Poem of the Week: You Can’t Fight Bigotry with Bigotry

You Can’t Fight Bigotry with Bigotry
October 17, 2023

You can’t fight bigotry with bigotry. You can’t fight hate with hate.
You can’t go smearing the other guy just because to him you can’t relate.
You’re only stooping to the same level of the ones who’ve disgraced you
And are passing a double standard in the process through and through.
Yes, it’s unfair for certain people to socially have the upper hand
In certain cases when folks of other demographics struggle ‘cross the land—
Especially during a time where equality should at last be a thing,
But how fair is retaliation and all the grief it in turn brings?
How fair is lumping everyone of Demographic X into the same mold
And condemning them all for the crimes that but some of them, oh so bold,
Have committed upon your kind in the past? Do you really think they all bear
The same thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards your kind without care?
Isn’t it at all possible to believe that some of them feel as you do
And simply want to move on with life beyond all we’ve all been through
With segregation, discrimination, and all the bitterness and pain
Said troubles have caused and left in their wake? What have we from it all to gain?
What have we to gather from the continuation of this cycle of hate
Other than more shame and resentment piled high upon all our plates?
What good will spreading guilt around flippantly do when we can instead
Focus on a solution to bring humanity together ‘fore we’re all dead?
No, love and peace aren’t always easy, especially when there are those
Who keep preventing them from being what they are, leaving us in the throes
Of chaos and uncertainty. Still, we must try all the same,
Lest we want to continue living in this cycle of prejudice and pain,
For though ‘tis cliché to claim that two wrongs don’t make a right, in this case,
It’s all too true, no matter how severe the original disgrace.
Thus, even if forgiving and forgetting is impossible, let’s at least try
To be wiser in holding accountable those who won’t let the drama die
As well as those who initiated the whole mess from the very start
And not become the same kind of monster, so devoid of soul and heart.
Let’s put an end to the bickering and stop spouting off all the slurs,
Lies, and other words of contempt ‘fore it all becomes more of a blur
And focus on working together to bring forth a time of peace.
After all, in this lifetime so filled with strife, we could all use a new lease.

*****

Author Pages: Smashwords.com
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My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 5: Bloody Roar 5: Predestined Evolution

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.

Bloody Roar promo poster featuring Japanese model Yuko Ogura: Proof that the original Bloody Roar 4 fell short not only critically, but also promotionally

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

Poem of the Week: Condolence for the Minotaur

Condolence for the Minotaur
January 13, 2023

Asterion, Asterion, did you ever ask to be born
To a human mother and a bovine father that fateful Cretan morn,
Beheld as the misbegotten spawn of a union spurred on
By a bitter god who, like his family, cared little for right and wrong
And threw a fit over not being sacrificed a handsome steer,
Even though ‘twas King Minos’s end of the deal that he should’ve held dear?
Did you ever ask likewise for your foster father to throw
You into an elaborate maze that he’d asked Daedalus to build so
When he could have tried instead, despite your birth, showing you kindness
And raising you like the son you were, no worse off than the rest?
Wouldn’t you have rather had three square meals daily like the half-man you were
Than to be fed once every year or seven, as though you were some savage cur,
Seven lads and seven maidens from Athens for some penance or such,
Turning you into a cannibal in the process? Would it have killed him much?
Next thing you knew, you met Theseus in Athens’ third payment to Crete,
And with the help of a ball of thread from Ariadne oh so sweet,
He made his way to the center of your lair where you sat waiting,
And whether ‘twas a sword he’d snuck in with him or his bare fists he did swing,
He slew you like the beast he thought you to be—the monster Minos saw in you—
And as the “hero” retraced his steps, your life deserted you, too.
Oh, Asterion, you poor, hapless bastard! What could’ve been your fate,
Had Poseidon and Minos not played their hands and made you a target of hate?
What lessons would you’ve learned as a youth? What adventures would you’ve gone on?
What deeds would you’ve done in humanity’s name, had you not been wronged
From pre-cradle to grave, a hapless slave of prejudice-laced superstition,
Your life a cruel farce at every turn as though it was the gods’ mission?
Were you really the monster we’ve been told you were, even by Dante Alighieri,
Who had you right outside Hell’s seventh circle, calling you infamia de Creti
And accusing you of violence against nature, others, and yourself in life?
How does he know you alone were to blame for all the pain and strife
That concerned you? Did he know you in life, or is he just talking out his ass
In calling you a demon ‘cause of how Poseidon invented you in a way so crass?
At any rate, rest in peace, Asterion, if you can, for all your pain
Wouldn’t have been what it was, had anyone given you any wisdom to gain
And raised you with the guidance all children deserve when growing up to become
Credits to the populace in a world that’s otherwise witless and numb.
No one born should ever have to put up with other’s crap in any way,
And yet we all do—including, sadly, you—for human nature sucks that way.

*****

Author Pages: Smashwords.com
                         Amazon.com
                         Amazon.co.uk

My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 4: Bloody Roar 4: Animal Kingdom

Hello, readers!

Welcome to the fourth essay on my reboot for the Bloody Roar saga. Today I’ll be looking at Bloody Roar Primal Fury, otherwise known as Bloody Roar Extreme—the first BR video game to not have an arcade version or be a PlayStation 1 or 2 exclusive as Hudson Soft dared to test the waters on non-Sony consoles. While far from a perfect game, even outside of its sloppily told story, BR Primal Fury/BR Extreme (depending upon whether one is playing the game on the Nintendo Game Cube or the original X-Box, respectively) nonetheless has its fans among the BR faithful on account of its smooth and fluid controls, introduction of Ability Plus, and the opportunity to enter Hyperbeast Mode more times than once per battle. A player can even enter Hyperbeast Mode whenever he/she wants to, assuming he/she doesn’t mind losing health in the process, should his/her beast gauge not be completely full at the time…no doubt an unintentional reference to the X-Genome Code as BR 3 had introduced it, although that’s more speculation on my part than anything else. That, and we’re introduced to Prince Cronos and his bodyguard Ganesha (not to mention Yuuga “Fang” Tsukigami from the BR manga Bloody Roar: The Fang as a hidden Easter egg character) as well as Cronos and Ganesha’s home country, the Kingdom of Zoanthropes: a newly founded nation built upon the promise of peace between zoanthropes and baseline humans as per the theme of BR 2. Meant to be a side story between BRs 3 and 4, Primal Fury/Extreme has nevertheless sparked debate among the Bloody Roar fanbase concerning the nature of the game being either a sequel or a port of BR 3 considering the notion that it tries to bring back some of the light sci-fi themes that last showed up prominently in BR 2 (e.g., zoanthrope experiments and the tranquil coexistence of zoanthropes and regular humans), yet takes place right after BR 3 with its mention of the World of Co-Existence and even BR 3 debut antagonist Xion wanting to understand his own zoanthropy. Then again, considering that most of the games in the BR line usually take place at least one year after those that’d come before them (thus making BR PF/E the exception to the rule) and usually illustrating this via updated character models, right down to each character’s outfit (with the exception in this case being BR 4), I can see to a point why such a debate would exist.

At any rate, the story of BR Primal Fury/Extreme concerns itself with the foundation of the KoZ as a reaction to the as-yet intense friction between zoanthropes and mundane humans even after the fall of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front (and, presumably, at least most other radical racial coalitions) and the emergence of the World of Co-Existence. Granted, the WOC has flourished in a mere matter of months from the small volunteer group it’d started off as to become a commercial enterprise, even in the wake of the discovery of the X-Genome Code and the crisis that surrounded it. Even so, the young non-government organization’s rise has not proven to be enough to make zoanthropekind as a whole feel safe among its less genetically gifted brethren, whose acts of persecution against its lot remain fresh within its members’ minds. As such, many zoanthropes from across the globe have united to form their own nation with the twofold goal of protecting their own population and working together with the rest of humanity to ensure equality and conciliation between the two species, even at the risk of resorting to what most people these days would refer to as “identity politics.” Because of how new the aptly named Kingdom of Zoanthropes is, however, it relies heavily upon its army for security and its special brigade of zoanthrope mercenaries for income. Likewise, rumors exist of cruel, Tylon-esque experiments taking place behind the scenes on zoanthropes to supposedly discover the secret behind their ability to transform into fighting human-animal hybrids—experiments that zoanthropes and humans alike openly oppose, yet nobody can prove the existence of, much less the identity of the party responsible for conducting or funding them.

On the cusp of the United Nations recognizing the KoZ as its own country via the signing of a treaty between UN Commissioner Alan Gado and the Kingdom’s own ruler, King Orion, the latter decides to launch the first ever Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament to both bring the nation together and show off the power of the Kingdom’s army and mercenary brigade. With a cash prize at stake as well as the title of Zoanthrope [Fighting] Champion, the inaugural UZFT has attracted the attention of plenty of zoanthropes worldwide—some in it for the money, as expected, but others for a chance to investigate the truth behind the experiments that are reputedly going on behind the scenes. As the story progresses, it’s revealed that Orion himself is responsible for the experiments and the research facility within which they’re happening, claiming them to be a necessity both for his people’s welfare and for peace between humans and zoanthropes. His own son, Prince Cronos, who has entered the UZFT as per his father’s whim, is one such subject to these tests on account of his having lost control of his zoanthropy in the past and inadvertently burning entire villages to the ground with the chaotic pyrogenetic powers with which his phoenix beast form has cursed him. The tournament is thus little more than a ploy to divert the masses’ attention away from the scientists’ research for which Orion receives no repercussions, judging from how most of the characters’ endings play out in Arcade Mode. This is especially true for Gado’s ending, which features him and Orion signing the treaty as planned, Orion lecturing him about how ensuring the harmony between zoanthropes and ordinary humans is his job (as if Gado himself didn’t already know that), and the pair of them waving to the crowd in assembly as an unidentified individual whom neither man detects looks on from behind them and grins evilly before ducking back behind the curtained pillar that’s concealing him.

Then again, it isn’t just the endings of Primal Fury/Extreme that frustrate me personally, although they do provide me with more questions than they do answers. Rather, the whole story is a mess from beginning to end—nothing that one can’t fix, naturally, as you’ve undoubtedly guessed, but I swear that there are times in which, as was true with BR 3, the narrative here has some decidedly fractured and scattered continuity with the rest of the series as it has previously occurred. Whether it’s via neglecting the plot progression and character development of the first three entries or reintroducing them in a decidedly incomplete and haphazard fashion, the story of this specific entry in the BR saga doesn’t fit nearly as tightly within the grand narrative as it could or should have. The details I’ve already shared with you alone leave me questioning the logic of Hudson Soft’s writers as they fleshed this tale out. The amount of time it takes for the Kingdom of Zoanthropes to sprout up from out of nowhere, for example, is astounding by itself, especially considering the grand architecture of its capital as the game’s intro and cutscenes consistently show. Think about it this way, folks: It usually takes several years to build just one modern city, which, according to CaptialFrontiers.com, typically costs between one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand US dollars ($100K-$500K) per future resident and can sometimes cost as much as a full million US dollars ($1M) per future resident. Sure, these figures eventually decrease as the city’s population grows over time, but the whole affair can cost quite a pretty penny all the same. Take the New Administrative Capital (NAC) of Egypt, for example, the construction of which began back in 2015 and at the time had so far cost forty-five to fifty-eight billion US dollars ($45B-$58B), depending upon whose information you trust the most. Not only that, but from what I’ve gathered about the upcoming city’s progress, it won’t be fully functional until 2023, if not later, if things remain on schedule at the rate they’ve been going. Feel free to look the story up for yourself, too, to get an idea of where the project is headed now. I’ve also included the following link to a website that had been chronicling Egypt’s NAC’s construction up to May 13, 2022.

Egypt’s new administrative capital project timeline and what you need to know (constructionreviewonline.com)

At any rate, my point is that if this website alone is any indication of how long it takes to build a single city, major or otherwise, then think about the kind of time, money, and physical labor it would take to establish an entire nation. Considering the year that passed between BRs 2 and 3 and the mere matter of months that in turn lasted between BR 3 and BR PF/E, that wouldn’t be nearly enough time to complete the KoZ’s capital alone, much less the entire country. Then again, speaking of logic, why would the writers mention anything about King Orion wanting to show off the combat skills of the KoZ’s military via the UZFT if the only two denizens of the Kingdom taking part in the tournament (or, at the very least, the only two of note) were Cronos and Ganesha, neither of whom belong to either the Kingdom’s army or the special mercenary brigade that the kingdom supposedly rents out to its allies? Also, aside from taking care of Cronos’s condition—surely a product of the X-Genome Code, judging from his Jekyll-and-Hyde complex, which is not all that dissimilar compared to the one Xion displays in the original BR 3—what exactly is the nature of the experiments that Orion has requested his hired team of scientists to perform, and how are they supposed to help bring peace between zoanthropekind and baseline humanity? Finally, considering that there’s little to no mention about the previous three games’ events—Tylon, the ZLF, the XGC crisis, the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts and the Unborn, and so forth—how tightly is any of what I’ve just shared about this game’s plot supposed to tie in with the rest of the BR narrative? I could go on to ask about certain characters’ in-game stories and how they deviate from what we’ve learned about said characters from earlier installments in the BR saga, but we’ll get to that soon enough. The point here, though, is that even though the Kingdom of Zoanthropes could have quite easily fit into Bloody Roar, Hudson Soft’s writers fell short in helping it do just that. Nevertheless, I won’t disbelieve in the slightest that they likely would have done a much keener and more calculated job than they did, had Hudson’s upper brass given them and the rest of the BR staff a more reasonable deadline to meet and not rushed them just so they could shove BR Primal Fury out onto the gaming market when they did, only to release its more updated self, BR Extreme, over a year later (See BloodyRoar.Fandom.com for more details.).

Of course, as has been and will still be true with the rest of the articles in this little blog project of mine, these words are coming from someone who has had a quarter of a century’s worth of hindsight on his side when it comes to revisiting the story of this fighting game series. That in mind, then, allow me to show you all verbally what I would do to make Bloody Roar Primal Fury/Extreme fit more seamlessly into the BR story as I, at least, envision it. As usual, beware of spoilers from here on out. Otherwise, let’s get down to business!

Bloody Roar 4: Animal Kingdom

Okay…cheesy title, I’ll admit, but it still best describes the nature of the story at hand. That aside, our tale begins where Bloody Roar 1 left off with the Tylon Corporation’s fall after Gado destroys its corporate headquarters and South American research facility, leaving nothing left of them but just enough evidence to expose the multinational conglomerate’s clandestine zoanthrope experiments. This naturally leads to Tylon’s demise, at least on the surface, and its abandonment of countless test subjects and employees who’ve managed to escape the tumult alive. At first, there seems to be no one to reach out to these hapless souls and bring them back home to their loved ones. Eventually, however, the news of Tylon’s fall reaches the ears of an entity known only as Qílín, who brings it upon himself to send a rescue team to the stranded party and bring them back to a secret underground haven that he and his hirelings have established beneath the abandoned ruins on a remote island off the coast of Greece. When the refugees arrive, Qílín explains to them the decidedly difficult circumstances they all face in the instance that they are to return home to a world that is not yet ready for “beings of their nature” (i.e., zoanthropes). The Tylon Corporation, after all, may have lost a research compound that was crucial to the success of their mission to conquer the world, but they have yet to completely perish as a global entity, and there’s no telling just what they might do to the fugitives if they were to directly return to the lives they once knew. After all, if Tylon could alter the survivors’ minds and bodies to turn them into unquestioning human-animal hybrid soldiers to serve its corrupt ambitions, it could certainly find a way to hunt them down and either recapture and “reenlist” them to serve its cause or outright kill them before they could a) testify against the company in court for its misdeeds or b) act out the side effects of their metamorphoses and further expose (albeit unintentionally) the organization of its crimes. Besides, the global public isn’t ready yet to handle knowing that the creatures they are via either extraordinary birth or unfortunate experiments exist and, should it ever discover their secret, is sure to punish their kind out of fear, rage, and jealousy towards that which most of its citizens don’t understand. As such, Qílín insists that the refugees—be they test subjects, scientists, security guards, or so forth—all stay on the island to live out the rest of their lives or until the world at last becomes ready and willing to accept the existence of zoanthropes in global society, whichever comes first. Until then, he himself vows to provide them all with what they need to live a safe, healthy, productive, and (given the circumstances) happy existence on the island with the only condition being that they all meet him half-way and agree to work together with him and each other to establish what may eventually become their new home.

Several years pass since that day, and over the course of that time, the refugees learn to look beyond their differences with one another and cooperate in establishing their new home city, making the most out of whatever food, clothing, technology, building supplies, and other resources Qílín manages to provide them with. Granted, it has helped tremendously that the island had already been a home for plenty of edible plant life and acreage for farming prior to the settlers’ arrival, and it also doesn’t hurt that the island had once been a site for a long-forgotten Greek city and that the construction crew whom Qílín has hired is able to incorporate the ruins into its design for the colonists’ new home capital of Défteri Lykoria (“Second Lycoreia”). All the same, the endeavor proves to be a particularly time-consuming one, even with all the refugees working together to establish their new society. The constant surveillance of the fledgling colony by former Tylon security officers and Qílín’s hired militia also proves to be a double-edged sword for the civilian colonists—a thankful boon of protection from external threats on one hand and a constant reminder of the danger they face as a remote, tight-knit society on the other. This holds especially true for when news of the colony chances to break out during its establishment and many a persecuted zoanthrope from elsewhere in the world immigrates to the yet-unestablished kingdom to seek refuge from baseline humanity and the bitter prejudice many of its members bear for zoanthropekind. Thankfully, the dream of zoanthrope unity rings true among the colony’s growing population, and more denizens than not prove eager to work with each other to establish their new home in the wake of increasing prospective setbacks to it, including threats from many a distrustful human from the outside world in the form of powerful beast hunter organizations and influential anti-zoanthrope governments. Eventually, the citizens fully establish Défteri Lykoria, elect their government, and help give birth to the nation known across the globe as the Kingdom of Zoanthropes.

Today, despite most of its towns remaining in the “village” stage of urban development, the Kingdom stands as a beacon of hope for those who still dream of and fight for equality between zoanthropekind and mundane humanity, even after the rise and fall of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front and the Sicyonian Society (among other radical racial organizations) and the X-Genome Code crisis. Elected royal official Timbo Orma, who has taken on the identity of King Orion, has vowed to fulfill such dreams, too, by submitting the KoZ’s membership to the United Nations and agreeing to establish peaceful relations with its fellow UN member states as a means of cementing the Kingdom’s standing as an official world power. He has also agreed to allow equal opportunity for both humans and zoanthropes within his nation’s borders for housing, employment, and other civil rights, so long as all citizens adhere to the same established laws and social guidelines and refrain from overstepping such boundaries. Furthermore, following his signing of a treaty that would officialize the KoZ’s membership to the UN, Orion has decided to host the inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament as a means of bringing the public together and celebrating the nation’s recognition as a political body. The UZFT is open to all zoanthropes who wish to showcase their martial mettle with the winner set to receive a handsome cash prize on top of being recognized as the first-ever Zoanthrope Fighting Champion. Predictably enough, the event becomes a can’t-miss event among zoantrhropekind and draws the attention of countless zoanthropes worldwide, contenders and spectators alike. This includes the chief officers of the World of Co-Existence, who have arrived to serve as delegates for their non-government organization to acknowledge and support the infant country and its message to the world…or at least that would be the case, if not for some ugly gossip that’s been circulating globally among zoanthropes and humans alike.

Perhaps the most pressing of these reports is the notion of sinister secret experiments going on behind the scenes of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ emergence and their hosting of the UZFT. Though members of both species have shown severe opposition to such scientific operations, nobody can prove their existence, much less their nature or purpose. The possibility of these experiments being real is certainly there, however, considering the number of original refugees from the demolition of Tylon’s secret South American laboratory being former Tylon scientists whose motives and ambitions remain a mystery to outsiders. It’s thus going to take some serious detective work to get to the bottom of the matter and find out if King Orion and his followers are on the up-and-up or if they’ve got a nasty surprise for the world up their sleeve. Then again, an even bigger concern exists regarding the escape of three former lieutenants of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front from prison not too long ago. For months now have Nikolai Medved, Ethwasa Masondo, and Gláucia Duarte been at large following their escape from prison for their participation in the ZLF’s activities over a year prior, and many are those who fear that they are planning to reconstruct the Front and return it to prominencea year or two after its initial demise. Add to that the fact that the authorities have yet to apprehend the organization’s original founder, ex-Tylon scientist Hajime Busuzima, following his own escape from jail, and it’s easy to see why so many people have become convinced of the Front’s rebirth from this little bit of evidence alone. Heaven only knows, too, just how many new members it’s bound to recruit into its mission to establish its zoanthrope dictatorship over the global masses—or, worse yet, how many members it already has recruited—and what scheme it would execute upon returning to power, should its reemergence prove to be a reality. No doubt that such a plot would involve the Kingdom in one way or another, especially in the instance that the rumors concerning a secret lab hidden somewhere within the Kingdom prove to be true. Whatever the case may be, the WOC, the UN, the FBI, and all the other organizations who are looking into the matter are sure to have their hands full when it comes to snuffing out what promises to be a raging inferno against the prospects of interracial peace. The time is thus now for these respective coalitions to get to the heart of the matter, either individually or in unison, and put to rest any potential foul play that might be afoot so that they can avert another global crisis and help illuminate for all the world to see what the Kingdom of Zoanthropes truly stands for.

The Rebirth of the ZLF

As explained earlier, Nikolai, Ethwasa, and Gláucia have all managed to escape incarceration for their participation in the ZLF’s original attempt to establish zoanthrope supremacy over mundane humanity. Rather than immediately involve themselves in the events of Bloody Roar 3, however, the three kept a low profile as they made their way towards the “lodge” (i.e., headquarters) of the Sicyonian Society. After all, though many an anti-zoanthrope coalition was having a heyday during the tumult that followed the discovery of the X-Genome Code, none of them had risen to the same level of prominence that the Society had on account of the beast hunts that it had been staging against “Coded” zoanthropes, particularly those who’d attained prominent positions of power (e.g., Gado). Strangely enough, the Society, like the Front before it, had proven to be little more than a façade via which the not-quite-dead Tylon Corporation has been operating to keep the social tensions between humans and zoanthropes high and thus the two species at each other’s throats. Similarly, the Society has met its end at the hands of a loosely affiliated band of zoanthropes who’d set out to investigate its activities and directly put a stop to them. Truth be told, though, it was Nikolai, Ethwasa, and Gláucia who helped put the nail in the Society’s coffin when they arrived at its lodge and caught its designated Lodge Keeper, Dr. Grant Maxwell, before he could fully flee the premises and evade capture by the authorities. Joining the trio at the scene sure enough was none other than Shenlong, the ZLF’s former field commander whom Maxwell had recreated from Long’s DNA following his suicide at the end of BR 2, along with two of Shenlong’s fellow Sicyonian draftees, Reiji Takigawa and Johan “Xion” Rosenberg. Busuzima showed up as well, thirsting for revenge himself against Maxwell for duping him into taking the fall for the Sicyonians’ crimes. Understanding his demise being close at hand and that he no longer has the services of his decoy/bodyguard Proteus to come to his defense, Maxwell reluctantly acquiesced to his seven captors’ interrogation of him and informed them of another project that a team of Tylon scientists have had a hand in establishing.

According to Maxwell, said scientists had managed to escape the destruction of the enterprise’s South American research facility six years prior along with several security guards and test subjects to form a small yet steadily growing zoanthrope colony located on a remote island off the coast of Greece, complete with an underground laboratory where the scientists have been carrying on with their research. What the scientists were researching, he couldn’t say, for he was left quite in the dark about such a matter himself. Luckily for him, such information was of little concern to Shenlong and the others, who promptly thanked their prey for relinquishing this information before executing him once and for all. They then united under Shenlong—whom none of his fellow ZLF veterans seemed to recognize as being a completely different clone of former Tylon assassin Long Shin from the one they’d known a year ago—and vowed that their incarnation of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front would indeed stand for securing retribution for their fellow zoanthropes and against their genetically inferior oppressors. They’ve likewise recruited Xion and Reiji into their fold as fellow operatives and drafted Busuzima, the Front’s original founder, to handle scientific matters for them…albeit with a stiff caveat in place to ensure that he won’t try to pull any stunts to betray them while he provided them his talents. They’ve procured Maxwell’s corpse, too, as well as that of Dr. Steven “Stun” Goldberg—the latter having expired at the end of my reboot of BR 3 just as he had in the game’s original version—for future experiments that they’d planned to have the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ scientists perform when they hijacked the Kingdom’s underground lab. They’ve even secured the aid of Proteus as their de facto undercover agent, having gone as far as to completely purge him of all his memories, save for his battle data, and clone the remaining tissue to use in their creation of multiple spies, assassins, and saboteurs, each of which they program with the appropriate cognitive functions and complimentary DNA to serve whatever purpose they expect him or her to perform on their behalf. With their initial roster all set, the members of the newly reestablished Zoanthrope Liberation Front have at last set forth for the Kingdom of Zoanthropes to locate and hijack its secret laboratory and, with its resources under their control, fulfill their ultimate desire: establishing their kind’s place firmly at the top of the social food chain and subjugating baseline humanity to the same degree of persecution the latter had once forced upon zoanthropes.

This predictably enough leads to the ZLF being behind the scenes of the UZFT, having located the KoZ’s underground research compound and usurped control over it. Initially, the scientists who’d been running the lab had been conducting research that was meant to further examine certain occurrences related to zoanthrope biology, particularly those that involved the X-Genome Code. Specific XGC-related studies concerned the cure and/or prevention of ailments that derive from the Code’s prolonged stimulation, various phenomena related to certain particularly strong strands of the XGC (e.g., XGC-related superpowers), and the potential reengineering of the Code to make it less of a life deterrent for those who possess it. The ZLF have immediately put a halt to such studies, unfortunately, and demanded that the scientists dedicate themselves instead to the creation of the ultimate zoanthrope army with which the Front can conquer the world. As part of this research, the ZLF plan to abduct several powerful zoanthrope fighters, copy the coding of their DNA, and implement it into the Front’s own synthetic zoanthropes, whom it shall in turn program to carry out its cause and subjugate baseline humanity to serve it as its new subjects. Using a complex DNA tracking system that finds identical matches to the DNA samples it’s collected of not only its former opponents (e.g., Gado, Long, and the chief executives of the WOC), but also those whom the Sicyonian Society had had in its custody before their ultimate demise (e.g., Trueno Rodante and Uranus Gamma), the ZLF manages to locate its targets and organize their invitations to the UZFT. Some of these invitations come in the form of simple written or typed documents with King Orion’s signature forged onto them sent through the mail. Others are more elaborate and involve numerous clones of Proteus metamorphosizing into various thugs and their victims and having the former “assault” the latter to draw the intended target’s attention, combat him or her, and record his or her battle data for the KoZ’s scientists to implement later within the soldiers the ZLF has commissioned them to create. Regardless of how the Front brings in such future competitors, the result is the same: The invitee participates in the tournament, the ZLF abducts him or her post-match, the scientists extract a sample of the invitee’s DNA from which they in turn create a clone of him or her, and the clone replaces the individual in the competition. Then, should the clone prove to be a superior combatant to the original, such would be reason enough for the ZLF to keep the former alive and use him or her to infiltrate whatever organization the original zoanthrope belongs to and dismantle it from the inside, thus eliminating one more threat to the Front’s goal of world domination and hence making its ambition all the easier to accomplish. On a similar note, the ZLF can even elect to keep its original captive and attempt to brainwash him or her into becoming one of its soldiers or take the safe route and liquify him or her and add his or her genetic material to its resources for future operatives before said captive’s allies can discover the truth and set out to rescue him or her. All this in mind, it’ll surely be a fight to the finish to see if the WOC’s representatives specifically can get to the bottom of the matter and prevent themselves from succumbing to a fate that would completely undo everything that it’s established in as miraculously short a time as it has.

