Introduction

Bloody Roar 3 is a 2001 fighting game co-developed by Hudson Soft & Eighting.

Game Mechanics

Air Cancel

Air cancel is only available in Beast mode, while your opponent is in float state (after a launch) you can cancel the recovery of your attack by jumping with 7, 8 or 9 and pursue your opponent into the air allowing for an air combo. You can also air cancel with 8P, 8K and 8B the difference is this attacks wont pursue into the air but still allow for quick recovery.

Air Recovery

While in float state you can recover your character by pressing P+K allowing you to regain control of your character in the air (provided you have not been knocked into a spinning state) you can also slightly adjust the angle that you recover at by holding any of the directions while pressing P+K. Attempting to recover mid combo can be dangerous as recovering will reset diminishing returns so repeated failed attempts can lead losing all of your life.

Beast

While in Beast mode you gain access to your beast attacks, commands and supers, attacks will cause chip damage and deal more overall damage, you will gain new cancel points and guard breaks (character dependent), gain access to air cancel and wall jumps, become heavier (harder to juggle), receive less damage when hit and will recover small amounts of life over time. On-top of this many properties of attacks and commands will change (though they are also character specific).

While in human mode your meter will recover very slowly attacking, blocking, evading, dealing and receiving damage will also build meter in various amounts.

Taking damage in Beast mode will cause your meter to decrease when its fully depleted the next knockdown will cause your character to revert back to human mode.

The meter bar has 2 states Blue and Yellow. While the bar is blue you are unable to enter Beast mode, when full it will turn yellow and start to rebuild at this point you are able to transform into Beast mode at any time but building it further will allow you more time in Beast mode, when you have full yellow meter you can activate Hyper Beast.

When you activate Hyper Beast the timer will freeze and a 12 second countdown will begin, in this mode your character will deal more damage, attack faster, take less damage, recover health quicker than before and gain any cancel point. you cannot be taken out of beast by any means until the timer runs out at which point you will revert to human mode and your meter gage will disappear preventing you from building any more meter or going into Beast mode for the remainder of the match.

Command Cancel

The core of BR3's offence and defence system, understanding when and how to command cancel is vital. Almost all command moves in Bloody Roar have set cancel points depending on character and human/beast mode pressing G during one of these points will cancel the move completely, Since lots of command moves can be cancelled into and also have cancel points on start up it is possible to make many strings, pokes and other attacks have frame advantages (eg, Shina's 1P which causes stagger on hit but has significant amount of recovery time can be cancelled into 214P and then command cancelled for a much greater follow up) or considerably safer (eg, a basic kick string with Xion becomes safe on block by cancelling into 236P and then command cancelling on the first frame of its start up 6KK xx 236P,G). Command cancelling also allows you to greatly increase the effectiveness of your mixups by cancelling moves mid animation during block strings and immediately going into a throw or different attack (eg, Shina uses 4PP xx 214B against a blocking opponent and command cancels 214B at the last second before it connects and attempts a throw the opponent only has a split second to react). Command cancelling can also be used as a feint or to bait out Evade attempts giving it many practical uses in both offencive and defencive play.

Deminishing Returns

Evade

Guard and Guard Breaks

Lever Recovery

Lie Down/kneel down

Throws