Rivals of Aether

I absolutely love this game. I have spent hours messing around with the custom characters and modding scene because its so fun. It's a very fast pace game with a kinda small roster, but as long as you're playing on Steam, then you can get custom characters to expand your roster. Speaking of custom content, there's so much. There's stages that are just funny little things like Poke Floats, or full on boss fights versus tons of kirby bosses, dracula, and even some undertale boss fights. There's so much in this game. The story mode is short, but it brings a lot of charm to some of the characters and there's tons of plot holes that only get fixed when you play other characters' campaigns. As much as I hate fighting games, I can't help but love being able to put the god-like being, Ronald McDonald, against Mario Pissing.

The best Platform Fighter on the market. highly recommend if you've played competitive melee before

Best platform fighter game i ever played after Super Smash Bros, if you like the stile of platform fighters you should definitely play this game, it's worth the money.

Not only is Rivals of Aether a great competitive fighting game but it is one of the biggest surprises of indie gaming. The project has been lead by a passionate and talented team and it clearly reflects on the product after playing for hours upon hours. The characters are fleshed out masterfully in all aspects. Their appearance is simple yet inviting. Think Avatar The Last Airbender but with animals. But it doesn't end there, the developers put expert care in the gameplay. This title teaches developers a worthy approach to balancing a roster. Yes, it's true, there isn't the largest selection of fighters, but each offers so much depth that exploring two characters fully is nearly impossible. Each character has their strengths and weaknesses, and gimmicks that are displayed in their toolkit. But there is no overlaps or clones. Each character is different, and that's what fighters NEED. The sprite work is a love letter to retro gaming and revamps it further with fluid animation. The chirpy musical tunes synergise with the 16-bit stages to immerse the player in a competitive trance. The game on the surface is easy to learn for beginners but rewarding to those who want to devote the time to master it. Although Rivals is a fantastic game it does have its share of problems that I hope the team addresses heading launch. The game is unforgiving to people who play with keyboards. Keyboard play feels unintuitive and jarring compared to controllers, which may alienate potential consumers and players to continue playing. Also, the $15 pay wall indefinitely hinders the game to grow. I agree with this payment method personally and see that it supports the development team, but objectively it does push consumers away to rivalling titles which are cheaper or even free. Unfortunately, if such problems continue to exist it will negatively affect the game and it's playerbase in both the short and long term. Alienating potential players will make the game less lively; there will be less people to play against in either the ranked or exhibition mode. A lack of new blood will raise the question if it is worthwhile to continue playing to veterans. Admittedly, these are difficult issues but I have complete faith that the team will succeed. Ultimately, Rivals of Aether is an outstanding game and an even more special experience with friends. Most importantly, you will not regret buying this game if you are striving to 'get gud'.

This game is a very good competitive brawler. Pixel arts and characters are very colorful, and this makes visual a lot better to watch. Gameplay is very smooth.

Rivals of Aether is known for being really good, from characters to graphics to gameplay, the game is beyond average, and the fact that you can make your own fighter is just amazing. 10/10, that's it.

Overall this is not a bad game, but I think there are a few key points it really misses on that keep it from being either a good competitor or successor to Melee. Input buffer is a big one. A buffer NEVER feels right or good, no matter how long you spend trying to get used to it. I understand there are some hurdles to get around when making a game like this that's meant to be played online, but Melee online even with some lag spikes feels far better than the 6 frame buffer in this game. The characters. While I don't think that direct ports of characters would necessarily benefit the game, I do think that if characters ARE ported over, they should remain faithful to the original(s). Zetterburn... is an example of how not to do this. The character is mostly melee Fox with a pinch of PM Wolf thrown in, but with half the control scheme tossed in a blender and spilled back out onto the ground. Why is the "shine" equivalent neutral B? Why is the projectile side B? Why would you bother essentially copying a character but mixing up the moves? For the sake of originality? Please. The devs think they're being creative I guess but in essence are just giving the snobs that play this game an excuse to shout, "go play Melee if you don't like Rivals." Many of the other characters in this game are also clones or mashups of other Melee favorites (the goat is Mewtwo/Zelda, the sword guy is Marth with a little Roy, etc), with a few other semi-creative originals thrown in. The cast isn't disappointing (aside from Zetterburn), but it doesn't feel exciting either. The fact that they're mostly weird furries is a little... disconcerting, though. Not really my thing. The single player story and gameplay are completely awful. I have no idea why this was even put into the game. Just don't even bother with it. I do really enjoy the stage variation in this game as well as the customizability of character colors. There are lots of cool personal touches you can add to the gameplay. Still, though, I can't get over that most of the characters are approaching "furry" territory. Something about that still irks me. Rivals has more good than bad, but I honestly can't see a reason to play this game over Melee. Everything Rivals does Melee does better, even online.