Club Retro 2021: March - 3D Fighters
Mar 22, 2021 11:54:03 GMT -5
Post by toei on Mar 22, 2021 11:54:03 GMT -5
Been playing the PSX Bloody Roars. I'm gonna write a more detailed post later, but I didn't realize before how much these games are inspired by Fighting Vipers. The walled-in arenas and everything that comes with them - wall juggling, wall jumping, breaking a wall at the end of the round -, all those long-distance running attacks, those back+punch moves that have you step back, then tackle - that's all straight from Fighting Vipers. Even Rave Mode is similar to Hyper Mode in the Saturn port (moves become faster so you can chain them more).
Another thing that's interesting to me is that Eighting turned into a very prolific developer of licensed 3D fighters after Bloody Roar - they've literally made dozens, mostly for Kamen Rider, Naruto and Bleach. Raizing / Eighting was originally known for shmups; while the company was young when Bloody Roar came out, it was mostly made up of veteran shmup developers from Compile, Toaplan, Naxat Soft and more. None of them had ever worked on a fighting game. Of course, most of that original staff either left or went into the business side of the company by now. Two more things: if you ever wondered what was was up with the company's name, it was initially two companies that constituted one operation; Raizing (which I think is pronounced "rising") was the development branch, while Eighting was the publishing/sales branch. Raizing was merged into Eighting around 2000, so the name disappeared. Eighting pretty much stopped publishing games long ago, too, and mostly work for Bandai Namco and Takara Tomy now (hence all the licensed games). Also, the Bloody Roar series was a joint development with Hudson Soft; most of the staff was from Raizing, but the director for all the games, Kenji Fukuya, was from Hudson. Hudson really pioneered this joint development model in the PC Engine days. They were the main supplier of games for the system, and they didn't have enough staff to make all those games by themselves. A lot of games where they're only credited as publishers on sites like mobygames or gamefaqs were actually co-developed by them. Blazing Lazers, for example, was mostly Compile, but one of the three directors/game designers was from Hudson. Star Soldier's game designer was from Hudson, but the programmers and artists were from Inter State/Kaneko. Etc.
Anyway, Konami bought and killed Hudson Soft, and I think the rights to the series were both Hudson's and Eighting's, so both companies would have to work something out for any new game to appear. Apparently they were always modest hits, so their past sales numbers probably wouldn't justify a modern budget.
Another thing that's interesting to me is that Eighting turned into a very prolific developer of licensed 3D fighters after Bloody Roar - they've literally made dozens, mostly for Kamen Rider, Naruto and Bleach. Raizing / Eighting was originally known for shmups; while the company was young when Bloody Roar came out, it was mostly made up of veteran shmup developers from Compile, Toaplan, Naxat Soft and more. None of them had ever worked on a fighting game. Of course, most of that original staff either left or went into the business side of the company by now. Two more things: if you ever wondered what was was up with the company's name, it was initially two companies that constituted one operation; Raizing (which I think is pronounced "rising") was the development branch, while Eighting was the publishing/sales branch. Raizing was merged into Eighting around 2000, so the name disappeared. Eighting pretty much stopped publishing games long ago, too, and mostly work for Bandai Namco and Takara Tomy now (hence all the licensed games). Also, the Bloody Roar series was a joint development with Hudson Soft; most of the staff was from Raizing, but the director for all the games, Kenji Fukuya, was from Hudson. Hudson really pioneered this joint development model in the PC Engine days. They were the main supplier of games for the system, and they didn't have enough staff to make all those games by themselves. A lot of games where they're only credited as publishers on sites like mobygames or gamefaqs were actually co-developed by them. Blazing Lazers, for example, was mostly Compile, but one of the three directors/game designers was from Hudson. Star Soldier's game designer was from Hudson, but the programmers and artists were from Inter State/Kaneko. Etc.
Anyway, Konami bought and killed Hudson Soft, and I think the rights to the series were both Hudson's and Eighting's, so both companies would have to work something out for any new game to appear. Apparently they were always modest hits, so their past sales numbers probably wouldn't justify a modern budget.