Primal Rage

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
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Primal Rage (updated with developers stuff!)

Way back in 1994, a weird dinosaur fighting game wrecked havoc (duh) on arcades on USA and outside it, It was Primal Rage, developed by Atari and Time Warner, perhaps one of the most underrated games of its time due to the unortodox control method, characters and theme (also MK2 was still new and Killer Instinct was coming the same year). It was for me tough , one of the most awe inspiring game in my life.

PR was innovative in may ways that ppl think.

It was the first game to incorporate a damage % in the combo meter

It incorporated damage protection in combos after certain attacks

It had a “NO CHEESE” meter that prevented you from doing certain stuff that the programers considered cheap (and this eads me to think, those programers/testers were very VERY well informed/versed becauese PR has has NO KNOW INFINITES to date!)

It was the first to have universal OverHeads (UOH) for all characters to prevent them from turtling(Sure SSF2T had Ryus f+Mp and Fei Long f+Mk but those were the 2 only Over Heads it had)

All characters had command throws instead of regular throws

All characters could interact with their enviroments by eating the humans worshipping them during the fight

It incorporated different types of jumps heights, it had one of the first reversal/counter system (lots of ppl arent aware of this until explained)

An advanced combo system lets you Juggle, Chain, Link, Cancel normal attacks/specials into one massive combo (button mashing had no room hre)

New (but weird) control type to exeute special moves by holding first the buttons then doing the taps with the stick (In ver. 2.3 you could execute them as any other fighting game)

Dinos enter in Berserk mode when you got badly injured (Ok samsho was first with his Rage gauge)

It had air chains although Darkstalkers was first in that

Also it boasted the almost “usual” stuff that fighting games used to have: 2 fatalityes per character, Easter eggs (or hidden features) and other things you coukld find.

I will go into deeper info later, like fighting system, combo system explained, tier listing, special moves anda few combos if anyone is interested.

As a teaser, here is the link to the vid we at MKK did as tribute:

Thx to tobemorecrazy for uploading it in his account!

If anyone played it liked or notplease feel free to leave your comments.

EDIT: I recently made contact with Steve Riesenberger who worked in the game. I will ask him if he can/want to give us some insight on the game and developer stuff they only know

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Ooooh, tell me more.

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^ :rofl: :rofl:

Well, there ya have it folks. First=good.

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Yeah that “No Cheese” shit was a pain at times. Did’nt Blizzard have pusuedo-infinites with his freezing abilities?

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I think so but I wouldn’t bet my ass on it, it’s been way too long since I played, and since I even saw the game in fact

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I remember this game.My dad used to rent it for me all the time.I used to pick the giant Gorilla thing all the time.

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LOL

No please dont get me wrong! i m trying just to spread some love here for PR!

And the anti cheese meter stuff worked like these:

If you do something that the game thinks
is too cheezey, it will flash a “No Cheeze” sign. When this happens the
victim will not be hurt or stunned by the cheeze, and if the cheezey move
was part of a combo, it does not count as a combo hit and the cheezey
combo ends.

Attempted throw or unblockable attack immediately after a blocked
attack (while opponent is trapped in “block-stun”)
Attempt to use same special move twice in a combo (slow & fast
projectiles are considered to be two different special moves)
Attempt to use the same basic move more than five times in a combo
Two low 3+4s in a combo
Both Blizzard’s Freeze Breath and Ice Geyser in a combo
Three of Blizzard’s 1+2s in a combo
Three of Chaos’ 1+2s in a combo
Two of Diablo’s air 1+2s in a combo
Two of Diablo’s air 3+4s in a combo
Two of Sauron’s air 1+2s in a combo
Two of Sauron’s air 3+4s in a combo
Two of Talon’s low 3s in a combo
Two of Talon’s low 4s in a combo (version 2.3 only)
Both Vertigo’s Come Slither and Voodoo Spell in a combo
Vertigo teleporting in, doing a combo, then teleporting out

Nope, he just happen to have LONG as hell combos!

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I have loved the arcade version of this game for a long time. It was very fun and a good fighter. The other versions were pretty decent too… minus the gameboy one.

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LOL yes the portable versions were kind of bad, but if you allow me, they were far better than any MK port.

Watch the vid to see some PR GB action!

