Primal Rage II - What Happened? 

Funny how Midway bought out and dissolved Atari arcade and then Midway got bought and dissolved by WB

Rage fans: "I'll give you money for this." WB: "No."

This and Bloody Roar both need revivals like Killer Instinct.

Fun fact: Mortal Kombat 11 has a Primal Rage arcade cabinet on the far left-hand side of its Retrocade stage.

"They brought the competition so they can no longer compete." Disney in a nutshell.

Holy shit, you just cleared up a childhood mystery for me. I loved the fuck out of that toyline as a kid but I had no idea who the cool zombie dragon was and why he wasn't in the game. I legit kept renting the game because I was convinced he had to be in there somewhere. It drove me nuts.

No gonna lie that Chris Tang had a sick dreamcast jacket.

Midway: This sequel can’t exist Galloping Ghost: You see, now that’s where you’re wrong.

Find someone who talks about you the way Matt McMuscles talks about Kaiju.

The game had so much to love: giant monsters, post-apocalypse and brutal finishers. The whole Primal Rage universe needs a revival!

We need a Jump Force - What Happened?

The stop motion in these titles is fantastic. It's like playing a Ray Harryhaussen film.

That was actually really smart 6:21 a good way to listen to feedback but not isolating players who loved fighting as beasts

Wait Neatherrealm/WB owns the Primal Rage license? Wait does that mean that tweet from Ed Boon about a Kaiju fighting game was referring to a Primal Rage reboot? 👁

Man it would’ve been dope to see Reptile as a secret fighter in Primal Rage

Ed Boon did a poll of people wanted a monster verse fighting game after the release of Godzilla vs Kong. Should such a game come to fruition, it could theoretically be a test bed for a Prinal Rage reboot.

"I'm sure a lot of you have PTSD from MK3 Shang Tsung." Ah yes, nothing quite like getting snapped out of a dreaming state and into fight or flight mode from such a simple line.

I read "Primal Rage: The Avatars" when it came out. I remember it being fun as hell with lots of gore and monster stuff. It's basically the plot of the game, mainly following Bizzard's avatar as he goes across Urth to try and recruit the other avatars to fight Necrosan, who's sealed the Gods away. And since I read it around the same time, Necrosan had Beast Wars Megatron as his voice in my head, with the rest of the cast as the other Gods. It was pretty awesome.

I only played Chaos because he had a fart attack and I thought that was funny. Also because monkey. How the devs interpretted that into meaning we prefer human characters is a mystery to me.

The balan vid probably won't happen for a while until we get more info

Yay. This is the first time the "Yea that makes sense" isn't meet with an ire of rage.

Having been born in 1990, Primal Rage was right up my alley as a kid, along with Jurassic Park & Godzilla. I had action figures, & remember a couple of the toys they released in anticipation for Primal Rage 2. What a nostalgia trip this was.

“What Happened” reminds me of those really good game docs on early G4. “There’s no way this will get cancelled.” Midway: “Anyway, so we started blastin’.”

All things considered, it's pretty amazing what the Primal Rage II team was able to accomplish in just 24 months. I'm trying to wrap my head around the sheer amount of work that went into all that stop motion animation.

Chris Tang is also the "Boom, Tetris for Jeff" guy.

Of all the game franchises to get a reboot/remake this needs to be one

God I would love a Wha Happun for Jump force or Balan Wonderworld. Though my inner Sonic fan is screaming for some insight on just what happened to Balan.

Fun Fact: In an issue of Dragon Magazine (D&D Magazine) they gave stats for Blizzard, Talon, and Vertigo both as Creatures and as gods that Clerics could get spells from. They get the exact thing they're god of wrong, but it's still cool. It's issue 223 if interested.

I grew up around the Galloping Ghost. They always had unique and hard to find game cabinets, so when they got a hold of Primal Rage II a group of us went the first weekend open to the public. HOLY CRAP there were so many people there and the air of excitement was like Christmas morning when you were 8.

I’ve played this a few times at Galloping Ghost and I’ve really enjoyed my time with it. A Primal Rage collection with both titles would be awesome.

This is one of the reasons I'm always pretty uneasy of large industry purchases (like what just happened with Bethesda and Microsoft). I like diversity in the gaming industry. Would be cool if Mortal Kombat and Primal Rage coexisted for greater consumer options.

