Primal Rage

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Primal Rage
System(s): Sega Mega Drive, Sega 32X, Sega Game Gear, Sega Saturn
Publisher: Time Warner
Developer: Probe
Sound driver: Probe/Andy Brock
Genre: Action
ESRB Sega ELSPA USK OFLC

Primal Rage is a 1994 arcade fighting game by Atari. Probe and Time Warner Interactive were licensed to port the game to a variety of home consoles, including to the Sega Mega Drive, Sega 32X, Sega Game Gear, and Sega Saturn.

Storyline

A Meteor strikes the Earth and causes the continents to shift into the shape of a dinosaur skull breathing fire in an event known as the "Great Cataclysm". Sleeping giants of long ago are awakened from their slumber by these events and become gods for humanity to worship. With old Earth in ruins, humanity now sides with one of six gods and one goddess. From the ruins of old Earth comes the birth of New Urth. (that is indeed the correct spelling for this word in game: Urth.) Now, five dinosaur gods and two great ape gods fight to rule the New Urth. Conquering the others' lands in the total conquest for world domination.

Mega Drive Port

Limitations and Changes

The Mega Drive port isn't one of the better ports of the game. While most of the combos from Arcade version 2.3 were carried over, the port is more based upon the older Arcade versions 1.9 or 1.7. This means each character has only two fatalities since the 2.3 fatalities aren't there. Attacks exclusive to version 2.3 were also not included. Also, Talon's Shredder Fatality does what it did in the older versions of the Arcade game. Rather than leaving the opponent standing all mangled and cut up like in Arcade version 2.3, blood just flies everywhere like in the older Arcade versions 1.7 or 1.9. The sprites were scaled to fit the limitations of the Mega Drive hardware, which is often met by harsh criticism. The Color Palletes are also limited as well. Combos work much like that of the 2.3 version but there are some differences. Diablo's Fireball fatality is different than his Arcade rendition. Instead of firing a gigantic but pixelated fireball at his opponent like in the arcade, Diablo fires three small fireballs at the opponent and they spin around the opponent frying them.

Exclusive Features and Easter Eggs

Although the Mega Drive port had it's problems, it had some exclusive features and an exclusive Easter Egg. The main exclusive feature was to be able to customize the six button controller in options to allow two of the buttons to use one of the character's special attacks. There are three special attacks for each character available on the options to choose from but the player can only play with two at a time on the six button controller. The Easter Egg exclusive to the Mega Drive version involved going to the cheat menu and selecting the option "Okay Right?", then selecting Diablo to play as. Diablo's worshipers would be replaced by a devil with a picture of one of the developer's heads on it. The devil will bounce up and down at the end of the battle regardless if Diablo wins or not.

Controversy

The Mega Drive version was also controversial. There were reports of the game being removed from the shelves of some stores after a mother caught her 11 year old son playing Primal Rage and executing Chaos' Golden Shower Fatality (which is where Chaos urinates on the opponent with urine so acidic that it melts away the opponent's flesh leaving only the bones.) The mother was so disgusted by this that she not only returned the game but launched a "grass roots" campaign that caused the game to be removed from some stores at various locations, regardless of what system it was on. Even the SNES version which had this fatality censored on it was also removed from store shelves.

Sega Game Gear Port

Limitations and Changes

The game had to be severely watered down in order to be successfully ported. Only some of the moves and combos are present. Each character has only one fatality and Vertigo was excluded from this port. Most of the changes for this port are identical to those of the Gameboy Version of Primal Rage. However, unlike the Gameboy version of Primal Rage which had Golden Shower replaced with a new acidic puking fatality for Chaos, the Game Gear version still had Golden Shower in it. In addition to that, the Game Gear version was in color (albeit less colorful than some of the other versions though.).

32X Port

Enhancements Over the Mega Drive Version

The Sega 32X version is identical to the Mega Drive version aside from better sprite scaling, a more vibrant color pallete, higher quality sound effects with some extra sound channels for a few of the music tracks , and the odd removal of the "Okay Right?" cheat in the cheat menu.

Sega Saturn Port

Exclusive Features and Issues

The Sega Saturn port is actually nearly the same as the Playstation port except that it has some exclusive features. The Saturn version featured not only the opening cutscene seen in the Playstation version but also extra introductory cutscenes for each character. However, it does not display combo names like the Playstation version does. It also suffers from long loading times. However, most of the problems relating to music and loading present in the Playstation version were fixed in the Saturn version. However, it has been reported that the Saturn version has the same problem as the Playstation version where sometimes animations will stop at certain frames. These animations are present in the ROM but for some reason the game skips them in both version. However, upon loading the first fight each time the game is started up, these missing animations will display then for that first fight but won't do it again.

Prototype Dump

drx of hidden-palace.org recently obtained an alpha build of the Sega Saturn port of Primal Rage.

Physical Scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source Consoles + (FR) GameFan (US) Game Players (US) MAN!AC (DE) Joypad (FR) Player One (FR)

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Based on 6 reviews

Sega Retro Average
Publication Version Score

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Based on 0 reviews

Primal Rage

Mega Drive Version

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, EU
Cover

32X Version

32X, US
Cover
Cart

Game Gear Version

Game Gear, US
Cart

Game Gear, EU
Cover

Saturn Version

Saturn, US
Cover

Saturn, EU
Cover
Disc

Saturn, JP
Cover