The Initial Thirteen

Yugo Ogami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 23
Fighting Style: Shoot Boxing
Beast Form: Wolf

Original Backstory: Yugo falls prey to an ambush from a pack of thugs one day and manages to defeat them all without problem, then later receives a visit from the representative of the UZFT who’d organized the attack in the first place: a man named “Mr. Mogul.” Impressed with the results he’d gathered from the whole arrangement, Mogul invites the WOC president to participate in the tournament. Yugo accepts, hoping that his involvement in the UZFT will give him a chance to check out the rumors concerning the goings-on behind the scenes and see for himself if there is indeed anything shady about the Kingdom of Zoanthropes.

Reboot Backstory: No major changes…except I’d put a little bit more effort into establishing who “Mr. Mogul” really is. In a nutshell, as you folks may have already deduced after reading my introductory paragraphs concerning the ZLF’s rebirth, “Mr. Mogul” happens to be one of Proteus’s many clones and is using the identity with which the Front has programmed him (or, if you’d rather, it) to lure Yugo specifically into the cabal’s trap and replicate his DNA from which to craft future agents to its cause. As far as the game itself is concerned, the developers could use a “Mr. Mogul” skin for Proteus for when Yugo ultimately confronts him in Story Mode or when any player should select him in any of the game’s other modes of play. A green-tinged model of Yugo (or, really, any other the other established fighters) could also work for this specific character.

Alice Tsukakami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 23
Fighting Style: Gymnastics-inspired Jeet Kune Do
Beast Form: Rabbit

Original Backstory: Once a small volunteer group just over a year ago, the World of Co-Existence has presently grown into a commercial enterprise, much to WOC translator Alice’s astonishment. She is similarly concerned about Yugo, who has agreed to participate in the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament as per the invitation he’d received from the representative who’d given it to him. Though she agrees that Yugo’s participation in the UZFT will give him a chance to discover the truth behind the rumors of foul play within the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, she can’t help but feel saddened at the fact that Kenji knows more information than she does regarding the circumstances. No doubt, she believes, it’s because Yugo’s foster brother is better about keeping his emotions in check than she is. She also regrets not receiving an invitation to the tournament herself until one eventually does come in the mail…and from Long Shin, no less, an acquaintance of hers and Yugo’s. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, she naturally follows Yugo to the UZFT.

Reboot Backstory: Nothing too different from that which Hudson had provided for us except that I’d rather give her more of a purpose than have her just follow Yugo into the thick of things. After all, I did mention in earlier installments in this series the events that led to Mitsuko adopting her as her elder daughter in my reboot—namely the untimely death of Alice’s natural-born zoanthrope mother and how the Tylon Corporation had taken her away from her human father. Well, in this installment of my version of Bloody Roar, Alice will finally have the chance to reunite with her father. I’ll explain how once we get to Mr. Tsukagami’s.—or, should I say, Dr. Tsukagami’s—entry later on in this section of the article, but suffice to say, it won’t be Long who’ll send Alice her invitation to participate in the UZFT. Rather, it’d be Jenny, whom I’d have be the one to have the inside scoop when it comes to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, seeing as she’s the one active roster member (so far) who’s had the closest connections to Qílín, the man responsible for founding the Kingdom in the first place…or, at the very least, the underground sanctuary around which the Tylon refugees have built their fledgling nation.

Alan Gado
Home Country: France
Age: 49
Fighting Style: Military Martial Arts (Power Attacks)
Beast Form: Lion

Original Backstory: United Nations Commissioner Alan Gado’s story begins with him arriving at his home, where he sees acquaintance Jennifer “Jenny” Burtory sitting on his living room sofa and enjoying an expensive bottle of brandy. He sits down opposite her and joins her for a drink, but then she remarks that he’s aged, which makes him spit his brandy out in shock. She then acknowledges that he’ll oversee tactical operations on the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ alleged hidden lab, which he confirms and adds that he’s looking forward to meeting some old friends during his trip to the Kingdom. This in turn leads to Jenny abruptly informing him that she won’t let him interfere in her business anymore and that the research facility is hers before storming out of the room. At a loss for what to say or think about the spy’s behavior, he swears that he’ll carry out his objective successfully all the same.

Reboot Backstory: Believe it or not, I’ll keep this backstory mostly intact. I’d even have Jenny tell Gado not to interfere in her business and that the KoZ’s hidden lab is “hers” simply out of the distrust she feels towards him and his nosy UN/mercenary buddies and what they might think about the research that had been going on in it before the ZLF hijacked the place. Heaven knows just what kind of ideas they might get about the Kingdom’s scientists and their initial scientific inquiries upon witnessing the kind of project they’ve been investing their time in under the Front’s “guidance”. That in mind, the only change I’d make when it comes to Gado’s story would be to have the treaty signing between the UN and the KoZ via Gado and King Orion take place before the events of the game rather than after, even if for no reason other than to more accurately foreshadow the shady events going on behind the scenes of the UZFT and to get the players invested in discovering the identity of that mysterious man who’d been snooping on him and Orion behind the scenes.

Long Shin
Home Country: China
Age: 32
Fighting Style: Xing Yi Quan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Tiger

Original Backstory: The following excerpt comes directly from Long’s page on BloodyRoar.Fandom.com. I know I’m taking the lazy way out by doing this, too, rather than rephrasing his personal narrative from the game here in my own words, but truth be told, I can barely make heads or tails out of it myself. Feel free to try and do so at your own leisure, however, in the instance that you just might be able to figure out what Long’s up to in BR PF/E.

“Large tanks, each built to sustain one person, are lined up in a row. The place is a well-equipped research institute, though itself is a unique facility with its stone walls and floors. Long is standing in this room as a voice calls out to him, telling him that everything is under control. He responds by saying that finally their dream will come true. The other man calmly points out that the United Nations were mobilizing at their next convention. Long informs him they have a ploy: that they’ll invite several strong zoanthropes to fight against the people of the United Nations to cause havoc. They will defend the place and take advantage of the confusion, and if the worst happens, they can divert the attention to the King’s research. The other man asks if this scheme will be executed without others knowing and if he consents to this. Long says nothing, and the man proceeds to asks if he loathes what he’s going to do. With composure, though clearly denying, he tells him that he doesn’t and that he’s made up his mind; he’ll do what he must as long as it goes by his beliefs.”

Reboot Backstory: Yeah, I think it’s all too obvious that this backstory is my least favorite in the entire game. Yes, it’s true that Long’s father was the one who first discovered zoanthropy as it’s come to be known in the Bloody Roar universe, but lest we forget, the only source we have to showcase that tidbit of information is Long’s backstory in BR 2, and even then only according to The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com. The games themselves only reference his sister Lin Li, and even BloodyRoar.Fandom.com only mentions that his father was a workaholic whose devotion to his occupation left him neglecting his family, Long included. Heck, the whole “workaholic” part isn’t even from the site itself but from a digital copy of the BR 1 instruction manual for the game’s PlayStation port that the site references from GamesDatabase.org. Add to that Long’s history with Tylon and how he came to turn his back on the multinational enterprise that had led him down the path of a cold-blooded killer, and that’s pretty much it as far as Long’s interest in scientific experiments ought to be concerned…or at least one would think. On that note, then, I’d simplify the guy’s backstory to be him training Lanhua following her recovery from her XGC-induced sickness, him receiving an invitation to the UZFT from (unbeknownst to him at the time) his old “pal” Shenlong, Lanhua catching the news and asking if she can accompany her sifu/“big brother” to the tournament and register to participate in it herself, and the two of them heading to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes together so that both mentor and pupil can test their strength against the other contestants and perhaps even each other with Long unwittingly setting himself up (at least in the beginning) to become one of the ZLF’s key subjects for its whole “zoanthrope army” project.

Bakuryu (a.k.a. Kenji [Kakeru] Ogami)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 15
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: Mole

Original Backstory: WOC Vice President and Chief Negotiator Kenji Ogami’s [mostly] carefree life is all thanks to his foster brother Yugo’s sacrifices. In fact, Yugo himself has stated so much in a letter to his younger brother that he’d not lived his life for his own sake, but rather as an avenger for his late father Yuji, a legal guardian for Kenji, and the leader of the WOC. He doesn’t see any of this as a bad thing, necessarily, as his travels have led him to many an interesting place to see other cultures around the world and meet some fascinating people. Even so, the time has come for him to find out who he is outside of the roles he’s come to know over the past seven-plus years and do a little something for himself. Kenji, however, will be participating in the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament himself and is bound to cross paths with Yugo to prove in hand-to-hand combat that he has grown up and is more than capable of taking the World of Co-Existence over from him so that the elder Ogami can live a life of his own.

Reboot Backstory: First off, there’s no way Yugo’s going to retire from the World of Co-Existence at this stage of the organization’s existence, especially not when he and the rest of the WOC are investigating the goings-on behind the scenes of the UZFT. On that note, then, the whole notion of Kenji having to prove to his foster brother that he’s “all grown up” is completely unnecessary. Really, now, one reference to Kenji being mature for his age is one thing, but multiple reminders over the course of more than one game (Let’s not forget his ending from the original BR 3, after all.) is overkill, to put matters bluntly. Besides, Bakuryu could be put to better use in BR PF/E’s story by taking on some active investigative work for the WOC by snooping around the KoZ’s capital—including King Orion’s palace—for clues to the country’s underground lab and the experiments that are going on within it. Who knows? He might be the one responsible for discovering the ZLF’s scheme and even clash with one of the Front’s agents directly outside of the tournament, should said agent discover him sticking his nose into the cabal’s affairs.

Uriko Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 15
Fighting Style: Xing Yi Quan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Half-Beast ([Tabby] Cat)

Original Backstory: Having once served the now-defunct Tylon Corporation as a test subject for Project Uranus and as such transformed into a creature of mass destruction that even Tylon couldn’t control, Uriko Nonomura seemed to be a natural fit to participate in the UZFT. However, when the representatives whom the Kingdom of Zoanthropes had sent to invite her to the tournament arrive at her home, they—much to their surprise—see no such monster. It takes them banging a gong to wake the cheerful teenager up from her little cat nap, and when they give her a business card written in English (which she cannot read on account of her being literate only in her native Japanese) and explain to her the purpose of their visit, she asks if by “fighting tournament,” they mean “athletic game.” She then goes back to sleep, forcing her visitors to try waking her back up three hours later.

Reboot Backstory: My idea for Uriko’s backstory going into her participation in the UZFT wouldn’t be quite so childish and campy. Rather, I’d be sure to treat Uriko a bit more seriously across the board in this game, especially if I was going to end up foreshadowing her potentially regaining the chimera beast form she’d received back in BR 1 as Hudson originally had. Sure, there’s plenty of room for a bit of levity within an otherwise serious story, but considering the kind of crap this young lady has had to endure before she even hit “the big one-oh,” it’d have been wiser for Hudson’s writers if they’d picked their spots with her more carefully. Granted, she will receive an invitation to participate in the UZFT so that the ZLF can analyze her combat data from behind the scenes and pattern its latest beast soldier after her, even if she’s still “stuck” with her half-tabby form. On the other hand, the Front could also quite possibly employ one of its top hitmen or hitwomen to abduct her so that the KoZ’s scientists, upon the Front’s orders, could try to reawaken her inner chimera and reserve her for the end of the tournament so that she can take on the finalist, demolish him/her, and have the scientists record her battle data for their “trump card” within the ZLF’s battalion.

Jane “Shina” Gado
Home Country: France
Age: 20
Fighting Style: Military Martial Arts (Single & Continuous Attacks)
Beast Form: Leopard

Original Backstory: Disillusioned after her last operation with the Klaw and Fang coalition, Shina quits her job as a mercenary and leads a quiet life for a while until Yugo pays her a visit, having taken three days to reach her house because the road was littered with landmines. After sending him to the shower and fixing him a cup of tea, she asks why he’s come, which he soon answers by bringing up the incident from her past that’d left her orphaned at the age of four: the time a mysterious fire had burned down her childhood village. Shina admits that the memories of that occurrence still haunt her and that she’s tried to overcome them with all the time she’s spent on the battlefield, then hears form Yugo that he’d met someone who’d endured similar circumstances and of the friend of his named Jeanne whom he’d sworn burned to death in the blaze sixteen years prior. The young man’s name is Cronos, Yugo says before urging her to venture out to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes and attend the UZFT to find the rest of the truth out for herself. Determined to reunite with her long-lost friend, she takes Yugo’s advice to heart and heads for the Kingdom immediately.

Reboot Backstory: In my reboot, Shina would find out about Prince Cronos by catching a glimpse of his face either in the newspaper, on a televised news bulletin, or on some news report on the Internet concerning the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Once she does, she envisions a PTSD-induced flashback concerning the very event that’d rendered her an orphan at the age of four: a fire of indeterminate cause burning her childhood village to the ground. Convinced that she’d lost her childhood friend in that very fire, she nonetheless cannot resist the compulsion to find out more about Cronos and enlists the aid of FBI agent and family acquaintance Gregory Humain to get the lo-down on the young prince and find out exactly who he is and—if he is whom she thinks he is—how he was able to survive that fire that she’d sworn had claimed his life. In conjunction with her inquest, she heads for the Kingdom to probe into the rumors of the dirty deeds that are supposedly going on behind the scenes of the UZFT, hoping with all her heart that Cronos isn’t tied up in them, should they be a reality.

Jennifer “Jenny” Burtory
Home Country: England/Great Britain
Age: Unknown
Fighting Style: Tae Kwon Do (“Lower Body”)
Beast Form: Bat

Original Backstory: The initial scene for Jenny’s narrative in BR PF/E starts off with her coming out of the shower in preparation for an appointment she has with a client that eventually leads her to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, but not before she looks her nude body over in the mirror and ends up reminding herself of her agelessness and the experiments she’d allegedly undergone that’d blessed/cursed her with her supposed immortality.

Reboot Backstory: While enjoying a glass of red wine one evening, Jenny gets a call from her employer Qílín, who immediately informs her of his recent inability to get in touch with his connections at the underground laboratory within the heart of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Usually, the scientists who’d set up shop there would give him regular debriefings on the findings of their projects, but he’s heard nothing from them for the past couple of days. Fearful of what might have happened to them, especially with the inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament mere days away, he expects Jenny to check the matter out and make sure that no foul play has taken place. After all, he himself has heard some ugly rumors about the three former Zoanthrope Liberation Front lieutenants who’d escaped prison months ago still being at large and fears that they might have discovered the lab’s whereabouts and are using it and its scientists to fulfill whatever sinister machinations they have in mind.

Mitsuko Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 41 (originally 45)
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: Uriko has received an invitation to participate in the first-ever Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament and is eager to put her fighting skills to the test and win the proposed cash prize, which she plans on applying towards a college fund so that she can follow in her estranged father’s footsteps in the field of science. After all, it’s been a mere matter of months since she’s managed to help Alice and Yugo in their investigation of the XGC crisis, and she’s taken to the study of biochemistry quite quickly and enthusiastically. Naturally, Mitsuko wants to support her daughter’s dream and has agreed to attend the UZFT with her to show her some support, even if it does mean asking one of her relatives to take over her duties of tending to the family shop while she and Uriko are away. Even so, she can’t help but feel suspicious about the whole matter, considering all the rumors that Alice has told her about the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ alleged secret lab and those three former ZLF lieutenants having escaped prison and not yet been apprehended. With both of those pieces of information in mind, she can’t help but feel as though something is about to turn horribly wrong. Who else better to protect Uriko, then, than her—especially considering that the two had rescued one another on two separate occasions in years past?

Of course, Uriko’s participation in the UZFT isn’t the only reason that Mitsuko’s interested in venturing off to the KoZ, as there is also the admittedly vain yet nevertheless present hope that she might be able to locate her long-missing husband Nezumi. Granted, it’s been years since he’d first gone to work for Tylon, of all companies, and it’d been almost as many years since she’d last heard from him. Who’s to say from what she’d heard, therefore, that he hadn’t been one of the scientists who’d managed to escape the destruction of the research facility from which she and Alice had both rescued Uriko? Hopefully, he’s doing alright, if that’s the case, even though it would have been nice if he’d bothered to send her and Uriko a letter every now and then to let them know how he was faring. On second thought, considering the nature of this whole “Kingdom of Zoanthropes” project he had surely been working on alongside the other refugees, she can understand to some degree the need for its creators to keep it a secret from the world until recently. Whatever the case was, the whole notion has been keeping her emotions on edge, and she has found it only wise to consult the World of Co-Existence to lend her a hand in this matter. Promptly, then, she’s entrusted Kenji Ogami with the responsibility of looking into the matter—busy though he surely already is with his duties as the WOC’s junior vice president and chief negotiator—and hopes with all her heart that he can do something to help.

Hans Taubemann
Home Country: Germany
Age: 28
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: On his way to work at the office of his employer, United Nations Commissioner Alan Gado, Hans comes across a pack of ruffians harassing an elderly woman who bears a shocking resemblance to his late mother. Stricken by a flashback from his past in which he’d unwittingly killed his mom in a fit of XGC-fueled rage, he unhesitatingly springs into action and begins to pummel the belligerents, resisting all the while the temptation of beastorizing even as he sends the last thug collapsing upon the ground in a broken, unconscious heap. He then tends to the woman to see if she’s okay, and as he lifts her gingerly back up to her feet, he can’t help but gasp at the chuckle that escapes her raspy throat. She turns to him at that moment and thanks him for coming to her defense, but alas, all she has on her person to reward him with for his efforts is a small piece of paper she has in her purse, which she promptly removes and presents to him. He unfolds the thing and reads it carefully, and as he does so, he realizes that it’s an invitation to participate in the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament specifically made out to him. If he didn’t figure the matter out before, he’s figured out now that the whole thing was a setup—a test of his abilities that someone had arranged for him. He can only guess who that person could be, but as he turns back to the old woman to find out more about the whole affair, he sees she’s already disappeared. Puzzled and frustrated, he curses himself for having lost his train of thought and reminds himself to analyze the whole mystery later, as he’s already late for work as it is. He thus hurries off for the office, pondering to himself what Commissioner Gado would think of this whole ordeal if he was to tell the man about it.

Gregory “Greg” Humain
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 45 (originally 41)
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 alone at his desk fuming over how he’d failed to recapture escaped ex-Tylon scientist and ZLF founder Hajime Busuzima following his escape from prison some odd months ago and subsequent participation in the Sicyonian Society’s little zoanthrope killing spree. Granted, he’d managed to get his mitts on the perverse lab lizard before foolishly allowing that…thing to distract him and letting Busuzima slip out of his grasp and back into the night. Usually not one to succumb to self-pity, Greg nonetheless wonders to himself if he’s starting to lose it as a federal investigator and if he should simply turn in his badge and call it a career. Then he remembers that the United Nations will soon be recognizing the newly established Kingdom of Zoanthropes as an official country in the not-too-distant future and even welcome the young nation into its fold as its most recent member state via a treaty signing between Commissioner Alan Gado and King Orion. Likewise, His Majesty plans to celebrate the Kingdom’s official birth by hosting a fighting tournament—the “Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament,” as he calls it—in which several well-versed zoanthrope combatants will face off against one another to become Zoanthrope Fighting Champion and take home a handsome cash prize. Strange thing, though…hadn’t Greg heard rumors about there being some questionable experiments going on behind the scenes of the UZFT in a secret lab somewhere within the Kingdom? Not only that, but those other three ZLF operatives who’d escaped prison were also on the loose yet, and he also recalled Gado’s daughter Shina mentioning something to him about Orion’s son Prince Cronos looking like someone from her childhood who’d allegedly died in the same tragedy that’d claimed her biological parents’ lives. What a coincidence it would be, all that considered, if he happened to find out that that secret lab was real and that those Front goons had all gallivanted off to the Kingdom with that tongue-wagging madman Busuzima to start brewing up more trouble in that doggone facility! The whole thing seemed all too conveniently coincidental, as far as he was concerned. Then again, at least he had a solid hunch of where to go and what to do to see to it that justice befell zoanthropekind once more. That in mind, then, he immediately started planning his trip to the Kingdom, knowing deep inside his gut that he’d get to the bottom of this whole entire mess.

Wayne [Wanahton] Farland
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 29
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: During the XGC crisis, Wanahton had considered Kenji “Bakuryu” Ogami a prime suspect behind a number of gruesome murders in which the corpses of the victims, all of whom were zoanthropes who’d happened to bear the “Sign of the Beast,” bore incriminatingly long, claw-like gashes that dug deeply into their flesh. After having spent a considerable amount of time out in the field with Bakuryu in his custody, however, he soon came to realize that his suspicions had initially misled him, and his investigation guided him and his charge into the path of a shape-changing robot whose alternate form was the mechanical equivalent of what Bakuryu’s beast form was. Their tussle with him—or, at least, it—proved to be tough, but they succeeded in disabling their robotic adversary in the end and traced its roots to the party that was responsible for its deployment: the Sicyonian Society. Sadly, upon confronting Sicyonian Lodge Keeper Dr. Grant Maxwell, Wanahton discovered the hard way that his and Bakuryu’s quarry was merely an amoeba zoanthrope whom Maxwell had used as a decoy to divert their attention while he escaped the premises before either of the two heroes could bring him to justice for his role in the Society’s crimes against zoanthropekind. Alas, before either of them could hunt Maxwell down, Bakuryu heard some commotion taking place elsewhere within the compound, and as the duo followed the noise, they instantly came upon Wanahton’s senior partner Gregory Humain caught in a fierce battle with a female zoanthrope whose body constantly shifted between her human and beast forms at the drop of a hat. Judging by the anguished confusion she wore upon her face during the conflict, the woman seemed to be going through some grave mental instability as well…almost as if she had no idea what was going on with her during her fight with her burly adversary. Greg thus held his own against his aggressor, but the superhuman speed and strength that she displayed in both her forms—especially in conjunction with the additional preternatural powers she showcased from time to time—was enough to draw concern from Wanahton as he watched his mentor struggle against her. Eventually, then, he interjected himself into the fight, took advantage of an opening he found within the woman’s physical instability, and subdued her with all he had left following his battle with Maxwell’s duplicate. It was only once the woman had finally snapped out of her trance that Wanahton and Bakuryu at last recovered Greg, took the woman into custody, and escaped the wing of the Society’s “lodge” before it collapsed all around them and buried them beneath its rubble.

Months have passed since that incident with Wanahton and his fellow FBI agents having arrested several members of the Sicyonian Society for their precious “beast hunts,” and during that time, they’ve given Eva Rosenberg—or, as her “creator” Dr. Maxwell had designated her, “Uranus Gamma”—a place to lie low while the drama from the XGC riots dies down in exchange for her testimony against the Sicyonians. For quite a while, too, it has seems as though she’s fared well under her new circumstances until a recent phone call from her brings about the Bureau’s concern for her wellbeing. Deciding to look personally into the matter, Wanahton arrives at Eva’s apartment shortly after her call and from her learns that she has received an invitation to participate in the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ first-ever Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament. Immediately feeling his stomach churn with suspicion at the sight of Eva’s very name appear on the piece of paper he’s taken from her as well as the address to which his employers at the Bureau had given her a mere matter of months ago, he cannot resist in the slightest the need to find out just who had sent the invitation and how he or she was able to discover his charge’s whereabouts. He then assesses the situation further and decides to get in touch with Greg and the rest of the FBI and alert them of this development, then accompany her to the tournament personally so that he can directly look into the matter and find out who was behind sending her the invitation, what the concerned party wants with Eva, and find out what it is that he and the rest of the Bureau must do to put an end to this mysterious party’s plans, should said plans prove to be malicious.

Trueno Rodante (a.k.a. Domingo Reyes)
Home Country: Mexico
Age: 24
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: Domingo Reyes sits alone in the living room of the apartment that the FBI has assigned to him as part of its witness protection program following his involvement in the X-Genome Code crisis. Trying to catch his breath as he mops the sweat from his forehead after the strenuous afternoon workout that he’d just put himself through, he finds himself drifting off in thought as he recollects all he’s gone through to get to this point in his life. That ill-fated lucha match that resulted in him beatorizing and slaughtering his opponent after he’d taken so many deliberately stiff shots from him, his escape from the arena that resulted in him taking a tranquilizer to the neck, all those fellow zoanthropes of his he’d ended up fighting on account of his being convinced that they were out for his blood after he’d inadvertently killed Latigazo—it all comes back to him in a harsh, unforgiving blur. Now here he is living out of a housing complex in Washington, D.C., under the hawk-like surveillance of the FBI whose agents have been checking in on him daily to make sure he hasn’t succumbed to any more psychological side effects from his strand of the XGC or fallen prey to any act of aggression from anyone who’d either witnessed his Code-fueled manslaughter of Latigazo or been working for the Sicyonian Society, the pro-human extremists who’d brainwashed him to participate in their precious little “beast hunts.” Indeed, the very thought of it all makes him glance on over at the feint red lesions on his inner left calf that together roughly formed the shape of an armadillo, which—upon his taking a close look at it and tracing it with his finger—makes him wonder why he’d never noticed it on his body before…or, for that matter, why he even has it at all. Honestly, isn’t his being a zoanthrope enough of a social deterrent for him in a world where the genetically mundane grossly distrust those who have such power? Does he really have to bear something as potentially fatal—be it one way or another—as the XGC on top of that?

Before he can start feeling sorry for himself, he suddenly hears some heated arguing echoing out in the hallway that quickly degenerates into violence as he hears one of the arguers slamming the other into the wall opposite his apartment. This noise is enough for him to swing his apartment door open and see a burly man in street clothes surrounded by a pack of smaller, equally clad men as he holds a slight, unassuming man in a three-piece suit up against the wall by his throat. The brute shoves his face directly into that of the suited man and growls about him “not belonging here,” then raises his fist as if to finish him off with a straight punch to the face. Domingo, however, immediately grabs the man’s forearm before he can throw such a blow and demands that the brute hit the bricks and leave the poor man alone before the trouble he’s caused already boomerangs on him and bites him in the ass. The brute merely sneers at Domingo, shakes his arm free, and tells him to get lost himself before he “gets his,” too. Two of his companions then grab Domingo by his arms, and out of instinct, the ex-luchadore springs into action, freeing himself from his captors’ grasp by slamming them into each other with all his might. The brute stands shocked as he watches his two friends crack skulls with one another, and sure enough, a full-blown brawl breaks out in which all the suited man’s aggressors focus their attention on their newfound quarry, hoping to beat him down and humble him. Much to their dismay, though, they have their work more than cut out for them as Domingo wards off their mass assault with various takedowns, slams, and counterstrikes, all the while resisting the urge to metamorphosize into his beast form despite his furious desire for justice. Eventually, he finishes off his final aggressor with a solid powerbomb that leaves the thug flat on his back, and as Domingo walks away from his groaning, exhausted attackers, he strolls on over to the suited man to see how well he’s been faring.