Can’t wait for the invasion of “Do Balan WonderWorld” comments. That being said, please do Balan Wonderworld. Edit: So guys, we did it

Of all the games cancelled over the years, this one always hits the hardest for me. I remember having this game, the toys, and everything I could get my hands on about it. I really wish they decided to either reboot or at least finish this series. I'd love to see it on modern consoles that could handle its specs.

This has become one of those titles that I've only known through you lol

Episode Idea: Telltale Games. Just, the company in-general. I feel like there's enough bumbles, mismanagement, and controversy to make a full episode.

I had a pal that worked for Midway in the 90’s. I can confirm that management and marketing drove him crazy. Management would say “make a Mortal Konbat game but not actually Mortal Kombat”. My friends team had so many great game ideas that got killed by lack of vision. I guess that’s why they are no longer making games.

"i too know what it's like to have a dream that I'll never achieve" -Bender B. Rodriguez

That line 'you're wrong and also lame' had me laughing my ass off at 4am lmfao I'm gonna be saying that to people fr days

I’m glad that we got a happier edition of “What Happened” today, though I do wish that the devs were able to see this game release when it was originally intended. Since you’ve been talking about monsters a lot recently, how about a “What Happened” on the “Dark Universe” franchise, aka the multiverse franchise that never was?

Man this was an amazing video. Fair play to Gruntzilla94 for making a MAME version of the game playable. Nice to know Chris Tang is doing well and that people still enjoy Primal Rage.

A reboot with an updated art style of this would be sick and I'd buy the heck out of it

Thinking of other dinosaur centric series that could get covered, the Dino Crisis trilogy would make a good Wha Huppand episode I'd imagine. The first game being made as an RE clone (from the same company that MADE RE originally), to it's weird arcadey sequel, to it's scorned final third entry that has left the series nearly forgotten in the sands of time.

Feathered dinosaurs are cool

They really did make a novelation of anything.

Matt: The rights now belong to Warner Brothers... My Boyfriend watching with me: PRIMAL RAGE 3 WITH GODZILLA FROM GODZILLA AS A GUEST CHARACTER!

I should really give this a go! I’ve heard about it for my whole life but never played it.

(FYI: this is a pretty long comment) Great video. Really enjoyed watching it and it was very informative as well for those who don't know about the game or what happened with it. Still is very cool that this game can be played on the actual hardware at GGA and through emulation. When I was in the middle of emulating the first hurdle, the hard drive loading on it's own, I actually made my way to GGA to play the original machine to make sure that what I was playing emulation wise at the time was the same game since Primal Rage 1 was so bad due to protection. I was surprised the only difference I saw, other then the incorrect loading from time to time in emulation, was that on the actual game selecting the gods required something like 4 seconds and on MAME it was 2 seconds, before I even touched the source code for MAME btw. The hardware for anyone wanting to know is a variant of the Sony ZN1, a coin-op version of the Playstation 1. This particular variant for Primal Rage 2 is special since it replaces the standard 2MB of RAM for a whopping, at the time, 8MB of RAM to hold the information for I believe the sprites mainly since it used a very interesting way of streaming the sprites off the HDD. The gods were actually disabled from appearing from the game in this test build. Years ago when I was looking in the program roms to find out how certain parts of the game where loading and worked I found the character select array which contains the entire character select screen defaults, the default at this time would be both avatars and gods visible from the start of the game. Meta would need to hold up for and Necrosan was likely pressing up a certain number of times since the game counts the number of times up is pressed on character select and resets it whenever the player presses other directions just like when the Necrosan bit is lifted to allow up to change the players character to Necrosan and other directions disabled the bit and removed Necrosan from up. However there is something that is stopping the game from reading the entire array and only reading the last 8 bits which are the human avatars. If I remember correctly, it was because the devs wanted to see how players would react to the human cast. This version of the game is also not the most complete version the games source code contains the actual final build of the game which Chris Tang called the final lab build of the game adding new stuff and fixing glitches such as Talon's "Slide from Hell" as many dub Talon's slide in the current build we have. The source code is out there but who knows if it will ever be actually built and the resulting ROMs dumped. We can dream though about what was in that final version. To you Matt, I really like these what happened videos. I watched your KI one first and now this one was recommended to me so I just had to watch it. Keep up the great work!

