You might think Platform Fighter is a predictable genre limited to whatever Super Smash Bros. game comes out next, but there’s one little indie proving that that’s not true.
While games like Multiversus or Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl have failed to capture an audience, Platform Fighter has been thriving.
This plucky indie game turned cult classic indie series from the minds of passionate Melee fans hooked many people with its first entry. Namely, the lack of shields or ledges and a focus on parrying made it stand out, and it had some incredible pixel art to boot.
However, that appeal led to much confusion whenRivals of Aether II(originally called Rivals 2) was announced, as it seemed this series was ready to embrace the mainstream norms, at least within the platform fighter sub-genre.
This puts Rivals of Aether II in the unique position of needing to prove itself far more than its predecessor did, given it’s mechanicallyquite similar to Smash Ultimate.
While any platform fighter can be fun with friends, the truly standout ones require a lot of care to ensure their everlasting depth and quality. And here, we find out if Rivals of Aether 2 successfully makes the jump from underdog to industry titan, or fails to stick the landing.
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A Quarter-circle Back
The story of Rivals of Aether II is effectively non-existent as it stands. This might seem rather disappointing to those who enjoyed the smattering of plot points in the original game and the more in-depth narrative in Dungeons of Aether, but the developers assure fans that a story mode is coming eventually.
Aether Studios have said through their Kickstarter that the story mode will be a full campaign, similar to that of Subspace Emissary in Brawl,written by Sonic writer Ian Flynn. While that all sounds nice in theory, it is exclusively in concept, so we’ll have to wait and see.
The bits of narrative scraps we get primarily through trailers and other outside material are nice, but I’ll be waiting for the day we get to play through a fun platformer-fighting game adventure.
As it stands currently, we can only review what’s in front of us, and seeing as that’s a whole lot of nothing, that’s a black mark against Rivals of Aether 2 at the time of writing.
Dancing Around The Competition
While most platform fighters that aren’t Smash feel borderline terrible to play, Rivals is just about the only one that nails platform fighting. Rivals of Aether II, in particular, feels like Smash Ultimate in terms of speed, but with a skill ceiling rivaling Melee, especially with Rivals' more in-depth characters.
These characters range from more fundamental, easy-to-pick-up-and-play fighters like Clairen or Zetterburn to complex, tech-heavy fighters like Loxodont and Maypul.
You’ve usually got a fun, interestingly built character with a few moves tastefully stolen from Smash, but with the caveat of what feels like a million hidden skills that enrich mastering each character.
This is done especially well by integrating techfrom all over the Platform Fighter genrewhile not straying away from having unique ideas.
Namely, the additions of special getups and pummels give you a lot more options when you’re down and make suffering in disadvantage hell quite a bit more fun.
The only negative thing I can say is that Rivals of Aether 2 would really be better off doing its own thing instead of doing what “works” sometimes.
Namely, I think the ledge mechanics, shield breaks, andespeciallythe angles you need to hold for optimal DI could have used a rework to be more intuitive.
Overall, this is just an incredibly solid platform fighter where the gameplay gives you time to breathe without ever feeling the slightest bit slow.
It feels very comparable to Smash Ultimate, which is crazy considering it’s only half the price. It has some things I’m picky about, but it’s hard to deny that this game feels incredible to play.
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A Challenger (Never) Approaches!
While you might be conditioned to expect unlockable characters and stages in this game, you actually have every piece of non-cosmetic content unlocked at the start. This is pretty great to me since that means the unlockables focus more on cool skins, icons, and in-game currency.
You get these unlockables by leveling up characters, so instead of a random draw for the character you like, if you play Fleet, you’ll get skins for Fleet.
you may earn most cosmetics through grinding, and that grinding rewards you. The better you are at the game, the more matches you win, and the more loot you get. Simple, effective, and addictive.
On top of that, while the story mode is still in development, there’s a Classic Mode-esque arcade mode where you go through several increasingly tough rounds as whatever character you want.
If you’re truly dedicated to the completionist process, you’ll spend hundreds of hours overcoming skill issues and hating Maypul, and that’s awesome.
Fishing for Skins
While the idea of a $30 game with an in-game store where you can spend real money might seem awful, you’re never forced to spend a cent.
Everything in the shop will stay in the shop forever to minimize FOMO as much as possible, and nearly every skin can be earned by grinding out the character’s levels.
Character levels do take forever to get, though. Even if you’re Loxodont’s biggest fan, and you play him for hours each day and always win, you will still take a ton of time to hit level 50. As far as I’m aware, levels give out rewards through level 99, so you’ve got a lot of violence ahead of you.
I’d be mad at this grind-fuelled nature if it weren’t for entirely cosmetic things, but luckily, you can never gain an advantage by paying real money.
You can pit a player on a fresh profile against a player who’s got too much free time and every character at 99, and it’d still be a fair fight, which is exactly what you want.
A Graphical Mix-up
Rivals 2 takes a unique approach to its visual style, being cel-shaded without that ever feeling like a reductive design choice. It’s not going to appease everyone, but this choice does ensure that it’ll still run well and look great on any machine.
Every sword slash, claw attack, or arrow has an accompanying 2D particle effect that changes color and appearance based on your alt, which is a welcome aesthetic touch, and generally speaking, the blend of 2D effects with an overall 3D format works beautifully in practice.
Plus, from an accessibility standpoint, more so than any other platform fighter, as long as my friends and I were all playing in different colors, it was incredibly clear what was happening, even with four fighters on screen.
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The only issue arise when two alts share a similar color palette. This happens quite frequently, with each character having blue, red, and green alts that all share a very similar brightness and hue.
It’s even more prevalent with two characters having similar alts, like Blue and Purple Clairen being difficult to tell apart in the heat of a battle.
At the end of the day, though, the game does look incredible, even if it could be way better for clarity’s sake and especially for colorblindness.
The art direction, while in complete contrast to the original, can be seen as a resounding success and makes this look unique from every other platform fighter, even if it’s not as polished as its pixel art predecessor.
But even if you aren’t a fan of the visuals, one thing hasn’t changed from the first game: the incredible soundtrack by FlashyGoodness, which never fails to deliver awesome, fast-paced tracks to fight or relax to.
The transcendent electronic bops are back in full force, with slower-paced and chill music for the menus that will put you in a trance for hours on end.
The overall sound design isn’t slacking either, each hit selling the impact incredibly well, and each bit of audio stands out amongst the cavalcade of noise in the average fight.
This is especially helped by the new voice lines, with every character sounding exactly like what I’d pictured in my head and all of them having instantly iconic deliveries.
It’s a visual and soundscape to behold, with complete mastery over the craft being readily apparent.
I’d say this game is even better at quickly and clearly indicating every piece of information you need to know than its contemporaries, and that includes Smash Ultimate. It has the sauce and style, and it won’t slow down for even a minute to deliver.
Closing Comments:
Rivals of Aether II gives fans of the genre a lot to love, with the promise of even more on the way, and the game is constantly getting patches and improving. If it offered a proper story mode and slightly more intuitive mechanics on top of cleaning up the skins for clarity’s sake, it would be up there with the best fighting games ever. It feels incredible to play, the music is awesome, and the visuals are some of the most unique in the industry without feeling like they’re compromising for frame rate. If you’re a fan of Smash Bros. gameplay, you owe it to yourself to give Rivals of Aether II a shot, but you should know that it’s still a work in progress, even after release.
