Surprise, surprise... as a big NeoGeo/SNK and Capcom fighter fan, I have mixed feelings towards Primal Rage.
IMO, it's not a good fighting game, but it's certainly not bad either. It's average really, given a high profile in it's time thanks to it being unique in terms of concept, animation technique and being developed by Midway - massively famous for Mortal Kombat at that time.
An Arcade Perfect copy would have been better than anything available on the Jaguar at the time, however, would have still fallen foul of the excellent port of SSF2X and Samurai Shodown on 3DO. As it stands though, both the 3DO and Jag ports were pretty dumb, so it 'blends in' just fine with the Jaguar fighter offerings (KNinja & UVortek) and the intermediate offerings on 3DO too (WOTWarrior etc).
As Austin has said, like some of the (as he puts it) good fighters of their time, Primal Rage also made an effort to capitalise on the juggle and combo systems prominent in more ambitious fighters - like SSF2X, SS2, KOF94 for example.
Midway fighters could never technically compete with the likes of what Capcom and SNK were outputting at the time, as they were ahead of the curve in many ways. Healthy competition does that between rival companies. However, Midway had a different thing altogether really with their titles, which were more about the thrills and spills of pure tongue in cheek entertainment instead of being overly technical fighting games. As much as the likes of MK, MK2 and Primal Rage seemed to be all about the outset of gore and violence, I think these more obvious factors overshadowed the fact that Midway didn't take themselves or these factors that seriously themselves. They were amused by it all. They weren't exactly competing but setting their own trends in popular genres at the time; 2D fighters in this instance.
Whilst Primal Rage and the MK's had a high profile in the arcades at the time, it was more about the pure spectacle as opposed to the technical prowess, gameplay wise. Obscenely, you still get the odd person who champions the likes of MK1 being a 'better' game than SFII - even today, to which I say, stick to the Prozac... because, quite obviously, something isn't firing quite as well as it should be.
Ultimately, Midway fighting games are quite simply fun, but ultimately, usually quite average; peaking with the likes of MK2 and MK3 series (at the time).
Certainly better than Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, which isn't a 'true' 2D fighter to begin with. It's quite unique tbh and not really in competition with 2D fighter sin the traditional sense... unlike Rise of the Robots, for example