Funny enough; my brother and I both received Primal Rage toys when we were young as gifts (I got Sauron and he got Vertigo). I do vividly recall my brother reading off the back of the toys' packaging "Coming soon, Primal Rage 2!" Years went by and I wondered if the game would ever be released before it just kinda drifted into the undertow of the tides of my long term memory. I'm so glad you covered this, it's an interesting story.

Poor guy two year's of hard work gone..I bet his eye's lid up when he saw the primal rage two arcade cabinet working in action over 15 year's later. God willing it will come back officially since arcade home cabinets have been making a huge combat lately. Nothing beats the arcades. I can't believe they're was even a generation not experiencing them growing up..such a crime.

I totally had that novelization for Primal Rage. I had always thought that Necrosan and the avatar stuff was something they had made up for the book, which now makes so much more sense since it was for a game that never saw the light of day.

I remember playing this at a Peter Piper Pizza in Corpus Christi, TX in 1996. People have told me for years I had to have been mistaken about that. Seeing this footage and hearing that there was location testing makes me feel vindicated and has unlocked some other memories.

I'd love to see Dead Or Alive next

I'd love to see an episode on EverQuest Next.

Yeah. Looking back i never noticed as a kid that there was never a sequel lol.

Didn't Ed Boon tweeted a question to public about a giant monster fighting?. I think the question was and I might be paraphrasing:" is there's enough giant monsters to make a fighting game?"

For the record, I played as Blizzard because he was a gorilla version of Sub-Zero and because the ice powers made him a lot less overly gory, not because he has hands and feet.

Props to Galloping Ghost for getting one up and running.

Im so happy this had a happy ending for the guy. Hearing how the game got cancalled was heartbreaking 😢

I have indeed read this novel, and its ... fine. Very tie-in booky. I'll have to see if I can dig it up again for a proper read-through.

As someone who has worked with stop motion I can tell you it is a extremely stressful and long process but it's really cool in the end

Primal rage is a hidden gem tbh, shame it completely got wiped off the earth just like the dinosaurs

Loved this video! Also, as I understand, the programmers messing with emulation for Primal Rage 1 ended up making all of the home consoles different - some lacked combos, others lacked blood and fatalities, in order to make sure the arcade cabinet remained the one true version. I could be getting some details wrong

I would love to find some of those puppets. They look amazing.

I hope that Primal Rage would get a reboot in a anime style artwork.

That stop motion is incredible. What a bonkers way to animate a game.

Most dinos have feathers "The future is now old man"

Shame we never got this back in the 90’s. The cabinet actually showing up in my area back then would’ve been more like a fever dream since the first one only showed up at my local Walmart but it being even remotely available would’ve been amazing!

I'VE READ THAT PRIMAL RAGE NOVELIZATION! I got it at a library sale when I was a kid because I thought it looked cool and I liked the game. It's kind of interesting; in addition to the avatars in question, it added the background that each of the monsters in the game are worshipped as gods, each with their own tribes of followers. I don't remember much beyond that, but I know I read the whole thing and enjoyed it at the time.

Man, I loved playing this with my sister. I can only imagine how much we would have played a sequel

I swear, just a month or two ago I was looking up "Matt McMuscles Primal Rage" and was a little disappointed you hadn't covered it. Then we get two videos in a short span of time. Sweet uncanny nostalgia.

still waiting for _What Happened Shaq Fu_

It's horrible that no Primal Rage toys or games are made today and are barely talked about. The game and toys deserve a lot more. I just started playing the Super Nintendo game again and it makes me so happy.

The Quiet Man deserves to be talked about here on this show

I remember finding out about PRII's existence through MUGEN. What a wild story this is, and a really sad way to die for Primal Rage, which deserved so much better. Still one of the best fighting games of the 90's, and I'll stand by that.

I miss Primal Rage. Lately, Ed Boon has been asking a lot of questions about people's interest in a "giant monster fighting game". He's gotten pretty good feedback so far. I'm really hoping to see some kind of Godzilla, Primal Rage type fighter in the next few years. And Netherrealm is damn good at spectacle.