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This game always felt like the Midway take on Darkstalkers/Vampire. I still play this game on Playstation and Genesis (or emulated when I get the chance). I heard the developer who was checking out the video MKK did and I was wondering something Hanzo. Do you think you all will ever do a Primal Rage 2 vid? If anyone was gonna do it, I figure it’d be MKK!

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I love this game lol. I would love to actually play people in it!

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yes

Primal Rage is a nice little chunk of my childhood. I liked it alot and would ALWAYS beast on people with Talon or Vertigo. I just never saw anybody skilled played that game. I mean, now that I am 23 and I have been introduced to shoryuken.com/forums, I am aware of how un-elite I was.

Never even saw Primal Rage 2. That game was never officially released in arcades, or was it?

Anyway, I read long ago that Chaos (or the other monkey Blizzard) completely breaks the game and is GOD tier.

I am in Japan right now, so I’d probably have an easier time finding Mortal Kombat 2 comp than Primal Rage comp :wasted:

I haven’t played PR since I was 12 years old. I would love to get back into it know that I am older and more technical when it comes to games in general.

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Thx everybody for the feedback!

Well I emailed Steve Reisenberger about some stuff. I doubt ppl would be interested on a thread of PR developers ala SF The Movie Broke my heart.

Also I think that a PR vid would be cool if any emued version came out. The arcade is hard to find!

Maybe a few VS matches will entice ppl!

RAGE!

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i’d love to see some high level match vids of this game, especially using Chaos, that fool is too good. His corner shoulder charge combos remind me of Urien sooo much

and yeah, i actually wouldnt mind hearing from the developers now, like, what’s their involvement with Midway these days? i imagine not too much, considering how Primal Rage is pretty balanced and MKA is the brokeness =/

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YAY! I received Steves answer and I asked him if he can do a blog or if he has some written stuff about PR development process!

I will keep you guys updated!

I mentioned him that, its AMAZING how broke KI and MK2/3 were waaaay back then and PR wich debuted almost the same year is still balanced…altough Chaos rules!

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Any specific details on why Chaos is considered God-tier? I mean, besides the whole Shoulder Charge thing.

One thing’s for sure, though: Chaos is definitely one of the most disgusting characters in a fighting game. Golder Shower ftw.

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Well, first we must understand how works the PR ''counter" system:

After every blocked 3 hitsyou can get out of the block stun (Standing or crouched) with any attack.

You can avoid this and go in a second from attack to defensive. When the second hit of your string/rush hits the blocked foe, you can back tiger jump cancel (similar to back dash cancel in MKDA but with a back/straight up jump).

Chaos can make the best use of these in game features, if he is allowed to counter, he can do easily crouched 1 x 2/3 followed by crouched 3+4 into Shoulder charge > crouched 1+2 and that is easily +30%. This is also his BnB combo.

After knock down someone, you have a lot of options like mini jump in crossup with 2 hits or simply choose not to hit anything and whiff then go directly into Air Shake or Throw when you land or C. 1 BnB. Or throw a slow puke or fart of fury. He really has lots of options when knockdown someone.

His Crouched 1 also has high priority as well. Its ofensive and defensive at the same time and can snuff most of the stuff of all chars.

He can go under high jumps easily with his Shoulder Ram and his aa Is so so (C 1 or C 1+2) If you manage to land one of them, go directly into Shoulder Charge for more hits.

Chaos have a fast walking speed (Being 3rd after Talon and Diablo) and he can zone easily because of that.

Most high hits also pass right under him while crouched.

The jump cancels also boost his offensive even more. C 1 into standing 1+2 (backfist) are not a combo and the foe cannot counter, then you should Straight Up Tiger Jump Cancel into jumping 4 and from there you can even go into the same pattern to create an almost 50/50 mixup. Also keep in mind he has TWO overheads (standing 4 and standing 3+4) and you can cancel one into another.

I will go more into PR chars if anyone is interested.

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Hanzo you have convinced me to play this game again. I will try to buy the playstation version as soon as possible.

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Good Giza! I saw one on Ebay but it was pricey! Like 49$

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Oh, I loved this game when I was a kid. I always picked the Gorilla or the Raptor with the quill things. It was different, and if I can find my old Genesis and stash of games I’ll give it a whirl.