The stranger graciously shakes Domingo’s hand as he helps him up to his feet, then promptly dusts himself off and asks him if he knows—or, at the very least, knows of—the great luchadore Trueno Rodante. Frowning at reluctance at the prospect of giving away the ring name he was hoping to walk away from, Domingo admits that he knows Trueno quite well and decides to leave it at that. The stranger smiles almost knowingly and hands him a slip of paper, which he tells Domingo to give to Trueno the next time he sees him and proceeds to explain the nature of it even as Domingo reads the thing for himself and sees that it’s an invitation to participate in the inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, which is soon to take place in the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Judging by what the man has witnessed from Domingo, he encourages him to come along as well and perhaps even sign up himself, should he feel the desire to test his combat skills against the greatest zoanthrope fighters the world has to offer—assuming, of course, that Domingo happens to be a zoanthrope himself. The man then nods and says his goodbyes before walking towards the front of the building, leaving Domingo to think about the man’s offer. On one hand, the notion of redeeming himself—and, for that matter, the name by which he intended to wrestle under throughout his wrestling career, which he’d sworn only moments ago was dead in the water—did sound promising, even if the very notion sounded like one big pipe dream. On the other hand, he was in the FBI’s care for a reason, and he knew deep inside his gut that they wouldn’t take kindly to his trapsing off to put his name out there for potential hunters to hear about so that they could track him down and put a bullet in his skull for reason X, Y, and/or Z. Besides, the whole thing with the suit and the goons attacking him right outside his apartment door seemed all too coincidental—almost as if it was a setup, in fact. That in mind, he decided to take the invitation with him to the Bureau to see what advice they had for him in how to respond to this conundrum, and if there was any chance that they would allow—or, perhaps he should say, instruct—him to take on his old in-ring persona after all and enter the UZFT, then so be it. After all, aren’t we all destined to face the beast within us sooner or later in life?

The Unlockable Twenty

Dr. Howard P. Jermyn
Home Country: England/Great Britain
Age: 45
Fighting Style: Hóu Quán (Monkey Fist Kung Fu)
Beast Form: Monkey

Original Backstory: None. Howard is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR PF/E.

Reboot Story: Having been a longtime medical researcher for the Tylon Corporation, Howard P. Jermyn had lent his time-honored knowledge of endocrinology to the rest of the staff of Tylon’s South American facility until its bombing, focusing his research on the X-Genome Code and how its numerous mutations provide “Coded” zoanthropes with abilities that transcend well beyond those of regular zoanthropes. Since the South American compound’s collapse, however, he’s escaped with several other survivors to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, where he’s carried on his research within the KoZ’s secret lab, studying his fellow escapees’ strands of the XGC to determine how they function and under what circumstances as well as how and why the various mutations in the Code exist. It is he specifically who is responsible for determining how Prince Cronos’s strand of the Code has affected his body and mind, and it is he who has taken every possible precaution to either “silence” the Code within King Orion’s son or, at the very least, make his strand easier for him to control. Alas, despite the rest of his efforts as a member of the Kingdom’s research team proving to be successful, he has yet to help Cronos master his control over the XGC within him. He’d even had the prince’s Lycaonian gland reengineered with special regulatory nodes to make it secrete Factor B in such a way that it would stimulate his DNA to mimic that of a penguin rather than that of an eagle, his original beast form, to further prevent him from beastorizing further into his deadly phoenix form and awakening its pyrogenetic tendencies. Unfortunately, the prince’s strand has proven to be too powerful for even a measure of that nature to hamper it, for when activated, the Code overrides Jermyn’s reprogramming and reconfigures the hormone to manipulate Cronos’s DNA as it had before. Worse yet, much to Jermyn’s further frustration, the prince still suffers from the same dissociative identity disorder that used to plague him before when he happened to take on his phoenix form, judging from His Majesty’s inability to recall certain pieces of information for which normal forgetfulness cannot attest. Jermyn has thus been at a loss for what he can do to completely override the XGC, and on top of suffering additional stress from his and the others’ years-long isolation from everything but his research year in, year out, he was about ready to throw in the towel on the whole operation.

That was, of course, until he learned from the private conversations that he’d had with quite a few of his fellow researchers that he wasn’t alone in wanting to escape their unintentional prison. Granted, it may have ultimately been true that their faceless savior had wanted to protect them all from a cruel, judgmental, and often violently hyperreactive outside world that had yet to understand and accept biological zoanthropy and those who’d possessed it as well as those who were responsible (i.e., them) for creating a corrupt multinational enterprise’s trump card in conquering the planet. On the other hand, for “Qílín” and his followers to keep them secluded on a remote island away from all that they once knew was barely, if at all, any better than the conditions they’d had to endure while they were on Tylon’s payroll. After all, even if the Tylon Corporation had been planning to use the scientists’ research for such selfish and destructive means as world domination, at least the white-collar bigwigs who were breathing down their necks at the time were paying them for their time and allowing them to send the money they’d earned back to their families. Even Dr. Nezumi Nonomura, as benevolent a lab leader as he was and as noble as his goals were in creating treatments for the X-Genome Code and its side effects, had to have concerned himself too thoroughly with the achievement of his own ambitions to fully understand their homesickness. That in mind, then, they all came up with a plan and decided to work late within the lab one night and jury rig some of the lab’s electrical equipment so that they could send out a distress signal to anyone who would listen to come rescue them from their occupational confinement. Luckily for them, someone did receive their call and promised to send help right away, much to their relief. Alas, that “help” came in the form of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, whose members showed no hesitation in hijacking the facility upon their arrival and forcing the entire team to abandon its medical research and focus its efforts on creating for them the ultimate zoanthrope army. Those who have refused to participate—specifically Dr. Nonomura, whose leadership over the compound the Front had stripped him of—have since undergone brainwashing as per the request of the ZLF’s leader, the oddly familiar-looking Shenlong, and been reassigned as spies and troubleshooters to take out anyone who might discover the facility and liberate it from the Front’s control while those who remain have no choice but to toil under their new captors’ totalitarian supervision. The Front has furthermore appointed Jermyn to serve as the face for the newly directed laboratory and entrusted him with the responsibility of reporting the lab’s progress to King Orion and his cabinet. Such a position has made him only more uncomfortable with the results of the stunt he and his colleagues have pulled, for now he must lie on behalf of the Front to keep his coworkers alive at the risk of having Orion and those immediately under him see through his bluffs and punish him even more harshly upon discovering his treachery. That is, of course, unless he can muster up enough courage within himself to come clean about his wrongdoing and find a way to rescue his fellow researchers from the ZLF’s iron-clawed grasp before it further subjects them to perform any further deeds on behalf of its own perverse mission.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Yugo.

Dr. Arata Tsukagami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 48
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: Once a researcher for the multinational Tylon Corporation’s Pharmaceutical Research Department, accomplished pharmacologist Dr. Arata Tsukigami had lost his wife Matilda to complications she’d suffered from the overstimulation of her strand of the X-Genome Code. Worried that his daughter Alice might have inherited Matilda’s zoanthropy and in turn be an XGC carrier herself, he consulted one of his colleagues over at the Japanese Tylon facility where he worked on what he should do to find out about Alice’s condition and how to keep her safe from the same ailments that’d claimed his wife. Promptly, his colleagues had examined Alice to discover that she was indeed a zoanthrope, albeit one who’d yet to have her Lycaonian gland stimulated, and as such, they awakened her inner beast and began running tests on her to discover how capable she was of adjusting to her newly unlocked zoanthropy. However, as per the orders of their superiors at Tylon’s main office, they relocated Alice to their South American facility and withheld from Arata every bit of information about what they were doing with his daughter, which was training her for Tylon’s zoanthrope army. Naturally, then, Arata’s curiosity had gotten the better of him, and as he left for South America himself to find out directly what Tylon was up to, the compound’s security immediately abducted him and turned him over to the laboratory’s scientists, who subjected him at once to a series of experiments that transformed him into a dolphin zoanthrope. They subsequently trained him as well to join the ranks of their military, and after seeing just how much promise he showed as a hand-to-hand combatant despite his lack of official martial arts training, they additionally took from him a sample of his newly mutated zoanthrope blood for future experiments of theirs.

Before the scientists had the chance to brainwash him to serve in Tylon’s army, however, the compound fell under attack and promptly began crumbling to the ground, leaving prisoner and staff alike to flee the building before it reduced to rubble all around them and buried them alive. Alas, while Arata was able to escape the facility’s demolition, he’d failed to cross paths with Alice at all during his decampment, and the group of people with whom he was able to join following the breakout had happened to become detached from the refugees whom Qílín’s subordinates had happened to come across and relocate to the site where the Kingdom of Zoanthropes now stands, no matter how incomplete. The survivors nonetheless made the most out of their recovery over the six to seven years that had passed since then, uniting under the guidance of a Buddhist monk named Rao “Ryoho” Mamurasaki to find their own way away from the wreckage, carve out a life for themselves and each other off the lands over which they made their journey, and live harmoniously within their surroundings. They eventually took to Gaianism as a method of spiritual/holistic philosophy and, around it, developed a system of belief that accepted the teachings of all the world’s major religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, etc.) as well as modern science (specifically that which concerned the phenomena of zoanthropy and all that the condition concerned), yet held as their primary guiding force the principle of Gaia hypothesis—a supreme entity to whom all life forms shared a connection. They henceforth called themselves the Curators of Gaia and vowed to spread their message of worldwide peace and unity with all who were willing to listen to it.

Recently, the Curators have heard of a “promised land” where zoanthropes rule and live in peace with humanity. Considering such a place to be ideal for him and his followers to live the rest of their lives, Ryoho naturally wants to believe these rumors and has initiated a pilgrimage to this “Kingdom of Zoanthropes,” as he’s known it to be called, to discover the truth. Having risen through the ranks of the Curators to become one of Ryoho’s most trusted disciples since their escape from Tylon’s South American research facility, Arata has received the honor of leading the pilgrimage and has accepted the responsibility earnestly. Hoping with all his heart that this journey will reunite him with his long-lost daughter Alice, he likewise knows all too well that he’s based such a hope more on blind anticipation than on hard logic. At any rate, he vows to enter the Kingdom’s inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament to find out the reality of the situation, whether it be favorable or not.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Alice.

Ethwasa Masondo
Home Country: England/Great Britain (via South Africa)
Age: 30
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: During the year she spent in jail for her role in the ZLF’s campaign to overthrow zoanthropekind’s genetically inferior oppressors, former war medic turned “terrorist” Ethwasa Masondo couldn’t help but fume at the notion that she and her compatriots had fallen prey to a glorified ruse. Indeed, she loathed the very idea that the Zoanthrope Liberation Front—an organization that was supposedly dedicated to elevating her species within a global society that was prejudiced against it—was little more than a façade for the allegedly defunct Tylon Corporation to continue experimenting on her kind and further promote the belief that zoanthropes were monsters among humanity. In fact, the more she found herself dwelling on the revelation, the more she came to rue the day she even thought about joining the European Security Corps during the whole panic over the revelation of zoanthropes’ existence and learning the truth about what the ESC thought about them. True, that small militia of beast hunters among her battalion was going to be court-martialed before she assassinated them on the night that she went AWOL, but the fact that that hypocrite Captain Gado and his inattentive, cowardly underlings had allowed such genocide to go on for as long as they had before any of them did anything about it made her come to distrust them, to put things quite mildly. That in mind, when the time came for her prison break, she gladly escaped and made sure to locate the likes of her fellow former ZLF lieutenants, Nikolai Medved and Gláucia Duarte, and reunite with them under the ZLF banner. They then set out for the headquarters of the Sicyonian Society, a beast hunting militia whose members had been making headlines in the news for specifically targeting zoanthropes who carried the X-Genome Code, for the sake of at least eliminating a powerful rival and keeping them from foiling their dream of reviving the Front under the cause for which it always should have stood. The discovery of the Society being yet another “front,” so to speak, for the Tylon Corporation only made the deal even sweeter, as far as Ethwasa was concerned, for if nothing else, at least it was a blow against the corrupt comnglomerate for exploiting her fellow zoanthropes and creating this whole unnecessary rift between them and baseline humanity in the first place. The bonus of being able to infiltrate yet another Tylon project, however, in the so-called Kingdom of Zoanthropes—no doubt another act of mundane human patronage against zoanthropekind and another excuse to further divide the two species—was simply the icing on the cake in her mind.

Then again, as much as she knows she should look forward to establishing a new base of operations for the ZLF, she can’t help but feel a sense of distrust towards the man who has taken charge of the mission. It’s one thing that he physically resembles Dr. Busuzima’s puppet leader for his version of the Front to a T, but the fact that he even shares his very name, “Shenlong,” only makes the coincidence evermore alarming, as was the fact that he insisted on leading the team’s excursion. Could it be that this is yet another setup and that she and the others were bound once again to find themselves on the receiving end of the Tylon Corporation’s treachery? It can’t be anything else, as far as she was concerned. Shenlong, Busuzima, the promise of zoanthropekind’s ascension to greatness over those who subjugated them…the warning signs are just too many for Ethwasa to ignore. That in mind, then, she silently vows to stay alert during the undertaking and keep an eye and an ear out for even the slightest slip, knowing within the pit of her stomach that Busuzima and Shenlong are sure to play her and the others for fools again, should they let their guard down and their emotions get the better of them even once.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Gado.

Xion (a.k.a. Johan Rosenberg)
Home Country: Sweden
Age: 22
Fighting Style: Savate
Beast Form: Cockroach (originally “Unborn”)

Original Backstory: Xion awakens to realize that he’d done something terrible—something that’d led him to soil his hands with blood, yet something that he swears he had no control over despite the deep, sorrowful regret he has for doing what he’d done. Though he can’t absolve himself of the guilt he bears for the crimes he’s committed, even if he was under the control of a dark presence that’d taken him over at the time, he could compensate, and he had to at least try doing just that, so long as he lived. His quest hence leads him to the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament and the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, where he seeks redemption for his grisly misdeeds during the X-Genome Code crisis.

Reboot Story: With Dr. Maxwell having metamorphosized him into the world’s first successfully bred insect zoanthrope and made a puppet out of him by drafting him to serve in the Sicyonian Society’s beast hunts, Xion—the creature formerly known as Johan Rosenberg—has found himself alienated from the world he once knew and hence without any sanctuary to return to following the crimes he’d committed on behalf of those who controlled him. He has therefore joined forces with his fellow former Sicyonian pawns Shenlong and Reiji to reestablish the ZLF with the renegade scientist Busuzima and his fellow fugitives Nikolai, Ethwasa, and Gláucia. The Front’s first order of business: Hijack the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ underground laboratory that they made Maxwell spill the beans about before they helped him meet his maker. Then, with the lab’s resources, the ZLF plans to create the ultimate zoanthrope army with which they can conquer the world and establish the Kingdom as its personal hub of power and zoanthropekind as Earth’s ruling species. On the surface, Xion agrees to this plan, for if nothing else, at least it’d be a way for him to make it up to zoanthropes the world over for the numerous murders he’d committed on behalf of the radical human supremacy faction that’d made him into one of them, only to turn him against them immediately afterwards. Secretly, however, Xion can’t help but hear a nagging sensation echoing inside his brain as he lends his support to the Front’s mission of zoanthrope supremacy—a notion that, at its most basic level, tells him that what he’s doing alongside his fellow ZLF operatives is no better than what he did as a servitor of the Sicyonian Society. Granted, Maxwell had brainwashed him to serve the Society’s agenda, but now here he is with a clear mind—his own mind—and yet, what he is about to help the Front accomplish is no different from what he did on behalf of the Society, albeit against his fellow humans…or, rather, his former fellow humans. For the time being, Xion can only sigh in frustration at the decision that lays before him: Should he stay true to his word and help his newfound family—and, as far as he’s concerned, his only family—establish their reign over a world that already fears and loathes their kind, or should he fight to preserve the world to which he once belonged, albeit if doing so means supporting zoanthropekind’s genetically inferior “oppressors”?

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Long.

Gláucia Duarte
Home Country: Brazil
Age: 24
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: After having served the Zoanthrope Liberation Front until its collapse, former ecoterrorist turned “zoanthropes’ rights activist” Gláucia Duarte found herself in the one place where, ironically enough, the ZLF had first rescued her: jail. The difference this second time, however, was that the security to her cell was far stronger than it had been before—all the better to keep her in place, of course, although not solely to make up for when she’d escaped the first time a while back. Rather, her jailers had accounted for the enhanced physical strength and speed and the natural weaponry of the beast form that the ZLF had bestowed her with upon her joining their ranks. Ironically enough, her time in the slammer made her come to despise her beast form for the trouble it’d gotten her into and wish with each day she spent within the walls of her new home that she could earn back her humanity one way or another. Sadly, doing so wasn’t exactly destined to be in the form of serving her sentence and working her way back into society, as two of her old comrades from the Front, Nikolai Medved and Ethwasa Masondo, had brought it upon themselves to break her out of jail and recruit her back into their fold. Their objective, simply put, was to revive the Front underneath the banner that it always should have carried and not serve as the cover-up that it had been for some zealous scientist who was working for an allegedly dead multinational corporation with aspirations of world domination. At first, she showed resistance, knowing deep inside her gut that it wasn’t what she ultimately wanted. Then again, after reviewing the past that she had made for herself, first with Gaia’s Battalion and eventually the original ZLF, she capitulated to her despair and agreed to aide Ethwasa and Nikolai in their quest. Next thing she knew, she was helping them track down the headquarters of the Sicyonian Society, and it was upon learning about them hunting zoanthropes and either abducting or killing them for whatever strand of the X-Genome Code they carried that she found her inner activist awakened and her desire to punish the Society and their “Lodge Keeper,” Tylon scientist Dr. Grant Maxwell, for their crimes against zoanthropekind. Eventually, the trio managed to get their claws on Maxwell, reunite with former ZLF leader Shenlong along the way, and extract from Maxwell some rather helpful information on yet another project that Tylon was apparently responsible for: the Kingdom of Zoanthropes, which they’d built around a laboratory within which they were conducting yet another round of zoanthropy-related experiments. The next thing Gláucia knew, Shenlong had brought it upon himself to end Maxwell’s miserable life and take charge of the newly reformed ZLF’s latest mission: infiltrating the KoZ, taking over its hidden lab, and with its resources establish the ultimate zoanthrope army so that the Front may better take over the world.

As the Front’s operation officially gets underway, however, Gláucia finds herself conflicted. On one hand, the very thought of being a part of a successful operation that would change the world had always struck her fancy ever since she’d first become a member of her mother’s environmental protection agency, the Global Initiative for Wildlife Protection, only to inadvertently ruin its otherwise noble name by helping to form Gaia’s Battalion with her fellow radical GIWP members. Not only that, but she can’t deny how much she appreciates the camaraderie she has with Ethwasa and Nikolai, what with their vision of what the ZLF should be, nor can she resist her desire to have the last laugh against a global population whose members refuse to let go of their narcissism long enough to acknowledge the rest of Mother Earth’s creatures and consider their wellbeing on a far more regular basis than they do. In contrast, her ties to an organization that the worldwide public has outright branded a terrorist cabal remind her all too much of Gaia’s Battalion and the trouble she’d both caused and ended up in on account of her joining it, which directly conflict with her desire to once more fit in with the very society she’d come to spurn. That, and while her beast form had its perks, she still could easily live without its drawbacks in a big way. Oh, well…from what she understands, at least this “Kingdom of Zoanthropes” is supposedly going to host a fighting tournament of sorts to celebrate its recognition by the United Nations, and if it was bound to be even half as legitimate as it sounded it would be, what with the winner of the whole thing earning a major cash prize, then maybe it was worth looking into to see if she could enter the thing and win that money. Maybe then she would be able to make up her mind about where she is in her life and what she wanted to make of it from the present forward.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Bakuryu.

Lanhua Xu
Home Country: China
Age: 16
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 officially disclosed.

Reboot Story: Like many zoanthropes her age, Lanhua discovered her inner beast around the time she hit puberty and learned in private how to master her extraordinary gift with the help of her father, who trained her in the art of baihequan as a means of teaching her how to maintain control over her mind and body so that she could better refrain from beastorizing at ill-suited moments. Even so, all her training wasn’t enough to keep her from succumbing to the strain of the X-Genome Code she ended up possessing, which manifested itself one day when she escaped the wrath of a posse of beast hunters whom she’d come across while on her way home from school. Though she arrived safely, she nonetheless fell sick soon afterwards and had to lie down for quite a while before she could recover her full strength. Even Long Shin, a drifting Xing Yi Quan practitioner who’d come to train alongside and live with her and her father for a spell, could do little to help her directly, hence his own personal mission to discover for himself the truth about the Code as a whole and find a cure for its debilitating side effects. Luckily for her, then, Long managed to return from his quest with a small booklet of information from the headquarters of the Sicyonian Society prior to its eventual destruction that went into great detail about the Code, its side effects, and what little of a cure there existed for it at the moment. It may not have been a direct solution to Lanhua’s condition, but it was still more than enough to educate Lanhua, her father, and Long about the XGC in general, and with its guidance on top of a little rest and relaxation, Lanhua’s healing process went smoothly, and she’d managed to fully recover the strength she’d lost when her complications ceased to take her body over.

Now as healthy as she ever was, Lanhua has continued her training in baihequan with Long as her mentor and under his guidance has learned some fundamentals to kung fu that have helped her improve as a combatant. Naturally, then, when her “sifu”/“big brother” receives an invitation to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ inaugural Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, she cannot resist wanting to join Long in participating. Indeed, such a grand event would prove to be the ultimate test for the skills she’s garnered since recovering from her XGC complications so many months ago. Long can’t help but have his suspicions regarding the whole affair, however, particularly in concern to how the brain trust of such a newly formed nation as the KoZ was able to find the address to his current residence when he himself had never had a permanent home since leaving his family residence to work for the Tylon Corporation so many years ago. Regardless, he cannot bring himself to ignore or deny his “sister’s” desire to test her abilities against her fellow zoanthropes and thus allows her to accompany him on his journey, hoping for the best for them both as they decide to enter the tournament together to determine how they both have grown as both practitioners in their respective fighting styles and masters of their respective beast forms.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Uriko.

Captain Hayagriva (a.k.a. Kidlat Matapang)
Home Country: Kingdom of Zoanthropes (via the Philippines)
Age: 35
Fighting Style: Filipino Martial Arts (Suntukan, Sikaran, and Dumog)
Beast Form: Horse

Original Backstory: None. Captain Hayagriva is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR PF/E.

Reboot Story: Once a stalwart zoanthrope mercenary whose unit lost in battle to a rival zoanthrope battalion whose members were under the control of the Tylon Corporation, Captain Kidlat Matapang soon found the power-mad global enterprise taking him and those of his regimen who’d survived the encounter hostage to their South American compound. From there, the resident scientists, upon orders from their HQ overseers, brainwashed them all to serve the conglomerate as shock troops and mobilized them against Tylon’s most dangerous corporate rivals in many a successful sting operation until the demolition of their South American facility occurred. Immediately once the bombing took place, Kidlat was able to overcome his brainwashing and join several of his fellow mercenaries—including the commanding officer of his unit, General Hru-Amen Mansour—in their escape from the ruined laboratory alongside several Tylon personnel and other test subjects. He considered himself quite thankful for his escape, too, and only thanked his lucky stars even more when he and his fellow escapees eventually received rescue aide from the mysterious Qílín, who graciously brought them to the deserted island that they would later shape over the next several years into their new refuge. The task may not have been an easy one to complete, what with the limited resources with which Qílín and his hirelings were able to provide them and the tensions that remained between the various refugees, even as they tried to set their differences aside. All the same, the promise of building a new future for themselves and leaving their tumultuous collective past behind them had proven to be motivation enough for them to have pulled themselves together over the six to seven years that had transpired since their escape from the wreckage that once housed them all for so long, no matter in what capacity. That said, then, the Kingdom of Zoanthropes had become a reality in the end, and though the infant nation still had a long way to go to fully develop and live up to its promise as a haven for zoanthropekind, the fact that it was starting to become just that was enough to put hope in Kidlat’s heart. So much faith did he have in his new home country at the time, too, that he proudly became an officer in the KoZ’s royal army and took on his new codename of Hayagriva after the horse-headed avatar of Vishnu the Preserver whom followers of Hinduism have also worshipped over the years as a god of knowledge and wisdom.

Fast forward to the present, and word has reached Captain Hayagriva’s ears of the rumors concerning a band of terrorists calling themselves the Zoanthrope Liberation Front planning on hijacking the secret laboratory around which he and his fellow refugees had founded the Kingdom. Though he’s not directly familiar with the Front himself, he has nevertheless learned enough about its history and cause to understand the alarm that the public has in its revival and the accomplishment of its ultimate mission and has thus brought these rumors to the attention of General Sobek. Much to his frustration, however, his superior officer has little concern, if any, of any potential takeover based on what one of the lab’s operators—a Dr. Howard P. Jermyn, so he’s told—has informed the general of the scientists’ latest project: the development of the ultimate zoanthrope army. Apparently, as Dr. Jermyn has informed Sobek, the scientists’ medical research has come to a standstill, and they’ve agreed to apply what they’ve discovered about the X-Genome Code towards the development of a new serum that will allow those currently serving in the Kingdom’s military to be stronger, faster, keener of their surroundings, and more physically and mentally resilient than they already are. They’ve also begun the production of a new synthetic variety of soldier that possesses these very qualities that would make them excellent buffer troops against the ZLF’s reported potential takeover as well as mercenaries for the KoZ to rent out to its fellow UN member states during times of need, thus earning the Kingdom itself further prestige amongst its allies. Hayagriva therefore has nothing to worry about, Sobek assures him, and owes it to himself to focus on maintaining the KoZ’s security for the sake of the participants, officials, and spectators of the upcoming UZFT. Ah, but Hayagriva refuses to buy into such a story or the overall nonchalance with which his general has relayed it to him. Another could call it paranoia on top of childish fancy all he or she wants to, but he’s known the general long enough, brainwashed and free-thinking, to know better than believe that he would buy into the same words that he was allowing to pour out of his mouth regarding the Kingdom’s security. That, and his own desire to see the Kingdom and the dream upon which he and his fellow refugees had built it thrive and prosper won’t allow him to buy into the notion of letting anyone or anything slip through the cracks and desecrate the one thing that represents his species’ hope for the future for not only their own sake, but the sake of the entire world for generations to come. He’d be damned, then, to see all his and his fellow settlers’ hard work go to waste for the sake of some self-righteous hatemongers as the ZLF have been said to be, and with or without General Sobek’s support, he will find the weak link in the nation’s security and drive out anyone who dares to defile what he and his fellow survivors had bled, sweated, and cried for to establish.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Shina.

Stun (a.k.a. Steven Goldberg)
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Professional Wrestling
Beast Form: Beetle (originally just “Insect”)

Original Backstory: Stun awakens to the sound of voices, confused by his surroundings and with his memories a complete blur. As he takes note of where he is, he realizes that the voices are recognizing him waking up and reporting that they’ve successfully restored his lost cell tissue, though they doubt that any of his memories have been saved, as seventy percent of his cells—including his brain cells—had already taken damage prior to his capture. His current body is stable, however, unlike his previous one. This includes some tissues from within his brain that they collectively call “the black box” and had failed to remove for the purpose of eliminating Stun’s memory recall. The closer Stun listens to the voices, the more he realizes that they belong to a pair of scientists who plan to mass produce zoanthropes and that he will be one of the specimens they’ll be using for data collection, which makes him laugh despite his current predicament.

Reboot Story: This is another backstory that will remain the same, save for a few minor tweaks. In a nutshell, Stun’s resurrection involves the Zoanthrope Liberation Front reforming almost immediately following the defeat of the Sicyonian Society. Before they go about destroying the Tylon-funded beast hunter society’s lodge in one final celebratory blow against them, however, Busuzima takes the time to use the lodge’s lab’s equipment to speed up the processes that had been responsible for decomposing Stun’s body. His doing so reduces Stun’s freshly exhausted corpse to an inanimate pool of cellular tissue that’s not too dissimilar to what Ryuzo Kato, the original Bakuryu, had melted down into at the end of BR 1, which Busuzima then pours into a sterilized flask that he and the rest of the newly reformed ZLF eventually bring with them to the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. The Front then commands the KoZ’s scientists to restore the cellular ooze to its original form, and luckily, they’re able to reproduce Stun’s body with little to no issue, which—unlike the physical form he’d had when he was alive—is completely stable. His brain, on the other hand, is a much different matter, for while the scientists were able to reproduce his basic mental faculties well enough, they had trouble reproducing his hippocampus, and as such, his memories have been reduced to almost nothing. As per the orders of the Front, the scientists removed his memories entirely so that Stun’s brain could be a blank slate, thus making it easier for them to program the clones they plan to make from him into the kind of shock troops that the ZLF wants for its zoanthrope army. Thankfully, one of the Kingdom’s scientists has safely saved what little has remained of Stun’s memories onto a flash drive that he can easily insert into any computer, which he can then hook up to Stun’s cranium and use to transfer his memories back into his brain, should he ever get the chance to do just that. Sadly, considering just how fearful the KoZ’s scientists have become of turning on their overseers and setting things right again, it will take quite a bit to persuade them to do the humane thing and fully restore his yet-warped mentality.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Jenny.

