent meditations only to challenge the Curators’ original edict of peace with nature—including between the two halves of humanity—with one of zoanthropes inheriting Earth from baseline humanity by force. Even now can she recall the heated debate between Zhen and her foster father and the fisticuffs that eventually broke out once the argument hit its peak. She can also recollect Ryoho shouting to her to head for safety and, in her panic, wandering off in search of anyone within the community who would help break up the duel between the two monks. Alas, by the time she was able to find and bring some support back to Ryoho’s tent, the struggle had ended with Zhen standing triumphantly over her foster father’s unconscious form and announcing a new era for the Curators and a new calling for them to take on as the rightful heirs of Gaia’s domain. The next thing she can recollect is her escape from the encampment as she sought someone—anyone—who could help her now in reclaiming the Curators from Zhen’s tyrannical grasp and clearing the clan’s name of whatever wrongdoing he and his supporters have convinced them to perform. Luckily, she has her newfound compatriot Uriko and her family to lend her a hand in this grave matter, but she fears that their aide won’t be enough, especially considering how far-reaching Zhen’s plot has turned out to be from what little she’s learned about during her journey—particularly that which concerns Ryoho’s apparent submission to Zhen’s whims. Still, she knows she must try for the sake of her fellow refugees and all for which they’d originally stood.
How to Unlock: Win 140,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
Ryoho (a.k.a. Rao Mamurasaki)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 37
Fighting Style: Shotokan Karate
Beast Form: Dragon
Original Backstory: Ryoho belongs to a secret temple in Tokyo that supports both Buddhism and Shinto that had managed to escape the Meiji Restoration law that separated both religions, which he’d defended from the Unborn during the XGC crisis the previous years when it’d dared to attack his holy abode. Though he was successful in his endeavor, such success had come at the cost of his memory. Shortly after the Unborn’s assault, a young miko named Mana who happened to possess the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox within her appeared, having been on the run from numerous unscrupulous individuals who wanted to deprive her of her power and use it for their own selfish purposes. Ryoho immediately took the young fugitive into his custody to protect her from her pursuers, who felt less inclined to relieve her of her supernatural gift from thereon out. A year has passed since Ryoho had adopted Mana, however, and since then, earthquakes and zoanthrope violence have been plaguing the planet—particularly the temple, which has fallen to ruin, no thanks to the latest earthquake that has hit Tokyo. To protect what remains of their home, Ryoho has set out on a journey with Mana to face the evil that had caused these problems.
Reboot Backstory: A naturally born human who grew up to study Buddhism at Ryōhō-ji in his native Hachiōji, Japan, Rao Mamurasaki swiftly rose through the ranks of his fellow monks and earned their respect as a philosopher and humanitarian. For years, he’d spearheaded many a charity project through the temple with the aim of strengthening his community through the encouragement of peace, understanding, and cooperation between individuals of different walks of life and educating the masses about the very world within which all humanity lives. He especially made it his business to promote his message to children, adolescents, and young adults, knowing deep within his gut that young people constitute the planet’s future and that by teaching them his values while their minds were still fresh and capable of absorbing knowledge with little to no judgment, he could ensure that his lessons would have a longer-lasting and more profound effect upon them and, in turn, the world. Sadly, the Tylon Corporation had brought an end to this chapter of his legacy when it sent a squadron of zoanthrope mercenaries under its control to storm Ryōhō-ji and take hostage as many of its resident monks as they could. Rao and his brothers fought back valiantly, but even their martial skill was no match for their assailants’ raw resilience and fighting prowess and their natural weaponry, and before the monks knew it, many of them fell in combat with the mercenaries taking the survivors amongst them—Rao included—back to Tylon’s main headquarters. The conglomerate’s executives then divided their captives among various research facilities of theirs across the globe with Rao ending up at their South American compound, where the scientists on hand injected into his bloodstream a special formula of Factor B that not only included the X-Genome Code, but also the genetic information of multiple animals “woven” into one long strand. The result was him evolving into the first official dragon zoanthrope in existence—a creature powerful enough to rival Tylon’s other multi-species superweapon, the werechimera called Project Uranus, yet every bit as genetically unstable. Many were the tests that the researchers put him through before they could at last discover the flaw in his metamorphosis, but before they could correct the errors in their design or, for that matter, brainwash Rao to serve their employers’ cause, outside forces mounted an attack against the laboratory and began bringing it to the ground.