So there WAS an R-Zone game! And people were claiming i was crazy for years hahahah. Other R-Zone games no one seems to remember: Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop, Battle Arena Toshinden.

I never knew about this! A really great watch and a nice ending in that the game can properly be appreciated. Have you ever thought about covering the near decade it took for Phantasy Star Online 2 to be released in the west? Especially when it originally had a western release planned and also shown at gaming events before launch.

Have you done a Wha Happun about Sleeping Dogs? That game was a true masterpiece and deserved a sequel more than just about any GTA game

I read the Primal Rage novel, though at the time I didn't know about Primal Rage, I just bought it because I saw the Red T-Rex fighting the Blue Giant Gorilla on the cover. I don't remember much from it, except the lady avatar for Vertigo was thirsty af, and Chaos was his own avatar since he was originally a scientist who used Blizzard dna to transform himself into Chaos, while every other god picked one of their worshippers to be their avatar.

Dude, I am so lucky. I was born in 83 and my dad worked for an Arcade Cabinet Distributor (Brady) where he repaired Arcades as well as built new ones for a show floor where they sold the newest games to local Arcades/Bars/Movie Theatres etc. My brother and I were some of the first to play games like Primal Rage as well as other classics like MK 1-3, Afterburner, Killer Instinct, NBA Jam, Multiple TMNT games and so on. No cell phones, no social media. What a time to be alive

I swear any show or game made in the 90s was only made to sell toys🤣🤣

The best part of this video was that they used Danganronpa music near the end

Wow. While I was privy to Primal Rage during the heyday of arcades, I had no idea so much went into its production. Thanks again for another educational vid, Matt.

This game was so familiar, I think I played one of the versions that came out. I remember using Kaze, thinking he was a cool Sub-Zero and Arik reminded me of the barbarian from Golden Axe.

Stellar work as always, Matt. Lately, I’ve been yearning to replay one of my favorite franchises from my younger years, Armored Core. Yet I can’t help but wonder, what happened there? Any chance you’d consider doing an episode on the non-assassin AC series?

Yes, I have actually read the book. In fact it was the very first book I was ever interested in reading outside of school.

Primal Rage was one of the most obscure game I ever played as a kid. Thanks for covering this Matt.

What a cool story. It’s a real shame PRII never came out properly though. I was pretty young in the 90’s so I didn’t play it much, but I always wondered why the hell is everyone playing fighting games with people, when PR had you fighting as dinosaurs and and apes. It seemed like a no brainer to 6 year old me.

Primal Rage needs to be rebooted!

I still pray for the day when Alex gets added back into Tekken 7

There is no more spectacular disaster as recent as Balan Wonderworld. That is begging for a Wha Happun.

I think I remember playing the game, but I remember more owning the Diablo T-Rex toy. I love it so much.

Deffff gotta do a Balan Wonderland What Happened!

I played it, it's.... something that should have gotten a chance honestly

I don't know how many people would be interested in this as much as me, but I would love to see an episode of this focused around Myst Online: Uru Live. Basically, Uru Live was going to be an ongoing MMO kind of thing set in the world of the Myst games. It would have let players socialize in an online community, and it would have continually added new worlds for people to explore and solve puzzles together. It was notoriously ambitious and expensive, which is why it crashed and burned, but it also looked it could have been really unique and cool. It does have a small but devoted community of fans desperately trying to keep it alive, but it still failed pretty badly.

I saw the title and was like "Primal Rage II - That Happened?"

I always wanted to know what happened to Breath of Fire V, and VI for that matter

I love it when a video game that was almost lost to history gets salvaged by dedicated fans. Matt, you should totally do more videos about games that were rescued from oblivion like this. The Bionicle game by Sapphire Inc. was also a great example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ThpxKCT6EL0.html And, while it's not quite the same thing, Ross from Game Dungeon hunted down the soundtrack to the Rama PC game and released it at CD quality: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Pu4n5YXPaMQ.html

Damn. I learned more stuff about Primal Rage 2 than I already knew and commented on with the Primal Rage video, thanks Matt!

I don't care this is a year old. You made me remember my slashfang action figure as a little kiddo on a failed float trip that flooded. Core memories for sure.