Dr. Nezumi Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 41
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: Several years ago, pharmacist Dr. Nezumi Nonomura operated a small pharmacy as part of the shop that he and his wife Mitsuko had managed together and earned quite a reputation for himself across Japan for his homespun medicine made primarily of native herbs and other natural ingredients. So successful was he, in fact, that his efforts caught the attention of the multinational Tylon Corporation, who offered him a position within its Pharmaceutical Research Division that came complete with benefits, a salary that was ten times greater than what he was presently earning for himself, and the assurance of his time-honored remedies being able to reach a worldwide consumer base as opposed to the same localized group of customers to whom he’d been selling them. True as it was that Nezumi was already earning a solid enough income for himself and Mitsuko, the promise of more money with which to help take care of their daughter sounded promising enough, hence leading to him ultimately taking the job. As such, Mitsuko was left to tend to the family shop by herself, and though it took her only as much a while to get used to her husband’s absence as it did for him to adjust to his new job with Tylon, they both managed…until, of course, the day came when Nezumi learned of the conglomerate’s true motives: the application of his and his fellow scientists’ research in the creation of a zoanthrope army with which they could take over the world. Granted, the idea sounded more like the plot of a science fiction film at first, but when one of his associates let slip some information about a “Project X” that he refused to divulge any further details about, Nezumi took leave from his research for a moment and ended up coming across a project in which a small handful of his fellow scientists were transforming young children directly into animals. Alarmed by the sight of something so bizarre and cruel, Nezumi immediately tried to escape the premises and report his findings to someone who would listen. Unfortunately, Tylon security was swift to intercept him and turn him over to the Project X team, who subjected him to some tests as well and discovered that he had a dormant Lycaonian gland. Next thing he knew, his former colleagues activated his L-gland, subsequently transformed him into a rat zoanthrope, and ran him through a few performance tests. Before they could brainwash him to become one of the conglomerate’s zoanthrope soldiers, however, the facility fell under attack from unknown saboteurs and began to collapse. Thankfully, Nezumi was able to escape with several other Tylon scientists and test subjects, but he had never come across any of the children upon whom the Project X team had been transforming into that new breed of zoanthrope. Hopefully, someone had been able to lead them to safety elsewhere in the world and away from Tylon’s clutches, as he himself could only begin to fathom the grief that he and Mitsuko would endure, had they lost Uriko only for her capturers to experiment on her in a similar manner and left to die beneath several tons of rubble of the very ruined lab where she would have been held prisoner.

Fast forward to the arrival of his and his party’s rescuers and their relocation to what would eventually become the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. The colony’s financial founder Qílín had elected him to be its head scientist, given his success with medicine and his keen habit of keeping thorough notes of every lab experiment with which he was remotely familiar. Under his guidance, the lab’s operators dedicated themselves to unravelling the X-Genome Code and understanding its affects upon its hosts by examining many a refugee’s body and mind not only during its most neutral state, but also during and shortly after the subject in question had endured the activation of his or her strand of the XGC. By equipping “Coded” subjects with special sensors laced within their clothing to measure their heartrate, breathing, brain activity, and so forth, the scientists were able to record the symptoms that each patient was suffering from overstimulation of his or her strand of the Code and just how severe those symptoms were. Additionally, from the data they received, they were able to find one way or another by which most of their patients could “tame” the Code within themselves and better avoid suffering the debilitating side effects from the overstimulation of their specific strands. In some cases, the subject in question could easily overcome his or her XGC overstimulation with simple rest and recuperation. In others, the researchers would have to venture into the wilderness of their island refuge to scrounge up various native herbs with which to formulate special tablets that their patients would have to ingest to make their side effects subside, either as a single dose or in multiple doses over a given length of time. Oftentimes, they would alter their recipe for these tablets to include smaller or larger measurements for each of the herbs they used to account for specific ailments that the intended recipient suffered and even rely on synthetic chemicals whenever necessary to address the direr effects of the Code upon the recipient’s mind and body. As for the most severe cases, the scientists would resort to neurosurgery and directly “fix” the subject’s Lycaonian gland so that it would produce less Factor B when stimulated and thus make the patient less likely to have his or her XGC strand activated when he or she beastorized. Very few have been the cases thus far that have failed to respond to any of these treatments, though Nezumi has managed to document them alongside the more successful ones as a means of helping his team crack down further on XGC overstimulation and otherwise comprehend the nature of the X-Genome Code. On a similar note, he’d also hoped to gather as much information from these studies as he could about the Code and its carriers’ genealogy so that he could determine its source of origin in the hope of more thoroughly ascertaining how it operates, which would in turn further expand the global public’s knowledge not only about the Code specifically, but also about biological zoanthropy in general. Granted, it would have been a while yet, even at that time, for him to report his findings in full, but he nevertheless had every intention of educating the masses about his and his colleagues’ discoveries so that mundane humans could better understand their more genetically enhanced brethren and realize precisely what it is that separates zoanthropes from them.

Unfortunately, such progress has recently come to an abrupt halt, what with the Zoanthrope Liberation Front having located and hijacked the Kingdom’s secret laboratory. How it was able to do so remains a mystery among most of the research team, who have sworn that Qílín had promised that its location would have remained a secret to the outside world under the circumstances he himself had established. More pressing still, however, is the question of how the team will fare on account of its abandonment of its medical research as per the ZLF’s command in exchange for the creation of the ultimate zoanthrope army with which the Front can conquer the world. Nezumi, for instance, considering his dedication in leading the team in its efforts to crack the X-Genome Code, had refused to bow down to the Front’s demands for a research shift, deciding instead to stand up to his fellow scientists’ captors and insisting that they stay the course they’d followed for the past several years. Alas, few were the colleagues who had the courage to stand by him, thus leading to the ZLF forcing the team to subject its hapless former leader and anyone with his mindset to a brainwashing and, if necessary, a very decisive human-to-zoanthrope operation. Now Nezumi has been reduced to a vicious spy and assassin for the ZLF, slinking around every corner of the Kingdom to gather intelligence on those who dare infiltrate the lab he once presided over and, if necessary, rub them out before they can interfere in the Front’s dream of global domination.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Mitsuko.

Reiji Takigawa
Home Country: Japan
Age: 18
Fighting Style: Kyokushin Karate (otherwise listed as Ninjitsu)
Beast Form: Crow

Original Backstory: As I’d mentioned in my last article in this series, Reiji didn’t debut canonically until Bloody Roar 4. To summarize for convenience’s sake what I’d already said about him at the time, however, I’ll just say that the unearthing of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts at the beginning of BR 3 had awakened the XGC inside him and fueled his destructive tendencies to the point where he ended up killing his father prior to his coming-of-age ceremony as per the custom of his clan, the Yatagarasu. He has since fled the Yatagarasu’s temple and, while on the run from his former clan, is now looking for strong opponents against whom to test his martial might.

Reboot Story: Having fled his former clan the Yatagarasu in pursuit of testing his own martial supremacy over his fellow zoanthropes, Reiji happened to rush right into a plot that allowed him to do just that and prove his superiority over many a powerful foe. Much to his dismay, though, Dr. Grant Maxwell, his employer at the time, was quick in turning the tables on him and making him a target for his fellow beast hunters simply because he happened to be a zoanthrope himself—a dangerous one at that, too, considering his performance on the battlefield. Well, guess what: Maxwell paid the price in the end, what with how his beloved “Sicyonian Society” had fallen all around him and how his precious corpse was now at the disposal of Reiji’s newfound acquaintances, the newly reborn Zoanthrope Liberation Front, for them to do whatever it was they want with it. Now he and his new comrades are on their way to infiltrate some secret lab that lay beneath some zoanthrope colony off the coast of Greece that Reiji has only just now heard about and take said lab over so that they can use it to create their own zoanthrope army with which they can take the world over from those puny, pathetic humans. Apparently, this “Kingdom of Zoanthropes,” as Maxwell called it, is also going to host some fighting tournament that promised a handsome cash prize to the zoanthrope who proved himself or herself to be the best combatant. The news certainly tickles Reiji’s fancy, as it sounds like the perfect opportunity for him to showcase his own prowess and once again sink his talons into the flesh of the feeble and weed them from the earth’s zoanthrope population. Sure, that cash prize sounds like a nice little cherry atop the sundae, so to speak, but to Reiji, the real treat is that the tournament promises to satisfy—even if only for a little bit—his appetite for destruction.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Hans.

Dr. Hajime Busuzima
Home Country: Japan
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Zuì Quán, a.k.a. Drunken Boxing (“Deception”)
Beast Form: Chameleon

Original Backstory: Busuzima’s “Ultimate Life Object” project has come to an abrupt halt on account of his discovery of a counterreaction that shortens the subject’s life rather than prolongs it. He thinks back to his ex-friend Dr. Steven Goldberg, who was an expert in this specific area of biology prior to him transforming the man into the world’s first insect zoanthrope, which in turn led to Stun pursuing him during the X-Genome Code crisis and dying before he could finally get revenge against Busuzima for what he’d done to him. Cursing Steven for foolishly wasting his talent as a scientific researcher and not utilizing it toward the transformation of humanity into something greater than what they already were, Busuzima suddenly receives a visit from Jenny, who arrives at and enters his lab unannounced—for which he scolds her and threatens to turn her into his latest experiment—and apologizes for setting Stun on him during the XGC panic. She then informs him that his former colleague has come back to life within the Kingdom of Zoanthropes and shall be participating in the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament. This bit of information is music to Busuzima’s ears, and he at once sets off for the Kingdom to cross paths with Stun once more and show him up.

Reboot Story: I can certainly see where Hudson was going with this original hook for Busuzima, frustrated as he is with his inability to discover immortality on his own, yet managing to stare at the very personification of it—the very “Ultimate Life Object” he’s been trying to recreate himself—square in the face as she barges into his laboratory to tell him about Stun’s rebirth within the Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ hidden facility. The threat he makes towards her, too, about experimenting on her body only to have her deflect his intentions towards his newly revived ex-friend only adds further delicious irony to his whole situation. Unfortunately, this storyline also happens to illustrate a pattern that Busuzima had fallen into in the original BR canon from BR 3 onward: He starts off trying to figure out the secret element that would make his ULO project work, only to get sidetracked—usually by some wild-hair idea of what that missing element might be—and venture out in an attempt to fulfill his destiny only to return to square one in the end and repeat his cycle of failure all over again in the next installment. The intentionally comical nature by which he suffers his comeuppance time and again likewise only furthers his ne’er-do-well reputation as one of the franchise’s few true villains and does nothing of merit to solidify him as a force with which the heroes must reckon. Thankfully, at the risk of sounding like a braggart, I’ve been able to conduct this proposed reboot of mine in such a way that will help Busuzima avoid falling into this nasty loophole of character assassination and give BR fans more of a reason to take him seriously as a threat to the coexistence between zoanthropes and regular humanity with this specific hook of his being no exception to the rule.

Shortly after escaping prison some odd months ago, Busuzima met up with an old colleague of his from the Tylon Corporation, Dr. Grant Maxwell, who’d promised him the opportunity to carry on with his “Ultimate Life Object” project within the Sicyonian Society’s “lodge” laboratory while he himself collected samples of the X-Genome Code from the Sicyonians’ victims to create the latest version of Project Uranus. Little did Busuzima know, however, that his old “friend” was merely setting him up to take the fall for the Society’s activities while he made a quick getaway with the findings of his own research to satisfy Tylon’s needs. Luckily for him, Maxwell suffered a much-deserved twist of fate when three of his “hirelings” found out the truth about his whole operation and turned on him, seeking revenge for his abuse of their abilities to support his cause. Three of Busuzima’s old acquaintances from the Front—Nikolai Medved, Ethwasa Masondo, and Gláucia Duarte—likewise showed up, confronted the backstabbing Tylon researcher, and helped Busuzima and the others extract from him some rather promising information that they could use to revive the ZLF’s name and mission and make a mark in the Front’s name once again upon the world, albeit in their own image rather than Tylon’s. The notion of taking over a secret lab within an infant nation such as the Kingdom of Zoanthropes certainly sounds promising to Busuzima, to say the very least, especially if the lab happens to have the equipment and testing materials that he needs to finally discover the secret of immortality. However, one of Maxwell’s three ex-puppets—one who interestingly shares the same likeness and namesake of someone whom he created to be the puppet leader of his ZLF—insists on keeping a close eye on him to make sure he doesn’t try anything that would compromise the nature of their upcoming operation. Seething with resentment, Busuzima agrees to Shenlong’s warning, only to silently promise himself to usurp control from his “master’s” paws the first chance he gets and fulfill his dream at any cost.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Greg.

Nikolai Medved
Home Country: Russia
Age: 37
Fighting Style: Combat Samozashchita Bez Oruzhiya (“Russian Judo”)
Beast Form: Bear

Original Backstory: None. Nikolai is an entirely originally character I personally created for my reboot of BR 1 whose story I’m continuing in my reboot of BR 2.

Reboot Backstory: Nikolai’s fury at the Tylon Corporation for taking advantage of his fellow zoanthropes and at humanity at large for the deaths of his wife and children and the ruination of his family farm had spurred him on to join the Zoanthrope Liberation Front over a year ago, hoping that supporting its efforts to elevate zoanthrope citizenship worldwide would give him the solace he needed to more forward from so grave a personal tragedy. Even if his allegiance to the ZLF meant resorting to violence against zoanthropekind’s oppressors such as the ESC-supported beast hunters who’d killed his family and would have slain him as well, at least his doing so would show the global public that he wasn’t going to simply lie down and die in the face of those who would’ve rather seen him and his kind extinct. After all, though even he could admit that ignorance of his former employers’ ambitions was a poor excuse at best on his part, it still wasn’t his fault that his former employers at Tylon decided one day to mobilize his species against the world’s populace to gain dominion over the planet. Sadly, the ZLF had fallen at the hands of a loosely affiliated band of peace-loving zoanthropes, and for a full year, Nikolai had paid the price for affiliating himself with the organization by spending it behind bars like a caged zoo animal. That was, of course, until a riot at the prison to which the authorities had assigned him broke out and allowed him to escape and, soon afterwards, cross paths once again with his former ZLF comrades Ethwasa and Gláucia. Once the three of them had reunited, they agreed to reform the ZLF and, as their first order of business, track down and storm the headquarters of the Sicyonian Society, a coalition of beast hunters who’d gained notoriety in the past several months for tracking down and either abducting or executing zoanthropes who were carriers of the X-Genome Code. One thing led to another soon after that, what with the trio coming across the Society’s “lodge,” intercepting its chief monitor Dr. Grant Maxwell in mid-escape from his own stronghold, and having a chance reunion with Shenlong and Busuzima as they and two of Shenlong’s fellow former Sicyonian draftees joined them to interrogate the Tylon scientist of whatever other plans his employers had up their sleeves to exploit zoanthropekind. Next thing they all knew, the Zoanthrope Liberation Front was reborn under its own banner and a new primary objective to celebrate its reformation and reclaim the grip it had once had on mundane humanity.

However, even as Nikolai carries on his pledge to the newly reestablished ZLF, he still can’t help but feel a bit unnerved at the very notion of Shenlong’s desire to lead the team’s current mission. After all, he, Ethwasa, and Gláucia had already agreed between the three of them to revive the Front before that arrogant loudmouth had even stepped back into the picture to take control of their ambition. Besides, didn’t the Front fall in the first place under his leadership? Why would he thus want to command the coalition again? Out of sheer ego? Why not let someone with a stronger drive and broader intentions take charge of the operation? Also, what about those other two zoanthropes whom Shenlong had brought into the fold? How could Nikolai trust them to serve the ZLF’s goal and not Shenlong’s specifically? The same goes for Busuzima, as far as Nikolai was concerned—especially considering the rumor he’d heard about Busuzima having created the Front initially as a veil for his personal experiments and not to support zoanthropekind’s struggle against its genetically inferior subjugators. Such are rumors that Nikolai doesn’t want to believe even now, for he knows deep down in his soul what the ZLF always should have been, and if he had his way, it will stand for just that once he and the others take control of the Kingdom’s secret laboratory and bring humanity under the Front’s thumb where it belongs. The next move Shenlong makes, therefore, had better stay true to what he says he believes, according to Nikolai. Otherwise, it could very well be his last.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Wanahton.

Latigazo (a.k.a. Ignacio “Íñigo” Guerrero)
Home Country: Mexico
Age: 20
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: As a naturally born zoanthrope who hails from a long lineage of proud, accomplished luchadores, Ignacio Guerrero had always been athletically gifted and looked forward to the day when he could put his talents to the test inside the squared circle as the latest Guerrero to carry on the family trade. His father Eugenio, however, insisted that he focus on his academics first and earn his way out of high school at the very least before even thinking about registering at the family’s wrestling academy. Besides, the X-Genome Code panic had been afoot long enough for Eugenio to become aware of its existence and how it affected those who carried it, and though he had yet to have Íñigo tested at the time to find out if he was “Coded” or not, he still feared whether his youngest son would end up triggering his strand of the Code, should he have indeed had one, while in the ring. At first, Íñigo accepted his father’s wishes with a reluctant sigh and kept his nose to the grindstone when it came to his schoolwork. When the night came, though, for his older brother Óscar to make his in-ring debut for the largest lucha libre promotion in all of Mexico, he was quick to learn just why his dad was as concerned as he was for his wellbeing. Such was the evening, after all, of the promotion’s biggest event of the year, and it was in the second match on the card in which Óscar, as his in-ring persona Latigazo (“Whiplash”), made his in-ring debut for the company. Íñigo made sure to tune in that night, too, and root his brother on as he took on another up-and-comer, Trueno Rodante (“Rollling Thunder”). The match had been going on fine, too, despite Óscar getting a little carried away with his rudo (heel or “bad guy”) schtick by getting some admittedly stiff—borderline injurious, in fact—shots in against his opponent. Then came Rodante’s retaliation, which came as quite a shock to Íñigo in that with his very eyes, he saw his brother’s opponent beastorize into an anthropomorphic armadillo, leather body armor and all, with an eerie, flickering yellow light illuminating his otherwise brown hide. Óscar appeared to be terrified himself upon witnessing Rodante’s transformation, but before he could snap out of his awe-stricken terror, Rodante proceeded to thrash him wildly with his claws, covering him with many a crimson laceration before launching him high into the air with an uppercut from his mighty right forepaw. He then leapt up after Óscar, caught him in midair, somersaulted several times over on the way down while holding on tightly to Óscar’s unconscious body, and crashed him down hard onto the canvas with a vicious sit-out powerbomb that looked as though he’d slammed Óscar down hard upon his lower neck and shoulders, effectively snapping his neck and quite possibly killing him. Stunned by what he’d just seen, Íñigo could do nothing but sit there on the family couch with a slackened jaw and horror-widened eyes until his father gently clasped his shoulder blade and led him away from the television and the tragedy he and his parents had just witnessed.

Íñigo has since tried to focus on his college studies, but the vision of his brother’s manslaughter has proven to be too severe for him to think about anything but avenging Óscar. On that note, then, and admittedly against his better judgment, Eugenio has agreed to teach his son everything he can about lucha libre in the hope of at least giving him something else with which to occupy himself. Íñigo proves to be a quick study, too, learning everything his father teaches him in little to no time at all and meanwhile finding out about an upcoming combat competition called the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, which the newly founded Kingdom of Zoanthropes plans on hosting within a matter of months. He informs his father about it, but Eugenio has his suspicions about his son’s interest in such an event. On one hand is the idea that Íñigo wants to participate in it in hopes of crossing paths with and defeating Trueno Rodante—a dangerous mentality, for one thing, since he doesn’t want his son to see any merit in revenge or, for that matter, find out the hard way that vengeance ultimately offers nothing to those who seek and achieve it. Besides, Eugenio highly doubts that Rodante would dare show his face in public, period, much less at so highly publicized an affair as the UZFT, after what he’d done to Óscar that baleful night. In addition is the notion that a good number of those attending the competition might scoff at the idea of a “sports entertainer” daring to step toe to toe against any trained practitioner of a full-fledged fighting art, much less defeating said practitioner fair and square in personal combat. Then again, the idea of Íñigo doing just that could surely bring some prestige to the family academy, and that cash prize would undoubtedly come in handy to further fund the school…or, better yet, Íñigo’s college education. Plus, if Eugenio’s son had his heart in the right place, his participation in the UZFT could make for a fitting tribute to Óscar in a way. All things considered, then, father continues to train son in the way of the luchador with the goal of young Íñigo honoring his late older brother and keeping the otherwise short-lived legend of the masked mauler named Latigazo alive for all to know for generations to come.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Trueno Rodante.

Proteus (a.k.a. Proteus Alpha/Ryuzo Kato)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 71
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: Amoeba

Original Backstory: Not much of one. Fundamentally, 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 headquarters 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 lost the battle against the infiltrators of the Sicyonian Society’s “lodge,” Proteus now finds itself at the mercy of its master’s murderers, the newly reformed Zoanthrope Liberation Front, who have brought it with them to the secret laboratory of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes. Upon the orders of the ZLF, the KoZ’s scientists have wiped out whatever remained of Proteus’s memory while leaving its skill set intact, cloned the remaining product, and programmed each clone with a specific personality to present unto its—or, rather, the Front’s—intended targets. The end result: an entire brigade of zoanthrope infiltrators, each trained in the art of sabotage, assassination, and verbal duplicity meant to test the skills of each of the ZLF’s intended “invitees,” lure each victim to the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament so that the Front can analyze and record his or her combat data from the secrecy of the Kingdom’s secret lab, and—if necessary—take out weak and/or suspecting targets before they can interfere in the Front’s plans.

Alternately, 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-ZLF characters’ 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. When not mimicking any specific member of the active roster, it fights using Ryzuo Kato’s battle data, as I’ve already indicated above, and would appear as any of the UZFT representatives whose forms it took on when delivering invitations to such characters (e.g., Yugo, Hans, and Trueno Rodante).

How to Unlock: Win 10,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

General Sobek (a.k.a. Hru-Amen Mansour)
Home Country: Kingdom of Zoanthropes (via Egypt)
Age: 49
Fighting Style: Egyptian Combat Wrestling (Combination amateur/folk wrestling with close-quarters striking based on ancient pictorial renderings of Egyptian combat sports)
Beast Form: Crocodile

Original Backstory: None. General Sobek is an entirely original character I personally created for my reboot of BR PF/E.

Reboot Story: Shortly after his honorable discharge from the Egyptian Army in which he’d served as an officer for several years, General Hru-Amen Mansour succumbed to an abduction attempt by Tylon agents who brought him to their employer’s headquarters in South America, where the staff of scientists on hand brainwashed him to serve the enterprise as the leader of one of its small battalions of zoanthrope soldiers. He’d managed to serve the corporation well while under its control, too, leading the troops to whom it’d assigned him to victory in many a sting operation against Tylon’s most dangerous corporate rivals. Following the eventual destruction of the conglomerate’s South American facility, however, Mansour soon broke free from its mind control and, though at last of his own mind, found himself without any soldiers to lead into battle, thus leaving him as lost as he could ever imagine. Luckily, his fortune changed for the better as he and the rest of the survivors of the laboratory’s collapse had managed to escape to a remote island off the coast of Greece, thanks to the aid they’d received from the agents of a faceless patron who called himself Qílín. It was under Qílín’s patronage that the refugees were able to establish for themselves a small yet self-sufficient colony that eventually became the foundation of the Kingdom of Zoanthropes—a foundling nation dedicated to giving zoanthropes a space of their own to live and grow while they worked toward establishing peaceful relationships with baseline humanity. It was likewise via election by his fellow refugees that Mansour received the honor of being the general of the Kingdom’s military, most of whom had been former Tylon security officers and, like him, test subjects. He took on the title of “General Sobek” upon accepting this office, naming himself after the ancient Egyptian crocodilian god of war, fertility, and the Nile River in hopes that the very name would grant him the strength and guidance he would need to protect those under his care and lead his army to success in times of conflict as he had time and again before.

Recently, rumors have spread across the planet about the Zoanthrope Liberation Front returning to power and hijacking the Kingdom’s secret laboratory. To quell the paranoid gossip, Sobek has stepped forth as the leader of the nation’s military and assured the public that the Kingdom’s security is as strong as it could ever be—especially with the upcoming Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament in mind—and if the Front has indeed revived and is planning to take over the Kingdom as the rumors have said, its operatives would have one hell of a fight on their hands at the very least. Besides, as Dr. Howard P. Jermyn from the lab has assured him, he and his fellow scientists have come to a standstill in their medical research concerning the X-Genome Code and have decided to apply what they’ve discovered about the XGC towards the creation of a serum that’s designed to make the soldiers who are already on the Kingdom’s payroll develop greater strength, reflexes, sensory perception, and physical and mental hardiness than they already have. A second project the team has been working on concerns a new type of synthetic soldier who already possesses above-normal physical and psychological attributes that would thus help it prove to be a solid hand against the ZLF’s reported potential coup as well as the ideal type of mercenary to rent out to the Kingdom’s future fellow UN member states, thereby earning the nation additional prestige among its allies. Granted, both projects would indeed take time for the researchers to perfect before they were completely ready, and even then, Sobek would have to send someone down to the lab to inspect the researchers’ work. Even so, if he could trust the lot of them over the past six to seven years since Qílín and his crew had rescued them and brought them all to this as-yet evolving colony, then surely, he could trust them for whatever more time before their projects were complete. Besides, as much as he wanted to believe in King Orion’s dream of peace between zoanthropes and baseline humans, Sobek knew all too well deep down in his heart that there will always be distrust in one fashion or another between the two species. It wasn’t just his experience on the battlefield as both a soldier for the Egyptian Army and a glorified war slave for the Tylon Corporation that taught him such a lesson, either. It was life in general from which he’s learned that people will always fight with one another over anything, no matter how petty or immutable. Why else, after all, would such organizations as the ZLF exist in the first place? The Kingdom therefore needs to stay on its toes at all costs as far as security measures are concerned, especially considering how new it is yet and how distrustful the world has proven to be of zoanthropes. Even Qílín himself had warned them all when they first arrived on the island all those years ago that the world wasn’t ready to accept zoanthropekind amongst the global public. Not only that, but the fact that Sobek and all his fellow refugees were able to cooperate with one another for as long as they have couldn’t have possibly been anything other than a fluke—a fortunate coincidence that took place under the direst of circumstances among people whom chance had forced to accept a common condition and work together to mutually survive it. What was the likelihood that the rest of the world would behave in such a fashion?

No…Sobek could not bring himself to interfere in the scientists’ latest round of experiments…not until there was at least more evidence that they were up to the same tricks that they used to perform while under Tylon’s corporate watch. Until then, let them continue their research in hopes that it would give the Kingdom the edge it needed to thwart whatever enemies it would undoubtedly receive following its evolution into a full-fledged world power.

