Way back in 1994, there were two very big fighting games that were leading the Silver Age of the Video Game Arcade: Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. During this time, fighting games were being released left and right by companies looking to get a slice of that pie. Some games were good, like Virtua Fighter, while others were, well, pure garbage, like Tattooed Assassins. During this year, Atari released a game that did absolutely nothing new of importance, save show how much damage combos did, and allow mini games to occur during a match. And this game was called Primal Rage. Plans were made for a sequel, but it never came to be. Today I ask the question: did the game deserve better than a single title? Did Primal Rage deserve to become a franchise?
Left to Right: Talon, Sauron, Chaos, Armadon, Diablo, Blizzard, Vertigo
In the game, you play as one of 7 Dinosaurs ancient beasts, four of which resemble dinosaurs, though 2 of them are just palette swaps of each other. The other 3 are a pair of palette swapped gorillas and a giant cobra headed dinosaur like beast. Each of the beasts rules a part of the world; The goal of the game is to beat up the other six beasts, in order to conquer the world. Really simple.
The seven characters are: Talon, a Velociraptor that aims to conquer the world for the Raptor race; Sauron, a T Rex who aims to eat everyone in the world; Chaos, a witch doctor that wants to become human again; Armadon, who wants to restore the natural balance of the world; Diablo, who desires to burn the world and turn it into a Hell; Blizzard, who wishes to return the world to its former state; and Vertigo, who wishes to use her powers to reshape the world as she sees fit.
The world was changed forever when a giant meteor hit, for some reason rearranging the continents into the shape of a T Rex's skull. This cataclysm is the reason these seven beasts are now walking the Earth (now renamed Urth) and trying to kill each other.
Thin story, isn't it? Consider that this was 1994, when the fighting game was still in its earlier stages, and the fact that said genre isn't known for possessing much in terms of story (not that many people even CARE for the story anyway). Still, it must be admitted, there is a bit of imagination in the story, and quite a bit more imagination in presentation. Come on, giant beasts fighting each other to the death? This is what B-Movies are made of, and it is AWESOME!
One unique thing about the game is the human worshipers, which you can actually EAT in the middle of any round. Sure, this leaves you a bit vulnerable, but there's a bit of black humor in seeing a giant beast just give itself a two second pause to chow down on a human that decided to get INTO the fight in order to worship the giant beast. It's always good for a laugh, to be certain.
But what about the meat of the game? What does Primal Rage do that no other game does? Well...
Let me just take this moment to mention the way certain games have influenced the fighting game genre. Street Fighter 2 made the genre into the power house it was during the 90's by being one of the best selling fighting game titles of all time. Mortal Kombat pushed the envelope in regards to how violent a game could be by prominently featuring blood, gore, and body mutilation. Virtua Fighter made the fighting game leap from 2D to 3D, paving the way for future franchises like Soul Caliber and Tekken. What did Primal Rage do? Nothing. Primal Rage didn't leave a dent in the fighting game genre at all.
Primal Rage owes much of its graphical presentation to Mortal Kombat (digitized graphics, blood and gore) while owing its gameplay to Street Fighter (the order you press the buttons and joystick allows for special, unique moves for each character). Now, does this mean it's a BAD game? No, in fact, the game is a pretty solid, fun little fighter that can be used to introduce someone to the genre. But that doesn't mean it's a GREAT fighter.
The game was not without its controversy. Perhaps the most well known was the controversy surrounding one of Chaos' special moves, in which he urinates on the enemy (seriously) and that enemy's skin was burned off, leaving only a skeleton behind (again, seriously). A woman by the name of Ellie Rovella started a grassroots campaign in order to censor the game after witnessing her 11 year old son use the move in the game. This led to the game being censored in all future versions, removing not only the move, but also adding a feature to turn off the gore by the player's choosing.
The game is not without its fans, of which I was one when I was much younger. In fact, the game holds a special place in my heart, due to being not just one of the first games I played on the Playstation, it was also the LAST game I played on my Super Nintendo. And that's not even mentioning the thousands of people, if not millions, that spent untold hours just playing the game, unleashing cheap combos, beating the game over and over again.
Why does the game have fans? Because it was a GOOD game! It was polished, it was easy to pick up, easy to master, but hard to put down. It was the kind of game that guaranteed a fun afternoon. The music was great, the graphics were crisp and clean as any good game should be, controls were intuitive and very responsive. Even the final fight of the game, where you battle EVERY character in one go without rest, was absolutely brilliant.
Primal Rage was not by any means outstanding, but it was good. But did it deserve a franchise? Well, there WERE plans for a second game! Sadly, it was canceled because Atari had no faith in the game. Maybe with good reason, maybe unjustly so.
The idea behind Primal Rage 2 was going to be that the seven original characters, plus one new character, were going to battle an evil dragon god via human Avatars. This raised the number of playable characters from 7 to 16, a substantial increase in playable characters. In comparison, Mortal Kombat 2 went from 7 characters to 12. Could the game have been good? Well, if it was anything like its predecessor, it almost certainly would have been. But it would have faced stiff competition.
There were some limited edition toys based on the game, a board game, a comic book, and even a novel that served as a sequel to the game, called Primal Rage: The Avatars. So, technically, Primal Rage WAS a franchise!
But it could have been so much more, had Atari just had faith in Primal Rage 2. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, that's the maxim of any business, and gaming is no exception.
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