Rivals of Aether

its not good. wants to be melee but different but what it does different ends up being bad. really bad game feel which is a dealbreaker for any fighting game and you just get rolled online + trash netcode

gameplay is great, favorite competitively, but i do think the single-player is lacking

fwiw when I made my first comment the rating was like sub 3 lol, rn it's around 3.45 which is far more understandable

Single player content is bad but that's the case for most fighting games these days

workshop truly elevates this, just wish there wasnt as many sandbag clones

Pretty much impossible to make good singleplayer content for fighting games, closest you can get to decent is like, NRS games? Personally I hate those though.

Realised recently though that even though this isn't my personal favourite platform fighter, I genuinely believe it's the best one, especially competitively.

kind of sucks

For a long time, I wasnt a big fan of this game. I didn't like the lack of shield and ledge mechanics. In a recent turn of events I've come to love it, however.

I just played a Rivals 2 demo all weekend at an event. The new game has a normal shield and ledge akin to Melee. This made it much easier for me to get into. I discovered how to hitfall (the unique Rivals mechanic) and am absolutely in love with the new game

Now, for the next year I no longer have access to Rivals 2, and I will miss it every day. In the meantime, I decided to get into this game. Taking what I learned from the more approachable sequel, I have a whole new perspective on the original.

Using the hitfall mechanic to extend your combos is like crack. Whereas the entire game was confusing to me before, the hitfall mechanic makes the entire cast super approachable in regards to each character's punish game. My awakening here feels similar to when I discovered L-cancelling in Melee- the entire game just opened up for me and it feels like I can play whoever I want and be creative.

The parry and walljump systems I loathed before are now an acceptable new challenge to overcome since I at least know how to do damage once I get in.

I also finally get to appreciate the wonderful character design in this game. The cast is the perfect size and comes with a ton of variety and unique playstyles I haven't seen in another platfighter.

I now understand why most serious players find Rivals to be the best non-Smash game in the genre. You can feel the love in it and it has an immaculate gamefeel, with lots of room for expressive play. Maybe the best part is, from what I've played so far, the game seems to dissuade degenerate playstyles unlike Ultimate and NASB. I've ran into a few characters which seemed zoney and perplexing at first, but the parry system makes learning how to outplay these types a straightforward ordeal. Plus, there's no shield means no OoS spam.

The game also has immaculate rollback netcode, and the community is still active. I was just playing lagless, games against someone from another continent, and had no trouble finding opponents at my low rank.

I can't WAIT for the sequel, but this will definitely do for now :)

rivals 2 is about to be the best non-melee platform fighter easily