How to Unlock: Win 20,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

Ganesha (a.k.a. Golan Draphan)
Home Country: Kingdom of Zoanthropes (via Scotland, originally ungiven)
Age: 56
Fighting Style: Sumo
Beast Form: Elephant

Original Backstory: Ganesha had won all the local tournaments and had thus qualified for the national competition. He knew, too, that once he’d defeated all the guest contenders, he’d have the right to face off against King Orion’s son, to whom he’d become a bodyguard. He knows that he cannot lose this chance, as visions of the past swirl inside his head and remind him of that day when his village was set ablaze. The burning houses, the people fleeing left and right, the unconscious child growing cold in his arms, the monster standing among the flames…the visions were all too potent yet. He’d expected such senseless havoc from humans, but no…it was that monster that was responsible for this mess. He had to do it for his people. He had to avenge them for what they’d suffered from…Prince Cronos.

Reboot Story: Born the son of a Scottish mercenary and an Israeli war refugee, Golan Draphan lived a youth where travel was the norm, friendships came and went with the wind, and no one place ever became “home” to him. Naturally, then, he found himself all too readily drawn to mercenary life himself during his adulthood, where if there ever was one constant, it was the conflict and chaos he and his compatriots regularly endured. All too often would his squadron have to put down the cruel and selfish actions of one human brigade or another, and with each additional wrong he and his fellow soldiers had to make right via their field work, he felt himself grow more and more disenchanted with humanity and the evil they’d proven to be capable of. True, he’d made many a close friend amongst his squadron and cherished the friendships he’d made with each of his brave comrades, but with every ally of his who’d fallen prey to hostile gunfire or enemy explosive came even further mental detachment from those whom he saw as the force that was responsible for the world’s many ills.

One specific instance that has left him wracked concerned a remote village in France and the small clan of Romani whose members had set up their encampment on its border. It was on that fateful day when his superiors had stationed him and the rest of his brigade near there that out of nowhere, a majestic yet destructive creature of great speed and fiery aura streaked through the village and set it ablaze, initiating a hellish inferno that engulfed many a building and sent people scurrying left and right to avoid the raging flames. Amidst the blaze, Golan had discovered a small child lying unconscious upon the ground and, despite the walls of fire that surrounded them both, she felt cold to the touch. Immediately, then, he scooped her into his arms and handed her off to one of the men from his platoon before blindly rushing in after the pyromaniacal creature in a vain effort to find and punish it for its inhumane crime against these hapless, humble citizens. Alas, he fell short in his pursuit, as the creature had disappeared every bit as suddenly as it had appeared, and all Golan was left with for his troubles was a pair of aching lungs from his mad charge through the fire that was now behind him and the village that it continued to devour.

Years later, Golan and his platoonmates found themselves skirmishing against the Tylon Corporation’s zoanthrope army and losing to them with Tylon taking in the survivors, him included, and brainwashing them all to serve the conglomerate as additional troops within its military. Eventually, however, he had managed to overcome the effects of his conversion and escape with several other Tylon test subjects to seek refuge within Qílín’s zoanthrope colony. Having served as one of the future Kingdom of Zoanthropes’ security officers, he quickly learned to appreciate the notion of zoanthropes working together to establish a better collective life for each other, even if he did initially mistrust the group’s scientists for their original role in pursuing Tylon’s quest to conquer the world. Still, he and the rest of the colony cooperated with one another to establish their new homeland, and it wasn’t long at all before Timbo Orma—upon becoming King Orion, the Kingdom’s first monarch—handpicked Golan specifically to serve as the chief security officer for him and his son Django. Golan naturally took the honor seriously as well as the codename His Majesty had bestowed upon him: Ganesha, the very name of the Hindu pantheon’s elephant-headed Remover of Obstacles and god of wisdom, success, and new beginnings. Ganesha also quickly became accustomed to the royal family, who treated him with kindness for his protection. However, the longer he spent serving Orion and his son, the longer he became aware of Django’s—or, rather, Prince Cronos’s—perturbed mental state. One minute, the young prince would be his usual smiling, polite, happy-go-lucky self only to become sullenly quiet the next. Naturally, then, Ganesha allowed his curiosity in the prince’s depression and concern for his wellbeing to get the better of him one day when he chanced to come upon the Kingdom’s underground laboratory and take note of Cronos undergoing a test of sorts in which he chanced to metamorphosize into a form that Ganesha had all too quickly recalled from his days as a mercenary. He didn’t want to admit it, but the golden, rainbow-tipped plumage of Cronos’s slender avian form and the flames that eventually enwreathed him were unmistakable. Could it be that Prince Cronos, the same young man he was supposed to be protecting, happened to be the very same monster who’d burned down that village that he and his former comrades had been stationed near all those years ago? He dreaded the very thought, but if there was any chance that he was right, he promised himself that he would avenge all those people who’d lost their lives in that tragedy and punish the prince for his crimes against those villagers as well as the scientists for their role in transforming him into such a creature of destruction.

How to Unlock: Win 40,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

Shenlong
Home Country: None (predecessor from China)
Age: 32
Fighting Style: Bajiquan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Tiger

Original Backstory: As Shenlong sits alone at a table in a small dive bar, a woman in a black suit and dark glasses invites him to the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, only to have him flatly refuse and insist that he doesn’t do “rich man hobbies.” The UZFT rep departs disappointedly, leaving Shenlong to engage himself in idle conversation with a waitress who tells him that she plans to quit working at the bar at the end of the month and marry her rich fiancé, then a second conversation with the waitress’s young brother, who informs him that his sister doesn’t want to quit working because her doing so will lead to the bar going bankrupt. The boy likewise wishes that he could grow up quicker so that he can work harder, to which Shenlong says things aren’t as simple as that before he stands up from the table, places his money on it, and sets out to distract himself with some strong opponents.

Reboot Story: As explained in my last article in this series, my post-BR 2 version of Shenlong isn’t the same Shenlong whom Busuzima had replicated from Long’s DNA and employed as the puppet leader of the original Zoanthrope Liberation Front, but rather a second clone of Long whom Dr. Grant Maxwell had created to serve the Sicyonian Society as one of its beast hunters. On that note, this Shenlong started off having no knowledge of the ZLF and only learned about it through his interactions with the other cast members of my version of BR 3. Nevertheless, he begins to feel a sense of dissatisfaction with his role within Maxwell’s organization along the way, feeling that the zoanthrope prey his creator has instructed him to either kill or capture is of a generally inferior caste to what he’s proven himself to be. Indeed, he finds it almost impossible to fathom his targets’ refusal to unleash their inner beasts unless unavoidably necessary, even with the threat of death from the prolonged stimulation of their strands of the X-Genome Code, rather than fully embrace their genetic gifts and try to tear into him with the primal ferocity that the evolutionary forces of the world have given them. This holds especially true for those adversaries of his who find themselves facing down the Sicyonians’ human operatives and the advanced technology of their cyberthrope suits, which more times than not prove to be a match for—if not, in fact, more so than—the very zoanthropes they hunt on the Society’s behalf. Eventually, then, each kill he makes and each clue he learns about his past from his victims prompt him to put the pieces together, find out his ultimate purpose and value within the Sicyonian Society, and grow a severe enough distaste for his being a tool for a cowardly human who could very well vanquish his own quarry if only he had the courage and cunning to don his own cyberthrope suit, step out into the field, and do his own dirty work.

Alas, once Shenlong finally turns on and kills Maxwell in what seems to be the final confrontation between slave and master, he discovers all too late that he’d only finished off Proteus, the cellular remains of Ryuzo Kato, which had taken on the scientist’s likeness to divert Shenlong and other potential assassins and captors so that the real Maxwell could escape the premises with his life. Luckily for Shenlong, though, the duplicitous Tylon researcher’s getaway comes to a screeching halt when Nikolai, Ethwasa, and Gláucia all happen to arrive at the “lodge” in unison and intercept him, leading to them and Shenlong interrogating him about what other projects of Tylon’s they can disrupt and take over in the name of vengeance for all zoanthropekind. Maxwell reluctantly spills the beans about the Kingdom of Zoanthropes—or, at the very least, what he knows about it—and with an evil smile, Shenlong thanks his former “recruiter” before mercifully snapping the man’s neck and enlisting the aid of his three newly reintroduced subordinates, who all accept him at face value as their leader once more. They likewise accept Shenlong’s fellow Sicyonian pawns Reiji and Xion into the fold as well as former Front founder Busuzima, who—whether any of them would like to admit it or not—has been just as much of a victim of Maxwell’s perfidy as Xion, Shenlong, and Reiji all have, and together, they vow to conquer the Kingdom of Zoanthropes and, in turn, the world in the hope of establishing a new order in which those gifted with the power of the beast at long last rule over their genetically handicapped subjugators.

How to Unlock: Win 60,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

King Orion (a.k.a. Timbo Orma)
Home Country: Kingdom of Zoanthropes (via France, originally ungiven)
Age: 45
Fighting Style: Baguazhang
Beast Form: Rooster/Cockatrice

Original Backstory: Hudson Soft hadn’t initially given all that much background information on King Orion other than the fact that he and his son Prince Cronos rule over the Kingdom of Zoanthropes and that he openly uses his power and resources to establish a peaceful world between zoanthropekind and mundane humanity. He also instituted the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament to bring the nation together to support the national dream of interracial peace and to show off his son’s power as a combatant. Despite this show of nobility, however, Orion seems to have a shadier side, particularly when it comes to the scientific experiments he’s funding behind the scenes of the UZFT. After all, Hudson had never made it clear what purpose these experiments were meant to fulfill, but they’re obviously controversial enough for Cronos to oppose them to the point of threatening to end his own life to stop them—especially with the evidence provided on his character page at The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com about him being one of the test subjects. Also, Gado’s ending, which showcases the treaty signing between him and Orion, features an anonymous man watching the proceedings and smiling evilly as they conclude. This man’s identity also remains a mystery, but I, at least, wouldn’t blame speculators for linking him to the experiments one way or another. No doubt he was the man who convinced Orion that they were a good idea, deliberately hiding the full truth from him in the meantime about what they would achieve and the use of the information they would provide.

Also, Hudson had never given Orion an official beast form, even though his kingdom and his own son both strongly suggest that he has one.

Reboot Story: As a naturally born zoanthrope who once lived amongst his fellow Manouche Roma in an encampment on the outskirts of a small French village, former carpenter Timbo “Etienne” Orma is no stranger to prejudice, particularly following the event that changed his family’s—and his people’s—lives forever. When his son Django was merely eight years old and accompanying his mother (Timbo’s wife Daiana) on a shopping excursion to said village, he met up with his nine-year-old friend Jeanne to play some games with her.* One such game was a friendly race in which he accidentally beastorized into an eagle and spontaneously combusted, which in turn set the entire village ablaze. How he happened to transform into such a creature at such a tender age was a mystery in and of itself at the time, considering that the average zoanthrope’s Lycaonian gland usually doesn’t activate until he/she reaches puberty, and young Django’s spontaneous combustion proved to be even more of a shock to those who happened to experience it. At any rate, the fire that emanated from his small body was powerful enough to ignite practically every building within a fifty-foot radius of him and spread like mad, causing just enough chaos and destruction to claim the lives of countless people and animals within the village, including his own mother’s and (presumably) young Jeanne’s. Django, however, merely passed out from the exhaustion of the inferno he’d unwittingly caused and remained silent and still while residents from a neighboring village—including Timbo himself, who’d been working there on assignment from a client—and even a small band of zoanthrope mercenaries who’d been stationed in said village arrived and did what they could to extinguish the blaze. Once the final flame dispersed into a wisp of smoke, the rescuers found his body and Timbo managed to revive his son via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, only for one of the survivors to crawl out from hiding from amongst the ashes and rubble and point out that it was the young boy who’d caused the fire. She thoroughly described the event the whole while, too, and despite Timbo’s best efforts to defend his young son of any wrongdoing, intentional or otherwise, the paranoid villagers nevertheless blamed him and Django for destroying their homes via their “devilish” “Gypsy magic” and ran them and their fellow Roma out of the area to relocate their encampment.

*Please read Cronos’s rebooted backstory in this article to see why I’ve advanced his age from three to eight by this point in the narrative.

It wasn’t long after Timbo, Django, and their people were off to find a new area within which to live that they suddenly fell prey to an attack from Tylon mercenaries who captured the entire clan and brought them to the corporation’s headquarters, where the conglomerate’s supervisors separated them and shipped them off to various research facilities across the world. While serving time in these laboratories, the Romani underwent various experiments that either a) transformed them into zoanthropes or b) awakened the inner beasts that they already had within them. Tylon’s researchers then brainwashed their newly bred creations and set them forth on their individual paths of death and destruction until they either met their match at the hands of beast hunters or rival zoanthropes or were rescued from their curse via one series of circumstances or another. Timbo and Django were two of the more fortunate subjects of such experiments, having reunited following a battle that Tylon’s less scrupulous scientists had staged between them to see whose DNA was worthier of using for their latest supersoldier. Having lost full control of his own beast form, Django surprisingly enough lost the fight to Timbo, who still had his mental faculties in place and managed to outwit his rampaging, brainwashed son into reverting into his human form towards the end of the clash. Timbo then landed a sharp blow that snaped his son back into reality, and though the security officers who’d been overseeing the duel made sure to withdraw father and son and effectively cut their reunion short, the duo managed to stand by one another days later when an explosion rocked the compound. Not knowing what had caused the explosion, Timbo, Django, and their fellow captives nonetheless escaped the premises at once and, along with several of Tylon’s own scientists and security guards, fled into the wilderness. It wasn’t long after they did, either, when they eventually crossed paths with a rescue team who eventually brought them to the site where the rescue team’s leader, Qílín, would direct them in establishing their new home, the Kingdom of Zoanthropes.

Six, seven years have passed since that escape, and even now, Timbo—having chosen to go by the name King Orion upon becoming the upstart country’s first official ruler—has yet to bring himself to tell his curious son the truth behind all the tests he’s commanded the kingdom’s scientists to perform on him. Come to think of it, learning to trust the scientists themselves was chancy enough of an endeavor in and of itself, considering that they were initially the ones who turned him, Django, and the rest of their fellow captives into mindless soldiers for the Tylon Corporation’s cause, even if they only did so under the orders of their power-hungry white-collar leaders. Regardless, Orion knows all too well that trust has been the thing that has kept him and his people together since the Kingdom was a mere colony of refugees, and he intends on keeping it that way. He thus vows that the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament will be the final test that Django—or, rather, Prince Cronos—will have to undergo to prove that he has at long last come to master his control over his beast form and the extranormal powers it possesses. After all, if Cronos can come to terms with the chaotic nature of his original beast form and its propensity to project fire (as well as his more recently edited intermediary penguin beast form and its ability to project subzero vapors), then the Kingdom, by way of its scientific council, will have taken one step closer to achieving an understanding of how zoanthropy operates and as such one more step towards harmony between zoanthropes and baseline humans.

How to Unlock: Win 100,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

Prince Cronos (a.k.a. Django Orma, originally Cronos Orma)
Home Country: Kingdom of Zoanthropes (via France, originally ungiven)
Age: 19
Fighting Style: Ballet-inspired Huaquan
Beast Form: Penguin/Phoenix

Original Backstory: Cronos’s story begins with him suiting up in his default in-game attire while standing in front of a mirror—a uniform that he’s worn for quite some time by this point and originally hated wearing, even though he’s gotten used to donning it nowadays. Made of a foreign cloth with which he’s otherwise unfamiliar, the suit comes equipped with sensors in his arms and legs, among other places, to measure certain aspects of his body when he transforms into either of his two beast forms. He admits that wearing the suit makes him feel like a glorified lab animal, but his father King Orion has sworn to him that the data that the suit collects will benefit not only him, but all zoanthropekind. It is upon reminding himself of this that Cronos additionally recalls many of the other unanswered questions he wants to ask about his father, such as those concerning the deaths of his mother and his childhood friend Jeanne. What was the catastrophe that’d claimed their lives? Was it the result of a war? If so, over what? Whatever the case is, he’s come to believe that his participation in the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament will lead him to the truth.

Reboot Story: This backstory isn’t too bad…just not as thoroughly fleshed out as I think it could have been. Sure, we know the dilemma from Cronos’s past (i.e., the accident that claimed his mother’s life and allegedly Shina’s as well), but I think it would have been interesting if Hudson had elaborated on it a little more, especially in his ending. Clearly, King Orion wants his son to undergo more experiments, but the writers never let on why he does aside from his claim that such tests would help bring about peace between humans and zoanthropes in some way. If I were to venture a guess, however, I would say that it has something to do with Cronos’s strand of the X-Genome Code, as Cronos clearly doesn’t remember the event that had led to his mother’s death and especially the fact that he’d caused it, even if only inadvertently. There’s also the torching of Ganesha’s village, which ended every bit as tragically and has prompted the man formerly named Golan Draphan to plot his revenge against the young heir to Orion’s throne, among surely further instances in which Cronos had lost control of his phoenix form. If nothing else, this at least falls in line with how I’ve reimagined how the XGC operates based on Long unwittingly killing his mother and sister prior to the events of BR 1.

On a similar note, to reference the asterisk-marked note I’d made in King Orion’s backstory, I’m aware that Gado had rescued Shina from the ruins of her village when she was four rather than nine in the original Bloody Roar canon. I’d decided to advance the situation by five years, though, to allow more time for Cronos and Shina to know each other during their childhoods for a while longer and in turn their friendship to be much stronger than originally planned, thus making Cronos’s haphazard torching of his own village even more tragic for them both. The extra half-decade would also allow for Cronos and Shina’s respective Lycaonian glands to be more developed around the point of the tragedy, which would make even more sense for Cronos’s sudden beastorization, considering how Uriko prior to and in the original BR 1 had begun to show early signs of zoanthropy by age nine, hence Tylon having her kidnapped and transforming her into Uranus Alpha. This would thus make Cronos eight around the time his disaster occurred rather than three, making him only one year younger than Uriko was when Tylon’s executives had sent Hans to abduct her on their behalf—still early for a developing zoanthrope, yet not quite the toddler he would have been in the original continuity. Similarly, all of this would still take place five or so years before the events of BR 1 and at least five years after the scientific community had rejected Long’s father’s discovery of biological zoanthropy according to The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com. As for Shina, she would still have time (i.e., four years) in her post-adoption life to train beneath her foster father Gado in the ways of armed and unarmed combat and grow to become a powerful mercenary in her own right, seeing as the year in which she’d take down an entire platoon of soldiers by herself with her bare hands (age thirteen) would take place roughly a year before the events of the first BR.

Then again, though I’ve already touched upon this next point in Jermyn’s backstory from earlier, I’m also curious as to how Cronos’s two beast forms work in the original version of BR PF/E, both individually and in relation to one another. Sure, penguin (mundane Antarctic waterfowl) versus phoenix (raptor-based firebird of myth), ice versus fire, but aside from elemental affiliation, how did Cronos go about receiving a penguin beast form? Did the scientists responsible for operating on him tweak his Lycaonian glad in such a way so that the Factor B flowing through his system rearranged his DNA to mimic that of a penguin? If so, what were they hoping to accomplish by doing that? Preventing him from having to metamorphosize into the pyromaniacal monster that his phoenix beast form was—and, more likely than not, still is—by giving him a seemingly much less hazardous primary beast form from which his secondary phoenix form had to transition? Because their plan backfired, in that case, seeing as zoanthropes in Primal Fury/Extreme can enter Hyperbeast Mode straight out of their human forms without issue, save for (as I’ve mentioned earlier) having to sacrifice health in the process, should they not have enough Factor B flowing through their bloodstreams to properly fuel such a change (i.e., their beast gauges not be one hundred percent full). Was a penguin simply the animal that was most compatible with the young prince’s DNA that the scientists could contrive for whatever else they’d planned to do for the young prince? If so, what further experiments await him following the tournament and the final “taming” (if any) of his phoenix form? I’d additionally be interested to discover exactly how Cronos’s cryogenetic and pyrogenetic powers work when he’s in his respective beast forms. What processes, precisely, take place within his body to produce the ice effects he manifests when he’s in his penguin form and, for that matter, the fire effects he uses when he’s in his phoenix form? After all, if Sega could explain how Luke Custer’s beast forms manifest their own elemental powers in the Beast Data and Enemy Data modes of Project Altered Beast—a decidedly BR-esque take from 2005 on their late-1980s arcade classic Altered Beast—then so can any of the Bloody Roar games themselves describe how the X-Genome Code provides “Coded” zoanthropes with whatever superpowers they possess beyond those that their regular beast forms already give them. The esophagus of Luke’s Minotaur form particularly is said to have mucus membranes that emit highly volatile substances that erupt into flames when they mingle with oxygen, which would explain the Minotaur’s own pyrotechnics. Likewise, the lungs of Luke’s “Wendigo” (translation: Yeti) form boast a lattice of cells that act in a way not too dissimilar to a refrigerator’s cooling mechanism and in turn allow him to exhale sub-zero air, hence its cryotechnic abilities. I can imagine that Cronos’s phoenix and penguin forms, respectively, operate in similar fashions, and if that’s the case, then maybe—just maybe—the secret to eliminating the phoenix’s pyromania lies within the stunting the very source of such processes. That is, of course, unless Cronos’s strand of the Code is simply too strong for the scientists who are trying to treat him to override. Come to think of it, though, I further wonder if it is indeed the rewriting of the X-Genome Code that the Kingdom’s scientists are trying to discover in the original PF/E. If it is, then hey—that’d be even more reason for Hudson Soft to have allowed the Code to stand on its own two feet as part of the Bloody Roar story in BR 3 and not automatically tie it in with the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts and the Unborn and therefore transform it into something wholly supernatural! That, and it’d be even more reason to focus on the Code as a plot device for more than just one game.

How to Unlock: Win 140,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

Uranus (a.k.a. Uranus Gamma/Eva Rosenberg)
Home Country: Sweden
Age: 25
Fighting Style: Superpowered Hybrid
Beast Form: Chimera

Original Backstory: Nothing new since Bloody Roar 3.

Reboot Story: After having succumbed to the experiments that her captor Dr. Grant Maxwell had performed on her as well as a test run in which Maxwell had set her upon a federal agent who’d managed to infiltrate the Sicyonian Society’s lodge, Eva Rosenberg found herself at a loss for what to do or where to go. Not only had she lost contact with her brother Joel on top of losing her home and parents, but now she’d become someone—nay…something—that she no longer recognized: a bloodthirsty force of destruction that couldn’t contain the energy that was wreaking havoc upon her mind and body. Luckily for her, the federal agent’s partner—a tall, broad-shouldered man named Farland—had knocked her back to her senses and rescued her from the Society’s headquarters before the building itself collapsed. Agent Farland had likewise managed to pull some strings with his agency to see to it that she received the protection she needed from any of the late Dr. Maxwell’s former colleagues at the Tylon Corporation, which had apparently survived closure after all following the exposure of their zoanthrope experiments, as well as anyone else who’d be out for her blood for one reason or another. All that he and the rest of his agency required her to do was to testify against the Sicyonians for their crimes and keep a low profile afterwards until the sensitivities from the XHC crisis and the Society’s involvement in it finally died down. That, and they expected her to show up regularly at a secret testing facility that the agency had specifically designed for zoanthropy experiment survivors like her so that federal scientists could test her beastorization process, learn how her body functioned since she’d become a zoanthrope, and at least try to help her “tame” her “inner beast,” if not completely “cure” her of her condition. Though the very idea of labs and tests made Eva’s stomach churn, her desire to be rid of the curse that Maxwell had placed upon her and take one more step to leading an ordinary life was strong enough to make her agree to the agency’s conditions, and for quite some time, she was able to adhere to their guidelines quite easily.

After a matter of months, however, Eva receives in the mail an odd slip of paper addressed to her that, upon reading it, she realizes is an invitation to participate in a fighting tournament for zoanthropes in the newly established Kingdom of Zoanthropes—the Ultimate Zoanthrope Fighting Tournament, as it’s called. At first, she cannot understand how anyone outside of the FBI was able to find out where she’s been staying, so she naturally calls up Agent Farland, who arrives at her apartment shortly, takes a close look at the invitation himself, and apparently feels a sense of suspicion as well. He then proposes to contact his senior partner and the rest of the Bureau to alert them of this turn of events, then accompany her to the tournament personally so that he can directly look into the matter and find out who was behind sending her the invitation, what the concerned party wants with Eva, and—should those plans be of ill intent—what it is that he and the rest of the Bureau must do to thwart them.

How to Unlock: Win 200,000 Z-Points in Tournament Mode.

As a bonus, I would also include the characters of Bloody Roar: The Fang as Easter eggs to whom players could gain access upon beating the game in a different mode such as Time Attack, Team Battle, or Survival with a given preestablished character. Once a player unlocks one of these characters, he or she can then press the Start button while selecting the preestablished character with whom he or she had unlocked said bonus character, who then serves as a fourth costume (as opposed to the usual three costumes per character) to said preestablished character—complete with his or her own move set—that the player can access in any mode except for Story, which I would strictly reserve for the preestablished roster (Yugo, Alice, Gado, etc.). The list for these characters and the preestablished character with whom players must unlock them is as follows with minor (i.e., unnamed) characters form the manga also possible:

Yuga “Fang” Tsukigami: Unlock with Yugo.

Mashiro Toba: Unlock with Alice.

Akino Hayawaka: Unlock with Uriko.

Dr. Kreus/Kreuz “Lion-Head” Leon: Unlock with Gado.

Shirakumo: Unlock with Long.

Namaniki & Momo: Unlock with Jermyn. Namaniki would be selectable with the Start button while Momo would be selectable with the Select button.

Shuou of Suzaku: Unlock with Cronos.

Kou Kou the Bird: Unlock with Reiji.

Yato of Seiryu: Unlock with Latigazo.

Aoi the Mermaid: Unlock with Gláucia.

Hashiba/Oagito no Magami: Unlock with Uranus.

This hereby concludes my reboot of Bloody Roar Primal Fury/BR Extreme. 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 don’t forget to subscribe to this blog for more content, if you haven’t done so already, as my fifth installment in my revised Bloody Roar reboot won’t be too far away. Until then, here’s to a happy 2023! Hopefully, this coming year will prove to be more peaceful and propitious for us all than what I’ve been reading it’ll be. Aside from that, thank you for your support, and I look forward to the next time we meet.

Regards,

Dustin M. Weber

*****

Bloody Roar (c) 1997-2012 Hudson Soft Co., Ltd./2022 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 5: Bloody Roar 5: Predestined Evolution

My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 3: Bloody Roar 3: Sign of the Beast

Hello, readers!

Welcome to my third essay on my reboot for the Bloody Roar saga. Today I’ll be tackling the one game where the franchise went downhill, despite how many BR fans still consider it to be the best game in the line. Granted, I’m more of a BR 2 guy myself, but I will admit that Bloody Roar 3—despite having an overall Metacritic rating of 71 last time I checked (considered “average” by the website’s rating system)—does have quite a bit going for it. Rave Mode comes back, for one thing, in the form of Hyperbeast Mode, and each character now has two Beast Drives rather than just one…save for Busuzima, that is, who has a hidden third Beast Drive called Busuzima Olympic Games. The fighting is also the fastest and fiercest yet by this point in the series, and juggling is more of a thing than before as well, allowing for even greater combo potential than in BR 2, which had already taken a step up from BR 1 in this regard by allowing the cancelation of certain moves to lead into others. Sadly, I wish I could be more positive about the game from a storytelling perspective, considering that, as I’ve mentioned before, Hudson Soft felt the need to juxtapose supernatural elements as suddenly and as heavily as it did into a tale that had so far proven to work well enough within a light biology-based science fiction framework. The complete removal of Story Mode as a gameplay option doesn’t help, either, in that doing so has cheated BR fans of the opportunity to further immerse themselves within the franchise’s tale on a per-character basis and delve deeper into the lore of their beloved franchise. Before I get much further ahead of myself than I probably already am, though, let’s examine BR 3’s story and see where it takes the tale that we’ve come to know so far.

