Set on a post-apocalyptic version of Earth called "Urth", it has players control one of seven prehistoric beasts that battle each other to determine the planet's fate. Toys, comics, a novel and other merchandise tie-ins were produced.

The Story Behind Primal Rage

A Mac OS port was also planned to be published on November 14, 1995, and advertised in Macworlds January 1996 issue. The models were filmed through the process of stop motion animation, with about 400 frames shot for each fighter. This port excludes Vertigo from the roster and features a reduced moveset for every character and downgraded visuals.

It is based on the Genesis release but features more arcade-accurate visuals. It features Blizzard, Chaos, Talon, Sauron, Vertigo, and Diablo as playable characters, and Armadon serves as the final boss. Primal Rage was ported to the 3DO and published by LG Electronics in North America and Europe on November 14, 1995, featuring a pre-rendered introduction full-motion video sequence and smaller sprites compared to previous releases.

How Primal Rage Plays

There are also seven different background stages where fighting takes place, each one representing one of the character's innate domains: the Cliff (Blizzard), the Hollows (Armadon), the Strip (Talon), the Cove (Sauron), the Ruins (Chaos), the Tomb (Vertigo) and the Inferno (Diablo). After the opponent is defeated, a brief moment is allowed for the player to perform a finishing move to end the match in a more dramatic fashion; these are performed in a similar manner to the special moves. Two human-controlled characters can trigger easter egg minigames of human volleyball and bowling.

During fights, human tribesmen wander nearby and worship the creatures as gods. A total of seven fighters are playable: Blizzard, the ape-like god of good; Armadon, the ceratopian/thyreophoran-like god of life; Talon, the raptor-like god of survival; Sauron, the tyrannosaur-like god of hunger; Chaos, the ape-like god of decay; Vertigo, the cobra-like goddess of insanity; and Diablo, the tyrannosaur-like god of evil. Although all characters feature three finishing moves, some of them tend to the humorous side, such as Vertigo's "La Vache Qui Rit" (French for "the laughing cow"), a fatality in which Vertigo transforms her opponent into a cow, which moos and runs away.

Why Players Still Load It Up

GameFan praised the visual presentation of the 32X version, though the reviewers criticized the sound and lack of additional gore effects from the arcade original. They added that "There haven't been Game Gear graphics like these since MK IIs debut," and expressed astonishment at the absence of slowdown in the Game Boy version. Mean Machines Sega gave the Game Gear version a positive outlook, but one reviewer remarked that the game does not translate as well as the Genesis version.

GamePro gave more mixed reviews to the Genesis and Super NES versions, criticizing that the sprites are too small and the graphics in general are unimpressive, especially in the Genesis version. A worthy alternative to current beat-em-ups." MAN!ACs Oliver Ehrle criticized the graphics and sound of the Genesis and Super NES versions. Next Generation found that though the 3DO version accurately recreated the arcade version's graphics and sound, the visuals had become severely dated in the years since it was first released and the gameplay was never very deep to begin with.

Primal Rage — Frequently Asked Questions