As the compound’s security team scrambled to determine the source of the bombing, slews of captives and even Tylon employees took the opportunity to escape the premises with Rao being among them. Before he knew it, too, he and several other former Tylon test subjects had found themselves free from captivity but lost to the vast wilderness that presently surrounded them with no way to return to their respective homes and no supplies to aid them on such a journey, even if they were to take one. Not one to stand around idle and allow the situation to escalate further, Rao immediately took charge and led his fellow survivors to as safe a region within the surrounding rainforest as he could possibly find on instinct. From there, the refugees set up camp and prepared to establish for themselves their own community, uniting under the common goal of mutual survival as they cast aside whatever differences they may have had with one another prior to the fate that had befallen them. Rao specifically took on the nickname “Ryoho” in honor of the temple where his path as a monk first began and assumed leadership over the survivors, to whom he taught the lessons he’d taught his followers back during his pre-captive days, albeit in such a way that suited his and his fellow refugees’ present situation. The years pass, and the survivors learn to thrive within their small and isolated community and accept the group title of the Curators of Gaia in honor of the Spirit of the Earth Herself and the very heart of the scientific principle called the Gaia hypothesis. As they do, Ryoho eventually witnesses during his daily meditation ritual a vision of a distant land where ordinary humans have learned to live harmoniously with zoanthropes. It’s a pleasant and promising vision for him and his followers, no doubt, but he cannot help but wonder if it’s anything more than a dream. Eventually, however, more visions foretelling of this propitious realm emerge within his head, painting for him a more and more vivid picture of what the region was all about and even where it existed. As such, he can no longer ignore what he envisions and decides to send five of his most trusted and skilled warriors on a pilgrimage eastward toward Greece, where he’s come to believe this potential utopia exists to discover if there’s any truth behind his dreams or if they were ultimately nothing but fancy.
Months pass between the pilgrims’ departure and return, but eventually, four of them return to Ryoho to share with him the news that his visions had misled him. There does exist an establishment called the “Kingdom of Zoanthropes” that superficially reflects the land he’d dreamt about, but the nation is little more than a perversion of Ryoho’s hopes—a lie that the Tylon Corporation had set up to serve as a cover for the continuation of its operations. The four of them have even brought back with them Dr. Hajime Busuzima, a deserter of the project who has informed the quartet of the whole thing and who essentially repeats what the pilgrims have already reported to Ryoho, although the latter can only narrow his eyes in doubt at the stranger’s words. He especially finds it suspicious that the member whom he’d originally appointed to lead the pilgrimage, former Tylon researcher Dr. Arata Tsukagami, is missing and finds it more than difficult to believe that the other four had allowed him to venture forth into the Kingdom’s capital by himself and not accompany him on his personal quest. If nothing else, at least they would have been able to discover the truth about the Kingdom firsthand rather than hear about it from this shady stranger whom they themselves have admitted to having just met. Then again, Ryoho also doesn’t care for the little souvenir they’ve brought back with them from the temple where they’d stayed, the Tabular of a Thousand Beasts, or the story that their surrogate leader Zhen Wu attributes to it. According to Zhen, this decidedly occult stone tablet carries with it the true message of salvation for zoanthropekind and as such embodies the message by which the Curators should now support: that of supremacy over baseline humanity, who have come to abuse not only Gaia’s gifts (i.e., the environment), but also their genetically superior descendants (i.e., zoanthropes) whom Gaia herself has created among mundane humanity to inherit the planet from it. Ryoho naturally doesn’t take too kindly to this contradiction to his teachings and denounces Zhen’s plan as pure madness, which eventually leads into a fierce battle between the two that Zhen eventually wins through the sheer cunning and his newly adopted predatory instinct. From there, Zhen then has his followers take their former leader captive so that they may brainwash him with the help or their new accomplice Busuzima and take advantage of his leadership over the Curators to make him the face of their upcoming operation.
How to Unlock: Win 200,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.
This hereby concludes my reboot of Bloody Roar 4. Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave feedback on what you’ve just read. Also, be sure to check out my author pages at Smashwords.com, Amazon.com, and Amazon.co.uk, and feel free to subscribe to this blog, if you haven’t done so already. Be sure to come on back in the not-too-distant future, too, for my third installment in my revised Bloody Roar reboot and for whatever other content I’ll have in store, and until we meet again, thank you for your support.
Regards,
Dustin M. Weber
*****
Bloody Roar (c) 1997-2012 Hudson Soft Co., Ltd./2023 Konami Digital Entertainment. The above article, however, is the author’s own.
*****
My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 1: Bloody Roar: The Beast Within
My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 2: Bloody Roar 2: The New Breed
My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 3: Bloody Roar 3: Sign of the Beast
My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 4: Bloody Roar 4: Animal Kingdom