A year has passed since the fall of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, and in the wake of the terrorist cabal’s demise, Yugo Ogami—with the help of his younger foster brother Kenji and his close friend Alice Tsukagami—founds the World of Co-Existence, a non-government organization dedicated to helping restore and maintaining peace and order among zoanthropes and mundane humans. During this time, various zoanthropes from around the world begin to show signs of what seems to be a two-sided condition amongst them known as the X-Genome Code. Appearing on the skin of an affected zoanthrope’s human form in the shape of a “crest” that roughly resembles the host’s beast form, the XGC, on one hand, grants its carrier tremendous power, enhancing his/her physical prowess beyond his/her usual limits and ergo making him/her an even deadlier combatant than if he/she were to beastorize regularly. However, activating the Code comes at the price of the host’s life expectancy, and many a carrier of the XGC has fallen ill shortly after showing signs of bearing this condition. The cause of this mark, known as “the Sign of the Beast” among the particularly superstitious, proves to be a mystery to those concerned with its existence, which prompts several interested parties from the WOC to the United Nations (particularly recently appointed UN Commissioner Alan Gado) and beyond to investigate the situation. Some of these parties wish to find the Code’s source and apprehend it for their own personal use in hopes of harnessing the XGC’s power. Others, in contrast, wish to bring an end to the upheaval by finding a cure for this disturbing ailment. This in mind, only one thing is for sure: The fight for the sake of zoanthropekind—and, quite frankly, the recently restored tranquility between zoanthropes and regular humans—is very much at stake.

As the global investigation into the XGC matter progresses, it is revealed that the Code is a curse that has fully manifested upon the unearthing of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts. An ancient stone disc with an outer rim that boasts several glyphs that bear an uncanny resemblance to the common XGC-carrying zoanthrope’s crest, this artifact is said to serve as the prison of the Unborn: an extradimensional, quasi-demonic entity that is allegedly comprised of the souls of all the life forms that a) have yet to be born on Earth and b) could not evolve on Earth on account of natural selection. It is this very entity that exerts its control over a man known only as Xion, upon whom it bestows an “Unborn” beast form so that he may more easily unleash it from the Tabula’s confines by slaying every zoanthrope he comes across who happens to bear a crest—the first of whom happens to be his own older sister. Then, upon absorbing the power of Xion’s victims, the Unborn can be free to wreak havoc upon the world and reshape it to its liking with the power of raw chaotic energy.

Yeah…I don’t know about any of you folks, but the more I think about this story, the more I feel it’s a little too fantastic for its own good—“fantastic,” that is, as in “of or pertaining to fantasy” and not necessarily “great” or “excellent.” I’m sorry, but after two solid plots of clandestine zoanthrope experimentation by a multinational corporation and the ensuing civil unrest between regular humanity and zoanthropekind, this is the plot that Hudson Soft chose for the third game in their series—especially considering that by the year 2001, the BR franchise had reached the height of its active popularity? Maybe I’m alone in thinking this, but wouldn’t this plot feel more suitable for a run-of-the-mill fantasy RPG than for a phrenetic and ferocious biology-centered sci-fi fighting game centered around human-animal hybrids in the late 20^th/early 21^st century AD? Granted, one can argue that Hudson had presented this plot well enough to draw in newcomers to the franchise and help them understand what’s going on without making them digest two entire games’ worth of backstory, as I, too, had argued initially back in the day. Likewise, the X-Genome Code finally coming out into the open as a driving force behind the narrative is a great idea, even if for no reason other than bringing back Bloody Roar 1’s Rave mechanic in the form of Hyperbeast Mode and hence introducing a connection between BRs 1 and 3. However, as I’d mentioned in my first article in this series, tying the XGC in with the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts and the Unborn doesn’t exactly do it any favors. Think about it this way: The world has finally pulled itself back together roughly a year after the racial upheaval between zoanthropes and ordinary humans, thanks to the WOC’s foundation and relatively swift rise to prominence, and yet, along comes what sounds to be a new development in zoanthrope evolution that allows zoanthropes to become stronger, faster, more resilient, and all-in-all deadlier than before when they’re in their beast forms, even at the risk of their own health. Did Hudson mean to tell us that with news like this, there wouldn’t be even one anti-zoanthrope coalition, great or small, mainstream or underground, rearing its ugly head to reignite the war against zoanthropekind in the name of defending humanity from its more genetically gifted neighbors? Do any of you honestly believe that with this discovery coming to the masses’ attention from every possible corner of the globe that baseline humans are simply going to shrug their shoulders, turn their backs on the whole ordeal, and go back to watching Real Housewives of Wherever-the-Hell—particularly with the memories of the violence between their kind and zoanthropes still fresh in their minds? Because I don’t. Rather, I’m more willing to believe that the humans within the BR universe would react to the news with the same militant paranoia that they did at the beginning of BR 2 and start persecuting zoanthropes all over again, and perhaps even harder than before at that. Come to think of it, where are the humans in this story—particularly Nagi Kirishima, that one (by this point) seventeen-year-old girl whom Yugo apparently knew prior to the events of her official debut in BR 4 and whom Xion ended up killing on account of her trying to stop his rampage for reasons that Hudson never specifically gave? One would think, after all, that with this challenge to the WOC’s efforts to neutralize the human-zoanthrope friction coming to pass that there’d be members of the former of these two species playing some part in the whole affair. Unfortunately, their presence within this neck of the narrative is so miniscule that it’s negligible. Then again, so is any mention of the Tylon Corporation or even the ZLF, as both factions receive only a mere mention at best before the story carries on to concern itself with a mystic relic of indeterminate age, the shadowy Legion-esque spirit that resides within it, and said being’s silver-haired minion who—despite sounding like a promising new antagonist for the BR series to incorporate—ends up stealing the spotlight and being the only antagonist to receive any kind of committed character development. Really, now, it’s bad enough that creepy-turned-bumbling mad scientist Busuzima and apparent suicide survivor Shenlong both come back in BR 3 to begin their respective descents into obscurity among the rest of the Bloody Roar cast, but then you have Kohryu and Uranus—two new antagonists whose roots go all the way back to BR 1, yet neither of them gets any character development at all. Don’t ask me what kind of sense that’s supposed to make, either, because as far as I’m concerned, it makes none in the slightest.

Please forgive my complaining, folks. I’m not trying to be as much of a downer as I’m surely coming off as being, nor am I necessarily suggesting that Bloody Roar can’t have any fantastic elements added to its storyline. What I am saying is that the fantastic elements that Hudson introduced in BR 3 came in too much, too soon and almost completely shifted the narrative’s genre away from the light sci-fi roots from which the first two games had thoroughly and successfully sprouted. As such, BR 3’s plot conveniently ignores key aspects of the franchise’s overall narrative in favor of this new flavor they’ve taken on, which in turn throws the main story itself out of whack. Obviously, judging from what I’ve learned about BR 1’s mentioning of “Gaia” from The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com, this was Hudson’s initial attempt to insert the Gaia hypothesis as the ultimate driving force behind every little thing that goes on within the BR universe, especially the very existence of zoanthropes in the first place. To be fair, it was a noble attempt on the company’s part, but considering that neither of the previous games really went into that much (if any) detail with that aspect of the plot, the whole notion of “Gaia’s” presence within the world of BR only becomes even more jarring. Keep in mind, too, that I haven’t mentioned how little sense it makes to designate only certain characters on the BR 3 roster as carriers of the X-Genome Code, and yet, everyone has a crest, which the writers outright designated as being the “Sign of the Beast.” That, and everyone behaves similarly while under the influence of his or her crest (i.e., entering Hyperbeast Mode) in BR 3 on account of Ability Plus not being a thing until BR Primal Fury/Extreme, thus making it even vaguer as to what exactly the Code truly is. If anything, given all this information, it seems to be little more than a mark that appears on a given zoanthrope’s human form’s skin that forces its host to fight for his/her life—figuratively at the very least and literally as well in the case of our heroes—or die one way or another for the sake of the Unborn so that it can take over and reshape the world.

In short, the moral here is that when you’re trying to carry on a multi-installment story that has managed to captivate a sizable audience, there are two rules you owe it to yourself to remember and closely follow:

1. Know what your main story is about and make sure that your latest installment doesn’t betray the rules by which your setting operates.
2. Have a thorough understanding of what elements you’re adding to the mix and how they function in a way that makes sense within the narrative framework you’ve established.

Additionally, don’t leave out Story Mode when something as big and as open to examination as the X-Genome Code becomes a key plot point in the story you’re trying to tell via your game—especially when Story Mode proved to be one of the best-loved modes in your last game on account on how it explained the lore of the campaign you’re sharing with the world and allowed your audience an even greater chance to immerse itself within the tale you’ve been telling. After all, any chance you take to expand upon the way your setting’s universal mechanics is also one you owe to yourself to take when illustrating just how your setting operates with the new expansion added to the mix. Consider it the equivalent of running a tabletop RPG campaign that uses a system like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder as a ruleset and introducing to your players a new method of magic or similarly preternatural powers into your setting such as psionics, incarnum, chaos manipulation, the Akashic record, or anything else of that nature. You’re introducing a foreign or previously unexamined element into the scene and trying to make it feel natural to your audience and thus seem like it fits within the grand order of things that you’ve already established. That’s precisely the kind of treatment that the XGC deserved when Hudson introduced it in BR 3. It should have been more than just a thing; it should have been the thing and, as I’ve said earlier, completely independent of both the Tabula and the Unborn. Sure, Hudson could still have introduced these latter two elements in later installments within the BR saga, but imagine the doors the company could have opened, had it made the Code the central focus of BR 3—and, if necessary, the next game or two down the line. Think of all the questions they could have answered (and probably should have asked themselves before introducing the XGC in the first place) concerning the Code and how it functions. What exactly is it? How does it affect zoanthropes? What conditions must be met for a zoanthrope to become an XGC carrier? How long has it been a factor in zoanthropy? What’s the cost of being an XGC carrier? Can ordinary humans contract it, too, and if so, how? Is it indeed the thing that can grant zoanthropes superpowers beyond those already tied to beastorization? Can a zoanthrope live a perfectly normal life—give or take the occasional instance of beastorization, of course—while carrying the Code? I could go on, but you get the point: The introduction of the XGC was a big deal and should have been treated as such, which is exactly what I plan to do with my reboot of Bloody Roar 3.

On that note, then, enough jabbering away! As was the case in my previous two articles, this one will have spoilers for this specific iteration of the Bloody Roar story. Consider yourselves warned, then, if you don’t want me ruining the plot for you. Aside from that, though, let’s get down to business!

Bloody Roar 3: Sign of the Beast

My reboot of Bloody Roar 3 begins simply enough with the Zoanthrope Liberation Front’s collapse and the World of Co-Existence emerging to establish and maintain cooperative relations between zoanthropekind and ordinary humanity. Just as soon as things are starting to look up for the fresh new NGO and its mission, however, along come the reports of scientists having discovered a new development in zoanthrope evolution: the X-Genome Code. According to these scientists’ findings, the XGC is a condition that affects a select portion of the world’s zoanthrope population and allows its carriers to further tap into their bestial natures to increase their strength, reflexes, regenerative capabilities, and the like beyond what they would otherwise be if they were to shift into their beast forms ordinarily. Carriers of the Code, otherwise known as “Coded” zoanthropes, also enjoy traits specifically linked to their beast forms (i.e., Ability Plus) such as an extra-thick hide (“Super Armor”), invisibility (“Invisible Effect”), sharper claws (“Kezuri A”/“Kezuri B”), the ability to regain lost vitality from a struck adversary (“Energy Drain”), and so forth. To acquire such benefits, a “Coded” zoanthrope’s adrenaline would have to be intense enough to stimulate his/her Lycaonian gland to the point of coaxing it into producing even more Factor B than usual to interact with a portion of his/her DNA that would usually remain untouched during the regular beastorization process. Sadly, activating the Code puts quite a strain upon a host’s endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, muscular, nervous, and immune systems on account of so much Factor B flowing through his/her body at that given moment that he/she runs the risk of suffering numerous physical side effects that include (though aren’t limited to) muscle spasms, heart failure, hyperventilation and other respiratory problems, stroke, and an exhausted immune system. Some cases have even been known to produce severe mental disorders such as (but, again, not limited to) amnesia, multiple personality disorder, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, chronic paranoia, severe psychosis (hallucinations and delusions), and schizophrenia. This psychological element would particularly help to illustrate Long’s difficulties in mastering his beast powers when he was younger, specifically when he’d inadvertently killed his mother and younger sister, and in turn lead into his quest in BR 3 for a cure for his newfound mentor’s daughter Lanfa—or Lanhua, as I’ve learned her name is supposed to be—who falls ill due to complications from her own strand of the Code and reminds Long enough of Lin Li to make him seek further redemption for his sister’s demise. At any rate, it’s because of these side effects that a zoanthrope can only remain in Hyperbeast Mode for so long (twelve seconds, according to the original BR 3 and BR PF/E) before he/she must revert to human form immediately or risk falling prey to these physical and mental debilitations. Alas, time all too swiftly flies by during the heat of battle—or whatever other dire situation has prompted a given zoanthrope’s adrenaline to reach high enough levels to stimulate his/her strand of the XGC—and many a zoanthrope has already fallen ill on account of complications from the Code’s power affecting his/her body. As such, “Coded” zoanthropes owe it to themselves to pay close attention to when their bodies fall under the influence of the XGC and find a way to calm themselves down before their strand completely takes over their system and afflicts them with an ailment with which they can’t afford to cope.

The Sicyonian Society

Secondly, while Xion will still have a role to play in this installment of my reboot, his beast form will be renamed on account of the Unborn being absent from this neck of the reboot. On that note, then, we’ll obviously be needing a new adversarial force for the heroes to combat, and what better antagonists than a band of beast hunters to throw a wrench onto the protagonists’ investigation? After all, with human-zoanthrope relations once again being tested, it only makes sense to shed some light on humanity’s side of the struggle by highlighting what would be the most dangerous congregation of beast hunters in my take of the BR world: the Sicyonian Society. In a nutshell, the Society is the Bloody Roar equivalent of the Upstarts from X-Men lore. For a more elaborate explanation, however, here you go:

Formed shortly after the announced discovery of the X-Genome Code, the Society is a secret coalition of beast hunters whose members find common ground in keeping what they perceive to be the zoanthrope threat in check by means of engaging in beast hunts. Many are the reasons, too, for why these beast hunters would want to unite with one another after all the human-versus-zoanthrope turmoil from the past five to six years and the WOC’s efforts in establishing a peaceful relationship between the two species. Some members have had friends and/or family members who’d lost their lives at the hands of zoanthropes, whether said killers were ZLF operatives or Tylon-controlled assassins or had simply lost control over their beast forms on account of “blacking out” during an involuntary beastorization—particularly one in which the XGC played a part in taking over the host’s body and mind during the grim affair. Others are convinced that zoanthropes are strictly the creations of the Tylon Corporation and are therefore little more than the products of mad science—shells of their former human selves completely at their inner beasts’ mercy who therefore must meet a violent end for their own sake as well as humanity’s as a whole. Some may even be shellshocked ex-employees of Tylon who haven’t yet coped with their involvement with the conglomerate, even within the six years that have followed its alleged fall, who are convinced that the only way they can atone for their “sins” is by undoing the corporation’s evil deeds and wiping out the very creatures it supposedly created, not believing for one second that zoanthropes can indeed be naturally born with their aptitude for transformation. Rumor has it, too, that the Sicyonian Society even accepts applicants who happen to be either repentant ex-zoanthropes who underwent the removal or disintegration of their Lycaonian gland or present zoanthropes who wish to undergo such treatment, be the source of their zoanthropy a natural gift or the product of an unfortunate experiment. In either case, these individuals particularly have come to see their zoanthropy as evil to the point of wishing to rid the world of the curse that either has or had made them and are arguably the most zealous and hence dangerous members of the coalition, whom the Society recruits on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” basis to protect their identity from their more mundane compatriots. Regardless of their personal motivations, Sicyonians are united in their cause to keep zoanthropekind in check following the news of the XGC’s discovery, convinced that the Code only makes zoanthropes more of a hazard to baseline humanity’s survival than they were before.

Keeping in line with their mentality toward XGC-based sensitivities, the Sicyonian Society specifically targets its beast hunts on those zoanthropes whom they perceive to be humanity’s greatest threat, whether said zoanthropes truly have proven to pose a risk upon the world at large via their actions or are simply in a position of great power and influence that they could easily abuse in the name of their own kind. In fact, the higher a given zoanthrope’s profile is based on his/her behavior against or influence over the global public, the more concern he/she poses against the Society’s ideal of humanity’s safety and the higher the bounty it places on his/her head. Its doing so in turn encourages its members to compete against each other as either individuals or as small, tightly knit squadrons to see who among its ranks can hunt down the biggest menaces against humanity and thus the deadliest game amongst the world’s zoanthrope population. Even baseline humans who support zoanthropes’ rights aren’t safe from the Society’s wrath and often find themselves in the coalition’s line of fire right alongside the very zoanthropes with whom they sympathize. The competition between beast hunters is quite fierce, too, with the member who earns the most points for the zoanthropes he/she manages to capture and/or kill within a given year earning the title of Chief Huntsman/Chief Huntswoman for his/her excellence in the field as well as bragging rights for that year until the next, when the next “hunting season” begins. Said member also wins for himself/herself a handsome complimentary cash bonus as well as a special “grand prize,” the nature of which remains an enigma to everyone but the Society’s founder himself/herself, the Hunt Organizer, and his/her right-hand man, Lodge Keeper Dr. Grant Maxwell. As far as these two administrators are concerned, the Hunt Organizer is naturally the faceless entity responsible for the Sicyonians’ very existence who keeps his/her identity and motives hidden beneath a veil of secrecy as he/she discovers and determines potential targets for his/her underlings to apprehend and/or eliminate and arranges said targets’ bounties based on the threat each one poses upon his/her true agenda. Who precisely this Hunt Organizer is I intend to keep a secret until the very end of my retelling of the Bloody Roar story. As for Dr. Grant Maxwell, though, there’s a reason as to why I’ve assigned him to be the face of his/her operation and the Lodge Keeper of the Sicyonian Society. You see, while Hudson Soft never openly gave Dr. Maxwell a name other than…well…Dr. Maxwell, the record stands that this former Tylon scientist was the man responsible for serving as Dr. Steven Goldberg’s mentor within Tylon’s Pharmaceutical Research Division according to The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com. That was, of course, until Steven reported his discovery of Busuzima’s secret lab to him and the unethical experiments his former friend was conducting within it upon unwilling human and zoanthrope subjects, after which Maxwell betrayed Steven to Busuzima for discovering that which the poor guy wasn’t supposed to know about, thus leading to his metamorphosis into Stun. Predictably enough, then, Maxwell very much serves a role in my version of Bloody Roar 3 as Busuzima did in both the original and my version of BR 2, save for the fact that he’s a little bit more out in the open as the Society’s Lodge Keeper than Busuzima was as the ZLF’s founder and secret leader. Either way, both men are scientists who once worked for the Tylon Corporation when it was active, yet each man managed to find his way back into the thick of things by taking part in a radical organization that’s been wreaking havoc upon the global status quo and as such preventing the world’s populace of achieving peace between zoanthropes and regular humans. It’s because of both men’s status as former Tylon employees, too, that the allegedly defunct corporation still has a presence within the BR narrative and therefore could very well have a hand, even in “death,” in this whole mess that’s been plaguing our heroes and the world they’re all trying to preserve. As such, the seeds of Tylon’s conspiracy are only being further planted here in my version of BR 3 as they were in BR 2, and it shouldn’t be too much longer before they start bearing fruit.

Cyberthrope Suits

Just a brief side-by-side comparison between Xion’s beast form and Guyver I from The Guyver to give you an idea of their physical similarities (and the inspiration behind Xion’s beast form’s appearance.

One last aspect about the Sicyonian Society that I’d like to bring up is their arsenal of choice when hunting zoanthropes, and quite frankly, since the whole theme of the Bloody Roar franchise is based on combatants who can metamorphosize into human-animal hybrids, why not give the Society’s hunters power suits that they can summon forth on a whim and don instantaneously? After all, many a BR fan has remarked that Xion’s beast form looks like Hudson’s character designers had garnered some inspiration for it from The Guyver, and in that case, it only makes sense for me to in turn borrow another popular concept from the time-honored manga in the form of battle armor that functions similarly to that which original series protagonist Shō Fukamachi acquires that leads him into his feud with the evil Cronos Corporation. In the case of the Society’s hunters, however, each suit of armor, which I’ll refer to as a cyberthrope suit from here on out, is designed to represent a given animal—either present or extinct—to better fit the whole “Unleash the Beast Within/Fight Like an Animal” motif around which BR revolves as well as to allow its wearer to utilize numerous abilities akin to those of the beast into which it allows its wearer to transform. For example, while a cyberthrope suit fashioned after a praying mantis may be equipped with raptorial forelegs on the arms and two pairs of wings to allow its wearer to fly, a suit fashioned after a tree frog will more readily possess powerful legs; suction cup-like fingers and toes; and a long, sticky, semi-prehensile tongue. Meanwhile, a suit based off the electric eel can generate powerful electrical currents through its exoskeleton while one based off the cone snail has an extra-durable shell with which to ward off attacks to which the rest of the suit is vulnerable as well as a venomous harpoon based off the snail’s toxoglossan radula that can stun or even kill unarmored targets. I could go on, but you get the idea, although I would like to add that the manufacturer of these cyberthrope suits, predictably enough, is Yun Chi Manufacturing, Inc.—the same manufacturing firm that once served as a department of Tylon, even after its demise in the original BR canon, and was responsible for Kohryu’s production. In fact, the only difference between Kohryu and the cyberthrope suits is that Kohryu is a full-fledged robot with its own erratic, almost self-serving consciousness rather than a hollow suit of armor that’s completely under its possessor’s control. In either case, though, both cyberthrope suits and YCM-manufactured robots are programmed to contain a special code of their own: a program that activates upon the suit wearer or robot’s will either by voice recognition or by bodily gesture that mimics the X-Genome Code in that it allows the robot or suit wearer in question the ability to kick-start two additional traits that otherwise remain dormant when the suit activates or the robot assumes its beast form regularly. These two abilities operate in a fashion that is identical to how Ability Plus works in the game, and considering that each robot’s exoskeleton and each cyberthrope suit is made from a particularly strong iron alloy, one of the abilities more times than not happens to be “Super Armor” with the remaining ability usually mimicking the creature after which the creators modeled the suit or the robot’s beast form. Also, because very few are the zoanthropes whose beast forms are as durable as the typical cyberthrope-suited Society hunter or YCM robot, the latter tends to take significantly less damage in-game than the average zoanthrope, yet also regenerate less lost health for the sake of gameplay balance.

Think Minatek from BioF.R.E.A.K.S.—only perhaps more sophisticated—and you get the idea of a cyberthrope suit in the incarnation of Bloody Roar 3 I’m describing it in this article.

Crests: The Sign of the Beast

Finally, what about the crests that appear upon the bodies of those zoanthropes who possess the X-Genome Code? Well, believe it or not, they’d still be a thing. In fact, out of all the mystical elements from the original Bloody Roar 3, the crests would be the only such aspect that would remain constant. Initially, not much is known about these disturbingly curious lesions that appear upon the skin of “Coded” zoanthropes’ human forms other than the fact that each crest roughly represents the beast form into which its host can transform. Even in the rare case that a given crest appears on the flesh of a beastorized zoanthrope, it remains faint and mostly unrecognizable until the bearer’s Factor B triggers his/her strand of the XGC. Only in that case does the crest glow (as well as the rest of the host’s body, as the game itself demonstrates) and thus enables the bearer to utilize whatever additional powers his/her strand of the Code grants him/her however he/she can within the present situation. Then again, that’s pretty much all anyone within my incarnation of the Bloody Roar world knows for sure by this point in the story, as even the scientists responsible for discovering the Code can only guess as to why “Coded” zoanthropes bear such markings on their bodies. Even cosmetic surgery isn’t enough to remove these unfortunate “blemishes” from a “Coded” zoanthrope’s epidermis. Only the removal or disintegration of one’s Lycaonian gland—and hence one’s zoanthropy—is enough to make these crests disappear, thus leading experts to believe that they’re little more than non-malignant side effects of possessing the XGC and that the Code itself is strictly a condition that zoanthropes can possess. Of course, considering that even the most educated experts presently only have the vaguest idea of how the X-Genome Code came into existence, how long it’s existed, or what conditions must be met in order for a zoanthrope to carry the XGC in his/her system, the case behind the “Sign of the Beast” remains a tough one to crack, therefore making it all the more urgent for the protagonists of this story to do just that.

For the sake of consistency, however, I will say plain as day right here that every character on my active Bloody Roar 3 roster who happens to be a zoanthrope will be a carrier of the X-Genome Code. Trust me folks…it would make no sense if it weren’t the case, seeing as every zoanthrope from the original BR 3 possessed a “Sign of the Beast,” whether they were said to carry the Code or not, and that Hyperbeast Mode—which had become a staple of the BR franchise from BR 3 onward—is supposed to reflect one’s possession and activation of the XGC.

The Initial Twelve

Yugo Ogami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 23
Fighting Style: Shoot Boxing
Beast Form: Wolf

Original Backstory: As the president of the World of Co-Existence, Yugo ensures that he and the rest of the WOC work hard in establishing a more cooperative relationship between zoanthropes and regular humans for the sake of building a brighter future for the world at large. However, news of the X-Genome Code breaks out, and sure enough, he discovers that he himself has been marked for death until he can track down the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts—the rumored source of this deadly mark—and destroy it.

Reboot Backstory: This backstory will remain mostly the same in my reboot, but because I’ve decided to leave the Tabula out of the equation, I’ll have Yugo instead investigate a series of murders in which the victims just happened to be “Coded” zoanthropes. The murderers themselves? Beast hunters from the Sicyonian Society, of course, whom Yugo eventually tracks down through a series of clues and interrogations along the way in a manner akin to how he found the Zoanthrope Liberation Front’s headquarters in the previous game. Several Sicyonians will also happen to be hunting him down, too, considering his position as the WOC’s founder and president. Speaking of Bloody Roar 2, though, as was true then with the ZLF, it’s only through the crumbling of the Society that the beast hunts come to an end and this chapter of the BR narrative closes in turn.

Alice Tsukakami
Home Country: Japan
Age: 23
Fighting Style: Gymnastics-inspired Jeet Kune Do
Beast Form: Rabbit

Original Backstory: Having resigned from her duties as a nurse to work alongside Yugo within the WOC, Alice becomes nervous when Yugo goes out on his own to discover the origins of the XGC and decides to follow him in his investigation—especially when she discovers that she, too, is Coded and thus runs the risk of falling prey to the Code’s terminal side effects.

Reboot Backstory: Remember from my first article in this series how I suggested that Alice had lost her mother prior to the events of BR 1 due to complications from her strand of the XGC? Well, now’s the time to bring that part of Alice’s backstory out into the open, for as Alice in my reboot of BR 3 finds out about the Code’s side effects, she realizes just what she and the rest of the protagonists are dealing with. This makes her even more concerned about Yugo, seeing as he’s a carrier of the XGC—as is she, lest we forget—and thus prone to falling prey to the same kind of illness that claimed her mother’s life. Plus, she’s sure that her discovery of what the Code is will be quite beneficial to his investigation, especially as it relates to the Sicyonian Society and its choice of prey.

Alan Gado
Home Country: France
Age: 49
Fighting Style: Military Martial Arts (Power Attacks)
Beast Form: Lion

Original Backstory: Former mercenary Alan Gado has earned himself the seat of United Nations Commissioner and has made it his personal mission to bring reconciliation between zoanthropes and ordinary humans. Though many has been the international negotiation that he’s made work in favor of his goal, he continues to struggle in finding a solution to the XGC panic. Worse yet, the “Sign of the Beast” has appeared on his body recently, thus making him a carrier of the X-Genome Code and concerned about leaving something behind for future generations to look back on with inspired reverence. He therefore decides to step away from his UN duties for a spell to return to the battlefield once more and lead a battle against fate.

