It’s Smash but the online isn't dogsh*t, and is in fact, good.

This game is so good I ditched my daughter’s piano recital just to play some more, and it's the same reason I'm sleeping on the couch tonight.

Reasons to play Rivals:
- Funny Ori abyss air attacks
- Shovel Knight is in the game
- DOGS
- Funny OP Ronald McDonald go BRRRRRRRRR

I just started playing the game as a big Smash Ultimate/Guilty Gear Strive player, and I can't put it down. Furry Melee is good as fu*k.

Rivals is a platform fighter made for fans by fans of the Smash Brothers series and its tournament scene. AAA devs make platform fighters they think will appeal to the masses and make a bunch of money. The devs of ROA need to make money for this game to have a future too, but it's not their priority to milk the fan base dry. They just want to make a fun platform fighter that doesn't punish the fans like Nintendo does.

Every platform fighter that we have seen play on the marketing strategy of Nintendo, being a bunch of famous characters fighting each other and enticing nostalgia or passion for casual players. I mean not all of them, but the most serious contenders (Nickelodeon, Warner bros, Smash bros..). This can sound great from outside, but what ends up happening is that a greedy, non-expert, non-passionate team of publishers have their hands on the project and try to milk as much money as possible, without thinking about competitiveness, balance, etc.

For Rivals of Aether, it's pretty much members of the platform fighters community who had enough of these problematic or greedy and unbothered devs. So the game at its core is made to be a good competitive game, and then "we'll see how we can make it profitable". We could quote other games that have tried this strategy, Brawlhalla for example (and that's a good game, in my opinion, but I don't enjoy it). But they made it too different from Smash, mechanic-wise, in my opinion. That's where Rivals have been shamelessly and open in trying to make the game feel like Smash as much as possible, and then polishing it.

I absolutely love Rivals and learning their characters makes me love platform fighters even more. With the smaller roster every character is so wildly unique and fun, they are all so well made and learning them is some of the most fun I have had playing any platform fighter. In most other platform fighters, the characters are kind of just an assortment of moves and attributes. In Rivals the characters' kits are a lot more cohesive. One move may change the properties of another move, a move may change your character's stats or movement options, it may create interactable stage hazards. There's just a lot more thought and care put into the designs that creates very interactive gameplay. Throw that in with it providing arguably more movement and tech options than any other plat fighter and you have a really special game.

That, and there's a surprising amount of interactivity between mechanics and characters. Two Orcanes can be empowered by each others' puddles. Ori can grab Absa's clouds and bash off of them. Shovel Knight can move Kragg's rocks with his shovel. Etalus can forcefully disable Elliana's overheat mechanic by trapping her in ice. A lot of thought went into how these mechanics should intertwine, in a way that Smash rarely engages with. One thing about it is that it seems to have just about all the mechanics from the different games. So melee players will have all the mechanics they're used to, while ultimate players will have all the mechanics they're used to as well, which should allow the players to express themselves quite freely.

There also seems to have been a lot of overall thought gone into the characters and how they would play specifically from a competitive standpoint. In Smash for example, it's extremely common that some moves are just completely worthless and should never ever be used and are completely outclassed by some others. In this game, every single move by every character has a use. And many moves also have properties beyond the obvious, for example Maypul's up air when used immediately after double jump will give her extra upward momentum and Orcane's neutral air when holding down the button while hitting the ground will allow you to bounce off it and hit again. My favorite thing about Rivals is Hit-falling. When a move connects you quickly fast fall it for better combos / follow ups. The movement just feels great. It also rewards you for knowing your moveset, every bit of multi hit moves can be fast falled and some characters need to know which hits are important for combos and finishers, especially noticeable on clairen where you can deny your own kills with forward air if you hit the tipper then let the second hit connect

One thing that isn’t often mentioned is the fact it's not developed by Nintendo. From an outside perspective, this may seem inconsequential, but it's not. Nintendo has been know historically to stamp down on competitive play, sending cease and desists to large tournaments and pulling out of deals last minute and causing havoc in the scene. This game is made by indie devs who have a deep rooted love for competitive fighters, specifically competitive platform fighters. They're involved in the competitive or "e-sports" scene and help nurture it. This is something the competitive platform fighting community has not had much of, and in my opinion, has hindered the growth of the genre.

In general, I'd say if you want to play something similar to Smash with a really well balanced roster that's easy to learn and hard to master then this game is for you but if you're looking for a lot of single player content then I'm sorry to say that there isn't much of that. There's a couple of really fun casual modes like tetherball and abyss versus and there's also just playing workshop and all the stuff people have made there which is usually fairly casual although plenty of people try their hand at making fair and balanced characters and a lot of tournaments now have a workshop bracket.

All this to say, this is one of my favorite games so I'm biased but I’d say buy it. And if you do decide on it make sure to do the tutorials first since there are some fairly big differences from Smash in terms of mechanics and then go to the Rivals discord (there should be a link in game at the main menu screen). The discord is where you can find other new players to practice with and maybe learn a few things before you jump in ranked or you can really just start playing against your wife’s boyfriend like I did.

10/10

muck

when you rival on the aether