Review by Leighw.co.uk (Freelance Gaming journalist)
Bullfighting is one of those sports activities that still raises many question marksReview by Leighw.co.uk (Freelance Gaming journalist)
Bullfighting is one of those sports activities that still raises many question marks over the well-being or in certain regions intentional death of the bulls.
So when I knew that Toro, a bullfighting simulation was heading to Xbox one I was eager to see how it would be portrayed in the non harmful digital world of the Xbox One.
After a short intro sequence you find yourself on the main menu with the only option starting career mode, during which the first two levels are embedded with a tutorial to explain the techniques required. After that you can head back to the main menu which has options a quick game allowing you to select an arena of your choice and the opposing bull.
There's also an even more pointless training mode, which does a pretty good job of repeating what you're forced to endure in career mode.
For the light-hearted there's two separate mini-games to try, both are certainly mini, one see's you pressing alternate buttons to build power before hitting another to select the angle as your bull fires a bullfighter into the air, Secondly you have a 'quick time event' as you attempt to break through as many doors as possible, this rather repetitive QTE gives you increasingly shorter times to press the required button, get it right, you break the door, fail and..... well, you fail.
Both Mini Games have an achievement attached, but with no other challenges or leaderboard these will literally last you a few minutes before you head back to the main menu knowing your unlikely to visit them again.
The last few menu items are options, gallery and credits. Options cover the basics allowing tweaks to sound, language and contrast and the gallery allows you to view all the items in the game including the costumes, most of which look very similar. The bulls, most of which look very similar and even bullrings which at least two of, have some quite distinct differences, apart from a big circle of dirt in the middle, that's still the same.
Obviously the credits serve their purpose to give the developers a little recognition for their work on the title.
So we head back to the Career mode, and let's start by saying, it's certainly not a story mode, because there is no story, you're plonked into the ring of a small and quiet bullring to learn two basic moves for evading there's some glossy names for various twists and turns all controlled by holding LT to face the bull and then a combination of two buttons, and I'm sure Bullfighting aficionados will know far more about these than I do, but I don't mind admitting that like 90% of people who are probably reading this, my knowledge of Bullfighting is sparse to say the least, so maybe they didn't want to confuse us with details or background information.
Your career consists of about 25 events, which see you face a bull in a selection of mini-games, the first with a large cape, allows you to choose up to 4 of your favorite 2 button commands and then tasks you with repeating them consistently until the timer runs down, If you get a combo of moves without getting hit, then your points rack up but so does the bull's anger meter, this then initiates a quick time event. Here you simply press a combination of buttons as they pop up on the screen and then upon completion the bull suddenly chills out and starts charging as normal, other than breaking up your combo this also gives the crowd a small boost although they seem to make more noise when the bull runs straight into you.
This same sequence is repeated later with a small single-handed cape, thankfully you can choose a complete separate list of two button commands which look very similar, and often have exactly the same commands but hey, at least they have a different fancy name.
As well as this you have the part of Spanish bullfighting which is most controversial of all, first you stab two small barbed flags into the bulls shoulders in real the real world this would be to further anger the bull but weaken it too forcing its head to drop for the finale of stabbing the bull behind its head with a small sword.
These two rather unneccessary sections are both simple button commands and don't really offer anything to the game, there's no congratulatory bulls ear for an exceptional performance, nor is the bull ever pardoned for a life as a stud, you simply kill the bull and move on.
Thankfully due tot he lack of any cut-scene after the intro, there's no gory scenes, no blood splatter on the screen, and with graphics looking closer to the original Xbox than the Xbox One, it's almost good that the graphics and presentations are so poor.
As you've probably guessed, I've not enjoyed my time with Toro, I'm sure it will appeal to a few people and if you have the patience to tolerate the repetitiveness then there's enough to keep you occupied for more than an evening, but I feel that far more could have been done with a game about bullfighting.… Expand