Reboot Backstory: Gado’s efforts as UN Commissioner will stay the same for sure, even in the wake of the XGC panic, as will his status as a “Coded” zoanthrope. However, rather than have him fight out of frustration for his inability to find a solution to the XGC drama, I’d have him learn through the grape vine about the Sicyonian Society and its mission in hunting down and executing (“Coded”) zoanthropes who’ve attained “too much” power and influence over their own kind, himself being one such individual. Naturally, then, to prevent an assassination attempt on him as well as to fight for justice for his fellow zoanthropes, Gado will decide to take the fight directly to the Sicyonians and bring an end to their little operation—even at the expense of his own UN seat and, more importantly, his own life.

Long Shin
Home Country: China
Age: 32
Fighting Style: Xin Yi Quan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Tiger

Original Backstory: Still unable to cope with his zoanthrope blood and the dark past he’s lived in no small part because of it, Long lives the life of a vagrant until he takes up residence within the home of an old martial arts master and his daughter Lanhua. News of the X-Genome Code reaches his ears, however, and his concerns soon manifest in full when Lanhua collapses one day due to complications she suffers from her own strand of the Code. If she receives no treatment soon, Long’s host may surely lose what little is left of his family in Lanhua, which reminds Long all too much of him losing his own sister Lin Li, who lost her life on account of the “unbridled power of the beast.” Such a reminder is all that he needs to venture out to find and stop the source of the XGC outbreak.

Reboot Backstory: No major changes, save for perhaps my reboot making more mention of Long’s strand of the XGC and him learning how to cope with it—especially since it was in no small part responsible for driving him to lose control of his beast form all those years ago and inadvertently kill his mother and sister. As such, his success at the end of this game could very well result in him coming to terms with that chapter in his life and as such taking a long stride (no pun intended) along his path of redemption.

Bakuryu (a.k.a. Kenji [Kakeru] Ogami)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 15
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: Mole

Original Backstory: Having chosen to leave behind the past he’d lived as the second Bakuryu as per the whims of a mad scientist, Kenji Ogami focuses on his studies and on helping his older foster brother Yugo in managing the World of Co-Existence and its mission of interracial peace between humans and zoanthropes. However, the “Sign of the Beast” appears upon him one day and, upon him learning what it means for him and his newfound family and friends, sets out to find the source of the outbreak and put an end to it.

Reboot Backstory: Pretty much the same…except that I’d also involve Kohryu in Kenji’s story so that he can receive the characterization that Hudson Soft should have given him in the original BR 3. Simply put, many a zoanthrope, “Coded” and “Code-free” alike, has fallen prey to a mysterious killer who’s left some rather incriminating claw marks on his/her body—claw marks that resemble those that Kenji’s own beast form would leave behind. Feeling it necessary to clear his name of any wrongdoing as well as bring an end (if possible) to the XGC panic, Kenji adopts the name Bakuryu once more to confront Kohryu, the perpetrator of these murders and the intended sentient tool of the Sicyonian Society in their ongoing beast hunts.

Uriko Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 15
Fighting Style: Xin Yi Quan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Half-Beast ([Tabby] Cat)

Original Backstory: After having rescued her mother from the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, Uriko soon goes back to living a tranquil life…much to her boredom. Disappointed that Kenji has no more free time to spend with her on account of his responsibilities with the WOC, Uriko sure enough turns her attention to what her foster sister Alice is doing alongside Yugo—namely, investigating the source of the XGC outbreak. Seeing the mystery as worthy of occupying herself with, Uriko joins in on the investigation herself.

Reboot Backstory: Pardon me for sounding patronizing towards Hudson Soft, but they could have come up with a much better story than this by putting in some genuine effort towards developing Uriko’s character and not making her succumb to what trope identifiers refer to as Flanderization. Allow me to lay out this girl’s history over the first three BR games to illustrate my point.

Bloody Roar 1: Naturally born nine-year-old zoanthrope girl who prematurely shows signs of the beast within her and falls prey to a kidnapping attempt by a corrupt multinational organization whose scientists exploit her zoanthropy, brainwash her, and ultimately transform her into a seemingly emotionless monster of a supersoldier. She eventually loses in battle to her own mother and a former fellow prisoner, which in turn brings her back to her senses and returns her to what she once was.

Bloody Roar 2: A bubbly fourteen-year-old student who comes home from school one day to see a stranger in stereotypical kung-fu practitioner garb beat up her mother and have his fatigue-clad goons abduct her. She immediately beastorizes upon witnessing this outcome, only to take on a much weaker form than what she remembers transforming into during her younger days, and hence sets off to learn Xin Yi Quan/Kenpo so that she can more readily rescue her mom from the terrorists who’ve taken her hostage.

Bloody Roar 3: A bubbly fifteen-year-old student who happens to be a zoanthrope and who decides to join in on her foster sister and her foster sister’s childhood friend and co-worker on their investigation into the XGC matter simply because she’s bored.

Granted, Uriko does improve a little bit in BR PF/E when she protects Cronos from the collapsing lab in her ending and the writers tease the possibility of her once again being able to transform into her chimera beast form without any explicit reason how or why, but aside from that, the writing team still portrays her as being a childish goofball with the mental capacity of a kindergartener. Don’t even get me started, either, with her portrayal in BR 4, where she rescues Mana in her fox form from a bunch of mischievous children and decides to take her home as her newfound pet dog “Pakupon”. That said, I find it safe to say that Uriko’s growth as a character in the BR franchise pretty much stops after BR 2 and barely (if at all) progresses beyond the series’ second game. All the reason more, then, for me to insist that her father become a part of the story as I’d suggested in my first article—maybe not directly at this point, necessarily, but should he be a pharmacist who was under the employment of Tylon before the events of BR 1, as per my suggestion at the time, maybe there could be some old notes lying around his vacant office/study within the Nonomura household that Uriko could come across one day. Then, maybe after reading said notes and seeing that they describe either the X-Genome Code or (at the very least) something like it, she feels compelled enough to join Alice and Yugo in their own investigation into the XGC affair. Who knows? Maybe she’ll even start wondering about whether the Code will allow her to regain her full beast form, be it the tabby cat she was originally meant to be or the chimera that Tylon had made from her when they used her as the prototype for Project Uranus. This would be especially relevant, seeing as she in this case (as I’ve explained before) will bear a crest upon her body and hence discover that she, too, is an XGC carrier. At any rate, she’ll want to find out more about the X-Genome Code and what it’s about, and the only way she believes she’ll find any answers to her inquiries is if she tags along with Alice and Yugo and discovers alongside them the truth.

Jane “Shina” Gado
Home Country: France
Age: 20
Fighting Style: Military Martial Arts (Single & Continuous Attacks)
Beast Form: Leopard

Original Backstory: The “Fighting Marvel” Jane “Shina” Gado has made a name for herself as a mercenary beyond her legendary father’s reputation and has thus drawn the attention of a powerful, nameless organization whose figureheads have invited her personally to participate in the “Klaw and Fang” coalition to discover the source of the XGC outbreak. Having recently discovered that she, too, is a carrier of the Code, she doesn’t hesitate in her discovery of the truth.

Reboot Backstory: Instead of being suckered into joining the “Klaw and Fang” coalition by an unnamed faction that simply wants to procure a dangerous artifact for its own (no doubt selfish) purposes, I’d just have Shina crack down on the Sicyonian Society. Simple as that. Granted, there wouldn’t be as much of an opportunity for her to question her mercenary lifestyle and whether it’s really worth living if all she was going to do was get all tied up with potentially corrupt employers, but then again, considering that her story in BR 4 is fundamentally similar to the one she has in BR 3 and thus shows that she hadn’t learned her lesson after the earlier game, what was the point? Then again, that’s not to say that she and her father can’t cross paths at some point during her adventure and clash over his inability to move forward from his own mercenary days with her ultimately proving to him that he hadn’t wasted his teachings on her and that he can trust her and zoanthropes just like her to carry on the literal fight for peace and racial balance while he carries on the war from a figurative standpoint as UN Commissioner. All the better to illustrate their complex father-daughter relationship, I say.

Jennifer “Jenny” Burtory
Home Country: England/Great Britain
Age: Unknown
Fighting Style: Tae Kwon Do (“Lower Body”)
Beast Form: Bat

Original Backstory: Having returned to her cover occupation as one of Europe’s top beauty queens, Jenny is soon called back into action by a client named Sinclair who wants her to investigate the XGC crisis and uncover its source. Believing that nobody else should carry the “Sign of the Beast” besides her and the man behind the crisis, she concludes that only one person can have the power of the Tabula.

Reboot Backstory: Remember when I said in my second article in this series about how fractured Jenny’s story was overall in the BR franchise? Her backstory here alone should prove that to a T, even if for no reason other than her motivation behind wanting to acquire the Tabula and the power within it being as vague as vague can be. Think about it: What does she hope to accomplish from attaining the Tabula? To absorb the Unborn into her body and put an end to the joyless immortality she’s apparently been living since the experiment she’d allegedly endured that provided her with an incomplete beastorization process? If so, then why not just come out and say so? I know Jenny’s a woman of mystery in more ways than one and that her contractual obligations to Gado during the whole ZLF episode don’t automatically make her a full-fledged heroine, but for the sake of storyline consistency (i.e., addressing and continuing plot points that had come up earlier within the narrative), sometimes things need to be more thoroughly presented and capitalized upon. Otherwise, you’re going to force your audience into playing a guessing game for the sole sake of filling in the blanks of your story rather than kindly sitting back and letting it soak into their minds. I’m not saying hold the audience’s hand and spoon-feed it every single little detail like it’s made entirely of idiots. Rather, simply take the whole aspect of the experimentation that Jenny supposedly went through and use it as the foundation upon which to build the rest of her story. Heck, even I know better than to just add layer on top of layer, trait on top of trait, factor on top of factor to define a character without any thought of how each layer, trait, factor, or whatever other term you want to use connects with the others to illustrate who said character is within the story. That’s how Hans turned out in the original BR 1, after all (lest we forget), and anyone who’s read my first of these articles knows just how empty, hollow, lazy, shallow, and ultimately thoughtless I found his crossdressing gimmick to ultimately be. All this in mind, then, let’s try this narrative for Jenny on for size:

After the ZLF becomes little more than a memory within global society’s collective consciousness, Jennifer Burtory carries on with her career as one of Europe’s top fashion models until she is summoned to the office of an entity going only by the name of Qílín, who informs her of the growing activity and influence of the Sicyonian Society upon a world riddled in paranoia over the X-Genome Code. According to the intelligence Qílín has received from his other operatives, this secret society of beast hunters might be using their anti-zoanthrope ideology and XGC-centered paranoia to hide their true agenda for hunting “Coded” zoanthropes: the harvest of their XGC-laced DNA to create a zoanthrope supersoldier that threatens to be even more powerful than the Tylon Corporation’s own original Project Uranus. As she listens to the details of the news Qílín is both showing and telling her, her eyes suddenly fall upon a computer screenshot that features the glowering, bulldog-like face of the Society’s reported Lodge Keeper, Dr. Grant Maxwell—a face she finds all too familiar for her liking. Indeed, the man’s soulless dark brown eyes alone all too readily stir up within her mind memories of being strapped to a fixed table within a darkness-shrouded laboratory, the cold steel of the table upon the bare skin of her back sending chills up her spine that bear a shocking contrast to the scalding rush of warm fluid that flowed unfettered into her arm at the time via a thin rubber tube that had been inserted into her arm at that moment. Just then, as Jenny shakes her head violently to clear the sinister visions from her mind, she finds herself errantly gazing at the palm of her hand and the faint yet nevertheless noticeable pink lesions on it that roughly resemble the membranous wings and fanged jaws of a bat. Sure enough, she can take it no longer, and before Qílín can even finish his debriefing, Jenny has bolted from his inner sanctum and crashed out his window, gliding on leathery wings towards where she hopes to find the cruel yet stoic bastard who stole her humanity.

Mitsuko Nonomura
Home Country: Japan
Age: 41 (originally 45)
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: A year has passed since Mitsuko had overcome the brainwashing she’d suffered at the hands of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, whom her daughter Uriko had rescued her from, and since the Front’s collapse, she’s managed to return to managing her family shop without incident. That is, of course, until the news of the X-Genome Code breaks out and the panic over it ensues. It’s bad enough when the reports come in of numerous “Coded” zoanthropes turning up dead, either on account of complications from their respective strands of the XGC or from losing their lives to assailants whose identities have yet to be revealed. However, when Mitsuko finds the “Sign of the Beast” on her body one day, she begins to worry about not only her fate, but Uriko’s as well. Her concern only intensifies when she discovers Uriko missing one evening and her long-estranged husband Nezumi’s study in disarray. Fearing the worst, she heads off once more to find her daughter before she ends up in a situation that her fighting skills and zoanthropy alone can’t help her out of.

Hans Taubemann
Home Country: Germany
Age: 28
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: After having played his part in the fall of the ZLF and earning his freedom from the asylum where he’d stayed prior, Hans has acquired for himself a position as UN Commissioner Alan Gado’s bodyguard—a far yet refreshing cry from the assassin he was while Tylon had him on its payroll. However, while serving as Gado’s right-hand man has indeed taught him more than he could begin to say about human relations outside of the gritty, unforgiving slums within which he’d spent much of his youth, that doesn’t always mean that relations have always been easy. Not only has the peaceful coexistence between humans and zoanthropes only just begun following the fall of the ZLF and many similarly radical racial groups as well as the rise of the WOC, but the highly publicized discovery of the X-Genome Code has begun to strain the hard-established tranquility between the two species. Granted, the fact that many “Coded” zoanthropes have died on account of XGC-related complications hasn’t made the drama any easier to swallow. Even so, the number of beast hunter brigades on the prowl to keep zoanthropes, “Coded” and “Code-free” alike, “in check” has left Gado, the rest of the UN, and in turn Hans quite vexed. Worst of all is the Sicyonian Society, whose members—from what Hans has made of from the reports he’s read—set their sights specifically on those zoanthropes who carry the X-Genome Code and are of significant enough importance amongst zoanthropekind for them to consider a threat to baseline humanity. This leads him to show concern for his employer’s safety, particularly when accounting for Gado’s insistence on leading by example and taking his would-be murderers head-on himself. As such, Hans finds it in his best interest to set forth and take care of business himself by tracking down the Society’s headquarters and bringing their leader to justice just as he and his fellow heroes of the ZLF incident tried to do when it came to toppling the Zoanthrope Liberation Front. Besides, considering that Hans himself carries the X-Genome Code and could very well fall prey to its oft-lethal complications with or without pursuing the Society, what precisely does a former mental patient and professional murderer like him have to lose?

By the way, not to spoil this roster too much, but you’ll quite easily note (if you haven’t already) that I’ve included Reiji in my BR 3 reboot as well, and in case you’re wondering, yes…he and Hans will indeed cross paths and begin a rivalry with each other starting from this very chapter in my take of the BR saga. Hey, why not? Both men have a history in the official BR canon as being bloodthirsty killers who take delight in the pain and suffering they cause, so why not have the redeemed old guard of my story try to turn the Yatagarasu fugitive back to the light and show him the errors of shedding familial blood for the sake of satisfying one’s violent impulses?

Gregory “Greg” Humain
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 45 (originally 41)
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: Having brought most of the key members of the Zoanthrope Liberation Front to justice the previous year, agent Gregory Humain had been hoping to earn some well-deserved rest and relaxation from his oft-harrowing duties on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sadly, the discovery of the X-Genome Code and the consequential panic that has come to follow have brought those hopes to a screeching halt, and much to his exasperation, the Bureau has sent him back into the field. Worse yet, four of the key members of the ZLF whom he’d arrested—including former Tylon Corporation scientist Dr. Hajime Busuzima, who used the tricks of his trade to establish the Front in the first place—have managed to escape prison, meaning that it’s now up to him to throw them back into the slammer before they further complicate the chaos that has already started to rear its ugly head. Thankfully, his fellow agents have uncovered some leads for him to follow in tracking down the escaped Front agents, one of which happens to lead him to the operations of the Sicyonian Society, a radical racial coalition whose members dedicate their efforts to wiping out particularly powerful and influential zoanthropes who happen to carry the “Sign of the Beast” upon them. It is with this specific lead in mind that Greg hopes to recapture the escapees, believing that at least one of them—particularly that despicable little lab lizard Busuzima—will surely get himself or herself mixed up in the Sicyonians’ operations or otherwise turn up to cause some serious mayhem of his or her own accord. Even if none of the four are involved with the Society’s business, at least Greg will have the satisfaction of bringing justice back into this violent and hate-riddled world once again, should he happen to bring the Sicyonians’ beast hints to a halt. That’s assuming, of course, that he doesn’t succumb to the side effects of his own strand of the Code in the process.

Wayne [Wanahton] Farland
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 29
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: After infiltrating and helping to topple the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, Wanahton has received an honorable discharge from the North American Security Corps and gone on to accept a position at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he’s become the protégé of fellow zoanthrope and hero of the ZLF incident Gregory “Greg” Humain. His first assignment under Greg’s mentorship is simple: Investigate a series of zoanthrope murders in which the corpses of the slain zoanthropes bear incriminating claw marks on their bodies. Fearing the worst, he follows his leads and heads off to Japan to investigate prime suspect Kenji Ogami, hoping that he’s wrong about the former ZLF hitman being responsible for the deaths of his own kind. After all, even the most benevolent zoanthrope can fall prey to the X-Genome Code’s mentally and physically debilitating effects, which can transform any host under its control into a mindless organic killing machine, and the junior vice president of the World of Co-Existence is no exception. Come to think of it, neither is Wanahton, who’s recently discovered that he, too, has the “Sign of the Beast” branded upon his skin and must take special precautions himself to keep his zoanthropy in check before it clouds his judgment in his investigation and has him claiming not only innocent lives, but also the lives of potential allies in his ongoing search for justice.

The Unlockable Fourteen

Xion (a.k.a. Johan Rosenberg)
Home Country: Sweden
Age: 22
Fighting Style: Savate
Beast Form: Cockroach (originally “Unborn”)

Original Backstory: The “Sign of the Beast” gives zoanthropes the power to possess the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts, which has been sealed away to prevent its prisoner, the Unborn, from breaking free and gathering into one being. A young Swedish man known only as Xion (no doubt a reference to Zion, a citadel/Jebusite fortress that was once the center of Jerusalem, if not Jerusalem itself or even Heaven), under the command of the Unborn, seeks to release his master from the Tabula by finding and slaying “Coded” zoanthropes so that the seal on the Tabula is weakened to where the Unborn can break free and reshape the world in its image. He has already slain his sister, whose heart was tied to the “trivial world,” which he sees as being a useless waste that must be eliminated so that the Unborn can create a new, “better” world in its place. There’s no telling how much further he’ll go, either, to fulfill his master’s wishes unless he’s stopped soon.

Reboot Story: First off, as you all have probably gathered, the Unborn in my version of Bloody Roar wouldn’t be quite the same being as it was in the original continuity, nor would it play a part in my version of BR 3. On that note, then, Xion’s beast form wouldn’t so much be the Unborn itself or even a fraction of what the entity was meant to be but rather the kind of creature that the form itself most closely represents. Now, I know that in my original reboot of BR 3, I’d proposed that Xion resembled a cross between a cockroach and a praying mantis upon beastorizing. Upon taking a closer look at it, however, I’ve concluded that he looks more like the former of the two insects than the latter, what with his square (as opposed to beak-shaped) jaw and bladed ankles and back-appendages. Sure, he doesn’t have the wings or carapace that most cockroach breeds have, nor does he have any mandibles in front of his decidedly sub-humanoid, sub-reptilian mouth, but hey…that’s nothing that a subtle redesign couldn’t fix. Truth be told, I also toyed with the idea of reshaping Xion’s beast form to resemble that of a locust, complete with wings that would allow him full-fledged flight and with his forearm blades still intact to resemble the very tools with which farmers harvest their field crops. After all, many is the historical/religious text—including the Bible itself—that attests to locusts’ propensity for ravaging crops and causing famines, and considering the Biblical influences that the designers had already poured into the guy—his name, the names of at least one of his Beast Drives (“Ascension to Heaven”), and even the Legion-esque (“For We Are Many”) nature of the creature he’s supposed to represent, the redesign—in my opinion, leastways—would have fit him quite well thematically. On the other hand, Xion’s already quite a monster of an opponent in more ways than one in the BR games as matters stand, and although I’d still add wings to his redesign to complete his appearance so that his beast form more closely resembles a German cockroach (which has, in the real world, become the most prevalent cockroach species in all of Xion’s home country of Sweden), such wings would be more ornamental than anything else. After all, entomologists have time and again stated that German cockroaches, even upon reaching full adulthood, either a) rarely fly or b) do not fly at all, although gliding from higher locations to lower ones isn’t necessarily out of the question. Not only that, but while cockroaches have nowhere near the Biblical reputation of locusts, they are nevertheless reviled amongst fellow parasites for both their infamous hardiness and their reproduction rates as well as their tendency to carry pathogens and microorganisms that can infect humans with such diseases as gastroenteritis (complete with diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting), dysentery, cholera, leprosy, typhoid fever, poliomyelitis, salmonellosis, and even plague. Roaches’ saliva, feces, and shedding body parts can also exacerbate asthma and allergies, according to CallNorthwest.com, and German cockroaches in particular even produce a protein that can trigger certain allergic reactions in people (about 26% of the U.S. population, according to some studies). This further complements the name of Xion’s other Beast Drive (“Outbreak”) and justifies a redesign of his beast form to be that of a full-fledged cockroach.

As for Xion’s backstory in my reboot, he used to be Johan Rosenberg, the son of a very pious Swedish minister named Abraham Rosenberg who’d turned his church into a haven for zoanthropes from beast hunters during the events of Bloody Roar 2 until the corrupt members of the European Security Corps stormed the premises and gunned down him, his wife Maria, their refugees, and their staff, leaving the couple’s two children, Eva and Johan, orphans on the run from the very men who were supposed to maintain the peace within the European continent. Eventually, they in turn found refuge within the care of Dr. Grant Maxwell, who promised them sanctuary from all beast hunters, the ESC included, and—for the most part—kept his word. That was, of course, until he brought the pair of them into a secret laboratory where he subjected them to some cruel and extreme experiments and transformed each of them into a zoanthrope. In Johan’s case, Maxwell transformed him into the first successful insect zoanthrope, having learned from the error that Busuzima had made in his metamorphosis of Dr. Steven Goldberg into Stun and filling in the DNA gap between human and insect DNA that the younger scientist had neglected to account for. As such, Johan had converted into a veritable killing machine, complete with bladed appendages with which to slice his victims and a lightweight exoskeleton to offer him protection from the claws, jaws, and other natural weapons of those whose XGC-riddled DNA he would collect on his master’s behalf. Furthermore, Maxwell had renamed Johan “Xion” in “honor” of his religious upbringing and brainwashed him in such a way that his young charge would accept his commands as the word of God Himself or face retribution for his insubordination. As for Eva…well…Johan has yet to find out what had happened to his older sister. Then again, maybe the two will eventually cross paths along the way during this installment of my Bloody Roar reboot. You never know. 😉

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Yugo.

Otrera (a.k.a. Haruna Morimoto)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 36
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: A gifted electronics engineer who’d lost her brother-in-law to the Zoanthrope Liberation Front during their reign of terror against humanity, Haruna Morimoto has been dedicating her craft to Yun Chi Manufacturing, Inc.’s robotics department ever since to develop not only the cyberthrope suits with which the Sicyonian Society equips its hunters, but also Project Iron Mole (Kohryu) and—if the results of its latest test run prove to be successful—additional zoanthropic robots just like it. She likewise shares a tight bond with her grieving sister and feels a deep sense of familial obligation to her that fuels her desire to seek revenge against every last remaining member of the ZLF, a coalition she swears is still at large despite many of its members having been killed or incarcerated following the Front’s fall. Her hatred for the ZLF has similarly convinced her to believe that Alan Gado—arguably one of the highest profiled zoanthropes in the world and an adamant advocate for zoanthropes’ rights—was indeed the leader of the Front and has thus gotten away with murder upon his ascension to United Nations Commissioner, hence why she’s particularly set her sights on his assassination.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Alice.

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: As a proud and respected officer of the Hellenic Army, Lieutenant Gavriil Stavros once belonged to a squadron of soldiers who were stationed within the rural outskirts of Thessaloniki when the Army mobilized them to put down a rogue unit of zoanthrope mercenaries who were assaulting a coal-operated electrical plant within the area. Sadly, the squadron fell short in its objective and suffered heavy casualties during the clash, driving the surviving members back to base in horror and shame. Despite being fortunate enough to survive the battle himself, Gavriil has suffered many a nightmare from the ordeal, unable to shake himself free from the anguished screams of his comrades that even now echo inside his head or the images of their pain- and terror-wracked visages that have practically tattooed themselves into his subconsciousness. He had done all he could to live the experience down and live as productive and successful a military career as he could up until the Army transferred him to the European Security Corps, where he led a small but loyal unit of fellow soldiers in hunting down and killing off many a zoanthrope, believing wholeheartedly that his squadron’s victims were threats to humanity’s welfare despite any evidence to the contrary. Eventually, however, his posse’s deeds caught up to them, and then-ESC Captain Alan Gado had him and his followers sequestered from the rest of the troops for their final night of service before being brought before the United Nations to be court-martialed, only to have one of the nurses break into their cells and kill the lot of them in their sleep. Gavriil himself, however, had managed to escape by the skin of his teeth and was able to find sanctuary in the custody of Dr. Grant Maxwell, a former Tylon Corporation researcher who was recruiting participants for a project he called the Sicyonian Society. With a reserved demeanor and a considerate ear, Maxwell took to heart Gavriil’s plight and had made for him a suit of cybernetic armor that would more readily enable him to effectively combat any zoanthrope with whom he would cross paths. In exchange, all he’d asked for from the former soldier was his dedication to the extermination of those zoanthropes who would prove to be humanity’s biggest threat. Since then, Gavriil—better known to his fellow Sicyonians as Aristaeus—has committed himself to vanquishing the zoanthrope menace and securing not only the safety and prosperity of the global public but also revenge for himself against the kindred of those who’d slain his brothers in arms all those years ago.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Gado.

Shenlong
Home Country: None (predecessor from China)
Age: 32
Fighting Style: Bajiquan/Kenpo
Beast Form: Tiger

Original Backstory: Having lost his precious ZLF and learning that he is indeed the clone of former Tylon assassin Long Shin, Shenlong has survived a grief-driven suicide attempt and vanished into anonymity, trying to create a new identity for himself out of the shadow of the man whose DNA his creator derived him from. With no past of his own from which to grow, only the present matters to him—especially considering that he, as he’s learned, carries the “Sign of the Beast” and thus likely hasn’t that much time to live anyway. His goal, then, is simple: Kill anyone he doesn’t like and drink himself to death with the people he does.

Reboot Story: In my retelling of the Bloody Roar narrative, Shenlong’s suicide attempt at the end of his playthrough in Story Mode would end up being canon, hence why he was able to evade incarceration for leading the ZLF in BR 2. To keep him within the story, however, I’d have Dr. Maxwell clone Long’s DNA for a second time to recreate Shenlong and draft him into serving the Society as one of its hunters. From that point forward, Shenlong slowly but surely evolves from a blank slate of a man into a proud yet bloodthirsty zoanthrope who can’t stand the weakness of those who’d rather keep their powers under control and hidden from a world that, according to him, deserves to feel the wrath of the genetically gifted for holding them down and preventing them from taking their natural place at the top of the food chain. This latter half of his personal philosophy would slowly but surely build as he acted out on his martial pride and vanquished those whose names happened to be on the Sicyonians’ hitlist and eventually come to a head towards the end of his story when he discovers his purpose in Maxwell’s plan, turns on him, and attempts to use the Sicyonians’ resources to start up his own agenda…perhaps even revive the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, and in his own image to boot. Also, to keep up his rivalry with the very man from whom Maxwell had cloned him for the second time, Shenlong would have a run-in with Long along the way after finding out the truth behind his past and perhaps even offering Long a chance to join him in “taking the world back” from baseline humanity. Who knows? Maybe he’d even recruit his original creator Busuzima to join his fold as well and lend the Front his talents in the field of science…with a stiff caveat in place to keep him in line, of course, should the scheming little lab lizard grow the wild hair to use the Front as a front for his own specific agenda as had the first time.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Long.

Kohryu (a.k.a. Development No. β-0389)
Home Country: None (manufactured in China)
Age: 26 days off the production line
Fighting Style: Ninjitsu (Kato School)
Beast Form: 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-year-long wake of its parent corporation’s public fall. Modeling their robot after deceased Tylon hitman 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 the assassin 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: No major changes. However, as is true to its—or, rather, his—relationship with Kenji according to The-Bloody-Roar.Fandom.com, Kohryu has an axe to grind with his former self’s successor for abandoning his duties as a Tylon assassin as well as an inflated sense of pride in his skills as a ninja warrior. So strong are the emotions he’s tied into these two thoughts, in fact, that they have the tendency to send his internal mechanisms into overdrive in a manner akin to adrenaline in organic bodies. After all, aside from possessing the memories of the man he used to be, Kohryu also has the cellular material from his former self’s liquified original body fueling his present mechanical form and flowing through his system like blood, thanks to an artificial heart installed inside his chest and tubes that run through him like blood veins. Naturally, then, this sludge carries his DNA and, coincidentally enough, a strand of the X-Genome Code that activates every bit as naturally as it would as if Kohryu was still an organic being, granting him “Any Cancel A” and “Super Armor” as his two Abilities Plus. It’s a rather intricate system, to be sure, which is why the Society has scientists monitoring Kohryu from behind the scenes to make sure he stays in line, commits himself to the directives that the Society administers into his consciousness, and doesn’t let his violent memories flare up and take him over. Otherwise, there’d be no telling the chaos his apparent memories would lead him to do and how they would expose the organization and its deeds.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Bakuryu.

Arachne (a.k.a. Nagi Kirishima)
Home Country: Japan
Age: 17
Fighting Style: Goju-Ryu Karate
Beast Form: Iron Spider

Original Backstory: Nagi didn’t debut until Bloody Roar 4, but as with Reiji, I’ll say here that she has gone out of her way to stop Xion’s killing spree and has received a mortal wound for her troubles. Rather than outright dying, however, Nagi has received from Gaia a copy of the Unborn’s powers, which in turn has made her a zoanthropic creature known as the Spurious. Naturally, then, this power has allowed her to survive Xion’s attack, although it’s now presently dormant on account of Yugo (whom she knows personally…although how has never officially been explained) and the other protagonists putting an end to Xion’s rampage and the XGC outbreak.

Reboot Story: Seventeen-year-old Nagi Kirishima is your average Japanese high school student who’s on the verge of graduating with high honors from her school and planning to enlist in the Asian Security Corps in honor of her father, an ASC soldier who’d lost his life in combat against the ZLF the previous year. Sympathetic with her plight, her aunt Haruna Morimoto has invited her to enlist in the Sicyonian Society to learn about zoanthropy and how to protect the civilian public from out-of-control zoanthropes as a means of gaining some pre-enlistment combat training before officially joining the ASC’s ranks. Nagi agrees, and it isn’t long at all before she proves her skill and determination to Lodge Keeper Dr. Grant Maxwell and earns for herself a spot among the Sicyonians and the codename “Arachne.” Specializing in the capture and paralysis of “Coded” zoanthropes, Nagi vows to make her native Japan and eventually the entire world safe for baseline humanity in the wake of the ever-growing threat that zoanthropekind poses upon it, blissfully unaware all the while of the Society’s true intentions and the zoanthrope beast hunters who lurk among its ranks.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Uriko.

Drakon (a.k.a. Ganzorig Purev)
Home Country: Mongolia
Age: 22
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: During his teenage years, mining mogul’s son Ganzorig Purev had suffered many a blackout during which he transformed into a ferocious beast who ran amok among various mining operations that his father’s conglomerate was managing at the time and slew every human being he came across. Why he committed such carnage, he could only guess—especially considering that he didn’t even recognize most of his victims, much less had a reason to harm them. Worse yet, whenever he came to from these blackouts of his, he would find his hands, feet, clothes, and even mouth coated with blood for reasons that he couldn’t explain. At a loss for what he could do to put an end to his gruesome quandary, he turned himself in to the authorities, who promptly admitted him to the mental hospital where he’s served his time for the murders he’d committed and received treatment for his condition, which ultimately proved to be zoanthropy. Not knowing or even caring how he became a zoanthrope, he opted to have his Lycaonian gland completely removed, wishing to forever rid himself of the beast within him, although he knew all too well even then that his surgery was only the first step in atoning for the senseless slaughtering he’d committed. Naturally, then, when a representative from the Sicyonian Society visits him in the asylum where he’s being held and relates to him the recent news about the X-Genome Code and its effects upon zoanthropes’ minds and bodies, he immediately accepts the representative’s invitation to join become a Sicyonian himself, hoping to redeem himself for the human lives he once mindlessly ended by protecting those that remain against the threat of the zoanthrope menace. Alas, though he serves the Society unquestioningly, he can’t help but feel a stomach-churning sense of familiarity with the beast form of the cyberthrope suit the Society has assigned him, hence his reluctance to activate it even when the going gets tough for him out in the field.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Shina.

Stun (a.k.a. Dr. Steven Goldberg)
Home Country: United States of America
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Professional Wrestling
Beast Form: Beetle (originally just “Insect”)

Original Backstory: A year prior, Stun confronted Busuzima for the experiment he’d performed on him many years before but couldn’t bring himself to finish off his former friend and fulfill his desire for revenge. He therefore disappeared into the shadows following the ZLF’s fall and has since been carrying on with his life by becoming a vigilante and maintaining his decaying mind and body’s stability by sucking the blood of criminals. Recently, the “Sign of the Beast” has appeared on his “human” form’s carapace, and the XGC that now flows through him has been overloading his body and producing sharp pains that occasionally render him uncontrollable or unconscious. Knowing deep down inside that he’ll become a complete monster if he doesn’t find a cure for his condition soon, he ends up receiving a visit from Jenny, and old friend, who tells him that the power surging through him is the fault of the power of other dominant (i.e., “Coded”) zoanthropes like him, and unless he personally defeats them, he’d lose all sense of reason. According to Jenny, then, he shouldn’t hesitate if he wants to retain his pride as a man.

Reboot Story: While I’ll gladly keep Stun’s mental and physical deterioration a part of his story, I’d scrap the whole idea of his “old friend” Jenny leading him into slaughtering fellow “Coded” zoanthropes for the sake of retaining “his pride as a man.” Not only does it further paint Jenny as an antagonist following the events of Bloody Roar 2 in the same way as her own backstory does, but more importantly, the only notions we’re given of Stun and Jenny being “friends” in the official BR canon are their chance meeting in Stun’s Story Mode playthrough in BR 2, where she blurts out to him about the experiment she’d supposedly undergone, and in her ending in Arcade Mode in BR PF/E, where Stun bursts into the lab where Jenny and Gado are confronting each other and attacks Jenny, much to her dismay. Even in the case of the former scene, there’s no indication of the two of them having ever met each other, considering that Jenny, being a spy working for Gado, is already thoroughly informed of who her employer’s old acquaintances and potential allies are. Heck, even Gado knows who and where Stun is at the very beginning of the latter’s story, and neither man considers the other to be any kind of friend, old or otherwise. Feel free to watch Stun’s Story Mode for yourself, too, to see if he recognizes Jenny at all from when the two first meet.

On that note, I’d simply have Stun recognize that he bears the “Sign of the Beast” and, as such, the X-Genome Code and understand what he needs to do to retain his sanity and physical stability. I’d also have him constantly on the run from the Sicyonian Society, who recognize him as an XGC carrier and—according to the files of their organization’s Lodge Keeper and Stun’s own former mentor, Dr. Grant Maxwell—a significant threat to humanity whose execution is a grave necessity. So frequently will the Sicyonians bombard Stun with their attacks, in fact, that the poor guy won’t know whom to trust and, between that and his progressively rotting mind, finds himself plunging further and further into madness until he happens to stumble across the Society’s lodge and Dr. Maxwell himself, whom he’ll have one final battle with before ultimately succumbing to his condition and passing away. Heck, throw in a fight with his old ex-friend Busuzima for good measure to keep that feud fresh as well as a chance meeting from Jenny so that she can help steer him on the proper path against the common enemy they share, and as far as I’m concerned, this story here is good to go.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Jenny.

Trueno Rodante (a.k.a. Domingo Reyes)
Home Country: Mexico
Age: 24
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: A proud wrestler from Mexico who also happens to be a natural-born zoanthrope, Domingo Reyes—better known by his in-ring persona, Trueno Rodante (“Rolling Thunder”)—used to long resent the fact that much of the world outside of the pro wrestling industry has always seemed to turn its nose up at the art and constantly refer to it as “fake fighting,” “homoerotic,” a sport for “rednecks” and other unsavory types, and so forth. Why such people fail to understand the athleticism that’s involved in it and how hard he and his fellow wrestlers—specifically his fellow luchadores—must train to become as talented practitioners of their craft as well as beloved characters for their fans to cherish for years upon years to come grated on his nerves like nobody else’s business. Sure, pro wrestling may not be a full-fledged sport or combat style of any kind, but those who engage in it are still expected to have some degree of athleticism, and not everyone who aspires to become a professional wrestler manages to become one. That, and pro wrestling is every bit a legitimate form of entertainment as stage play, teledrama, cinema, video games, and any other form of fictional entertainment one can name, even if its popularity has waxed and waned with the times. Really, now, if it was just a venue for perverts or other such deviants, why would so many children come to look up to so many wrestlers as role models of some sort over the years, and why would parents have bothered taking their children to see their favorite pro wrestling superstars battle against their nemeses time and again and buy their merchandise? All this in mind, nothing would’ve made Domingo happier than to prove to naysayers the planet over how wrong they were to disparage an art that he loved as a kid and an industry that he’d trained day in, day out to become a legend in.

Then came the evening of his in-ring debut for the largest lucha libre promotion in all of Mexico. It was the company’s biggest show of the season, and tens of thousands of fans were in attendance while millions more who’d ordered the event on pay-per-view were watching from the comfort of their homes him in the second match of the night taking on a fellow newcomer on the roster named Latigazo (“Whiplash”). Funny thing, too, was how the hombre apparently couldn’t resist succumbing to his own machismo, judging from the liberties he was taking with their match and all the stiff shots he snuck in on him that the referee all too readily allowed. Domingo could even see the smug meathead smirk beneath his brown leather mask and chuckle after having dealt him several hard blows, which made his blood pressure rise at the very notion of the pompous jackanape’s toying with him the way he was against what the bookers had scripted in their match. He tried his damnedest to keep his cool, too, knowing all too well the interracial turmoil between his kind and regular humans and thus the dangers of him beastorizing in the middle of what was supposed to be a worked fight. Sadly, his adrenaline had gotten the better of him in the end, and one smack too many from good ol’ Latigazo led to Domingo beastorizing before the audience’s eyes. His presently brown, fur-covered hide flashed a sinister yellow hue as he stared down his terror-stricken opponent, and the next thing he knew, he thrashed the poor slob wildly with his claws before finally snagging him, leaping high into the air with his body, somersaulting several times over, and crashing down upon the canvas with a sit-out powerbomb that led to Latigazo landing square on the back of his head, snapping his neck and killing him on impact. Once he returned to his human form and had shaken his mind clear, he stood there staring at the bloodied, battered corpse of the man who’d been tormenting him only seconds earlier, then at his own sanguine hands and did the only thing that he could think about doing right then and there: flee the premises. Before he could so much as reach the stadium parking lot, however, he suffered a sharp prick in his neck that felt as though someone had struck him with a dart and a terrible headache only seconds later that dulled his sight and made his surroundings appear as little more than a blur, and before he knew it, he found himself passing out on the cold, hard pavement, unable to wake up.

That night has already been quite some time ago, however, and all that Trueno Rodante knows now is that the streets have since become riddled with people who want him dead for killing Latigazo, not caring in the slightest that he acted out of self-defense and only wanted to slap the fool right back and put him back in his place. Alas, all these new assailants of his want is to return the favor by beastorizing themselves and tearing him limb from limb for doing what they, too, would surely have done if they were only in his boots at that moment. In that case, then, so be it! He’ll gladly shred them before they do him, in that case. Heck, he’ll even take pieces of them as little trophies for causing him such grief—all the more to prove to the world that nobody messes with Trueno Rodante and gets away with it scot-free.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Mitsuko.

Reiji Takigawa
Home Country: Japan
Age: 18
Fighting Style: Kyokushin Karate (otherwise listed as Ninjitsu)
Beast Form: Crow

Original Backstory: Reiji didn’t debut until Bloody Roar 4, but I’ll mention here for posterity’s sake that he hails from a four-clan collective community of fighting monks known as the Yatagarasu, who make their homes within the mountains of Japan and who make a ceremony out of passing the power of beastorization down from one generation to the next. This beasorization process remains sealed, however, until the predecessor judges the inheritor to be an adult. Alas, the Tabula’s unearthing has led to Reiji’s seal breaking prematurely before his coming-of-age ceremony, fueling the destructive tendencies he’s harbored deep down inside of himself with great power, which he has just used to kill his father. Having now fled the Yatagarasu’s temple, Reiji is now on the run from his people, seeking along the way strong zoanthropes against whom he can test his strength and whose fatal defeats give him a sadistic sense of pleasure.

Reboot Story: No major changes, save for eliminating the unearthing of the Tabula as being the cause of Reiji snapping and killing his dad and exchanging it for him simply succumbing to the psychological effects of his strand of the XGC. That, and I’d rewrite him in my BR 3 reboot in such a way that he ends up joining the Sicyonian Society for the sake of finding strong zoanthropes to fight and kill only to become prey himself for his own fellow Sicyonians by being a “Coded” zoanthrope of noticeable import and having to fight his way out of the mess he’d foolishly flew into shortly after fleeing the Yatagarasu. Furthermore, as I’d said earlier in my entry for Hans, he and the former Tylon assassin would cross paths with one another and begin a rivalry that would carry on for two to three games straight with Hans trying to convince Reiji to dispose of his violent urges before they completely take him over and make him even more of a monster—and more of a pawn for Tylon—than he’s already become. This would especially be true if Reiji’s strand of the XGC played a role in his savage tendencies, seeing as the Code has (at least according to me) psychological side effects as well as physical ones. By establishing this rivalry, I hope to not only offer Hans some character growth that would help prolong his longevity within the BR franchise, but also further flesh out Reiji as a character and give him some depth beyond just being a brash, rude, hot-blooded killing machine who lives solely to take his penchant for murder and mayhem out on the people (i.e., fellow zoanthropes) he meets along the sanguine path he’s carving for himself. After all, having more villains within the Bloody Roar series is nice and especially welcome in the wake of the franchise having as many protagonists as it does, but trust me when I say that the more each of BR’s villains—or, for that matter, each of the villains in any series—is diversified from the rest of the pack, the more interesting and memorable he or she is.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Hans.

Dr. Hajime Busuzima
Home Country: Japan
Age: 36
Fighting Style: Zuì Quán, a.k.a. Drunken Boxing (“Deception”)
Beast Form: Chameleon

Original Backstory: Having escaped capture by the authorities for his role in creating the ZLF, Busuzima has been continuing his Ultimate Life Object project for the past year but with little to no success. He is hence left in despair until news about the X-Genome Code becomes public, and from what he learns, he surmises that the Code just might carry the power he’s been looking for. He therefore sets out to discover the true power of the Tabula of a Thousand Beasts and become his own hero.

Reboot Story: Busuzima had created the Zoanthrope Liberation Front to intensify the friction between humans and zoanthropes for the sake of Tylon’s masterplan in exchange for the chance to continue working on his “Ultimate Life Object” project, only to have the protagonists of BR 2 bring the ZLF crashing down upon itself. This ergo leaves him without a lab within which to further conduct his experiments—not that it would matter, of course, seeing as the authorities additionally manage to arrest him and several of the Front’s top operatives for their crimes against both mundane humanity and their own fellow zoanthropes. This latter half of the situation would also explain why Gláucia, Nikolai, and Ethwasa won’t be returning for this third part of my Bloody Roar reboot. At any rate, Busuzima’s up the creek without a paddle for the next year as far as his research is concerned…until, of course, he takes advantage of his beast form’s ability to turn invisible to escape prison—which is sadly ill-equipped for containing zoanthropes of his power level—only to eventually cross paths with a small cadre of beast hunters from the Sicyonian Society. Try though he might to fend off the combined prowess and weaponry of his adversaries, they nevertheless manage to subdue him and bring him before their Lodge Keeper, Dr. Grant Maxwell. Luckily for Busuzima, Maxwell recognizes him immediately and orders his beast hunters to let him go, then invites him to lend him a hand in his own research behind the scenes of the Society and their beast hunts in exchange for a chance to use the Society’s laboratory to conduct the research he needs to at last discover the secrets of immortality. After all, the reality behind Maxwell sending the Sicyonians after “Coded” zoanthropes is so that he can amass as much XGC-laced DNA as he can to create a zoanthrope supersoldier so powerful that its might would eclipse Uriko’s when she served as the prototype for Project Uranus. Who knows? Perhaps this new supersoldier would ultimately become the Ultimate Life Object that Busuzima has long been determined to create. Then again, should things go south for him and Maxwell, who’s to say that the latter wouldn’t swiftly desert the former and have him take the fall for the whole “Sicyonian Society” charade? After all, lest we forget, the Society is pretty much the pro-humanity, anti-zoanthrope equivalent of what the ZLF had been a year prior: a glorified veil for Tylon’s ultimate agenda. As such, Busuzima could very well learn the hard way about just how expendable he is to his employers in the long run and that in the end, it isn’t he who matters to them…only the fruits of his scientific labors.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Greg.

Asterion (a.k.a. Dr. Zacharias Vouvalis)
Home Country: Greece
Age: 35
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: A professor of ancient history and mythology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Dr. Zacharias Vouvalis has taken keen interest in the “Sign of the Beast” and has noted the similarities to each of the crests he’s seen on the human flesh of “Coded” zoanthropes to those that he’s read about in the texts from which he teaches and has seen on several artifacts that he’s uncovered during many an archaeological exploration. According to the legends he’s read, the crests are the brandings that Gaia herself has placed upon a new breed of sentient creature that she has elected to evolve and inherit the world from humanity. Having planted a special genetic code within select members of the human race, Gaia has bred these beings—whom the legends refer to as “Anthropoi Thirion” (“Beast People”)—to survive the apocalypse that humans themselves have unwittingly initiated through their centuries-long neglect and abuse of their environment, from polluting and wiping out the natural habitats of various plant and non-human animal species to mindlessly reaping numerous non-renewable resources from fuel minerals to precious metals and gemstones. The fact that humanity as a species has continued to grow more and more populous over the years with more advanced and oftentimes environmentally hazardous technology with which to accomplish the expansion of their civilizations has sadly only made matters direr. Henceforth, to punish the “weaker” and “more corrupt” half of humankind for its crimes against the earth and bestow the planet unto those whom she feels will take better care of it, Gaia has awakened zoanthropekind and over time has made them stronger and more capable of taking back the world in her name as well as more hostile against those who refuse to surrender Earth to them.

Though a skeptical man at heart with more faith in the tangible sciences of the world than in the myths that constitute a large portion of his very teachings, even Zacharias cannot overlook the coincidental parallels between these specific legends and the reality he and the rest of humanity face in the wake of the progressively violent rise of those called “zoanthropes.” The revelation of their existence alone may have been an eyeopener, but the discovery of the X-Genome Code and its effects upon its carriers’ minds and bodies has only escalated the situation. Therefore, guided by both his curiosity in the matter and his anxious hope for humanity’s survival against seemingly unfavorable odds, Zacharias has joined the Sicyonian Society to help quell zoanthropekinds’ violence against their baseline brethren and study the XGC and those who possess it to see how he and his fellow humans can better tame the zoanthrope threat.

How to Unlock: Beat Story Mode with Wanahton.

Dr. Grant Maxwell (a.k.a. Proteus Alpha, formerly Ryuzo Kato)
Home Country: Scotland (In-Game Version: Japan)
Age: 52 (In-Game Version: 71)
Fighting Style: None (In-Game Version: Ninjitsu (Kato School))
Beast Form: None (In-Game Version: Amoeba)

Original Backstory: Not much of one. Essentially, Hudson Soft had given Dr. Maxwell little more character development than being Steven Goldberg’s mentor within Tylon prior to betraying him to Busuzima and allowing him to transform Steven into Stun.

Reboot Story: An accomplished pharmacist from Scotland even before the Tylon Corporation had recruited him into its fold, Dr. Grant Maxwell specialized in the manipulation of human DNA to mimic that of nonhuman animal species, thus making him a natural when it came to studying and manufacturing zoanthropes. His knowledge of DNA manipulation especially proved to be useful for Tylon when it came to creating zoanthrope soldiers who could transform into beasts that most other zoanthropes couldn’t, particularly invertebrates (e.g., insects and other arthropods) and compound creatures (e.g., Project Uranus). However, after Tylon’s public collapse roughly six years ago, the organization had to restructure its Pharmaceutical Research Division and place Maxwell in charge of one of its latest projects, the Sicyonian Society. It is by serving as the Society’s Lodge Keeper and assigning its hunters to track down and either capture or kill various “Coded” zoanthropes that Maxwell hopes to collect enough strands of the X-Genome Code with which to forge the conglomerate’s latest supersoldier, Uranus Gamma.

As far as his personality goes, Dr. Maxwell is a strict, hard-nosed man who has so thoroughly dedicated himself to science that he gives little to no thought of maintaining any kind of relationship outside of the one he has with the Tylon Corporation. To him, nothing matters but scientific progress and the outcome of whatever experiments he performs, either those that Tylon has assigned him to complete or those that he performs of his own free will. Such would explain why he betrayed his own apprentice Steven Goldberg leading into the latter man’s capture by Busuzima and subsequent metamorphosis into Stun. Likewise, his relationship with Busuzima would more likely than not be put up on the rocks once Maxwell leaves him high and dry with the blame for the Sicyonian Society’s activities while escaping capture himself with whatever XGC samples, experiment data, and so on he can get his hands on that would benefit Tylon’s post-“death” operation. As such, one would not be wrong to suggest that Grant Maxwell’s attitude and behavior have dehumanized him and made him transform into the personification of Tylon itself: an uncaring entity so obsessed with progress that the welfare of those whom it hurts is one of the last things on its mind. So numb is he in this regard, too, that he might very well neglect to understand that he is every bit as expendable to his employers as Busuzima is and that should he ever produce results from which the corporation cannot benefit, he as well will find himself destined to traverse a very cold, lonely, miserable road. On the other hand, it could be that Maxwell understands this principle all too well and secretly fears for his occupation and his life despite his usually stone-faced demeanor and is willing to preserve both at any cost—even that of whatever friendships he’s made with his fellow scientists along the way, which could just as easily lead him head-on towards a grim fate.

One last thing to note is that while the real Dr. Grant Maxwell is a natural-born human with no combat training whatsoever, the version whom players will confront directly in the game is an amoeba zoanthrope who’s well-versed in the Kato School of Ninjitsu. That’s because, as you’ve probably already guessed, this latter version is none other than the liquified remnants of Ryuzo Kato brought back to life—complete with further genetic alteration and a complete brainwash—to serve as Maxwell’s clone/bodyguard under the codename “Proteus Alpha.” Don’t be too surprised, either, to find more advanced models of this specific character in later installments of my Bloody Roar reboot, either, as he/it is key to me bringing certain other familiar elements back into the BR narrative, albeit in ways more conducive to the whole “Tylon = Illuminati” storyline I have in mind.

How to Unlock: Beat Stage 9 in Arcade Mode with any character without using continues. You need not defeat Uranus in Stage 10 afterwards to unlock Maxwell.

Uranus (a.k.a. Uranus Gamma, formerly Eva Rosenberg)
Home Country: Sweden
Age: 25
Fighting Style: Superpowered Hybrid
Beast Form: Chimera

Original Backstory: Sparse at best. All that Hudson Soft’s writers themselves had ever given about Uranus is that she’s the third in a line of supersoldiers that Tylon had created via Project Uranus with the DNA and battle data they’d gathered from Uranus Alpha, which was the creature they’d made Uriko into during the events of Bloody Roar 1. Even today, the question remains as to whether Uranus was a direct clone of Uriko’s post-experimental DNA (just as Shenlong is a direct clone of Long), an ordinary human whom Tylon had enrolled as a test subject into Project Uranus post-Uriko, or even a version of Uriko from the future. There were also rumors that came out shortly after the release of the original BR 3 that she was the older sister Xion had murdered at the beginning of his story—the sibling whose heart was attached to the “trivial world” and who, according to Long’s playthrough in BR 3’s Arcade Mode, returned as the evil spirit responsible for controlling Xion’s actions in the name of the Unborn. These rumors, however, proved to be based on incorrect information, seeing as the very beginning of Xion’s Arcade Mode playthrough distinctly shows him standing over the corpse of a zoanthrope with a brown hide whom he specifically refers to as “Sister.” On a similarly interesting note, this same zoanthrope bore an oddly similar (though not identical) resemblance to Mitsuko’s beast form, which also led plenty of BR fans to assume that Xion had killed Mitsuko at the beginning of BR 3 as well.

Reboot Story: Even though the rumors behind Uranus and Xion being siblings turned out to be false, I still find the idea to be food for thought, considering that both characters were at least apparently Caucasian; had unusually colored, almost metallic-looking hair; made their series debut in BR 3; had beast forms that were supposed to be more fantastic in comparison to those of the other fighters; and had Beast Drives whose names bore either a noticeably doom-and-gloom (i.e., “1B8 ‘Apocalypse’” and “Outbreak”) or a strictly Biblical flare (i.e., “1B5 ‘Baptism’” and “Ascension to Heaven”) to them. That being said, my reboot would feature the duo as siblings with Eva, the older sister, managing to escape persecution from beast hunters alongside her younger brother Johan and falling into the custody of Dr. Maxwell. From there, both siblings undergo experimentation at the hands of Maxwell and his fellow Tylon scientists to become Xion and Uranus Gamma, respectively. However, while Maxwell has cleared Xion for activation as a zoanthropic beast hunter for the Sicyonian Society, he’s kept Eva catatonic for a spell while the Society’s hunters gather enough XGC from their prey to fuel her system. It is only when the hunters finally collect enough Code-laced DNA for Uranus Gamma to be fully functional by Maxwell’s standards that he allows her to act, and even then, her actions are limited to a number of test runs against captured zoanthropes to determine the efficacy of the strands of XGC flowing through her veins and the superpowers that those strands have given her. Additionally, as was the case with Uriko six years ago, Maxwell has completely brainwashed Eva—all the better for her to remain at his mercy until Johan comes back to his senses and finds out for himself the hard way what his and his sister’s master have truly done.

How to Unlock: Reach Stage 10 in Arcade Mode without using continues and beat Uranus. You only have one chance to defeat her, else you’ll have to start all over again.

This hereby concludes my reboot of Bloody Roar 3. 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 fourth 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./2022 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 4: Bloody Roar 4: Animal Kingdom

My Bloody Roar Reboot Revisited part 5: Bloody Roar 5: Predestined Evolution