Okie, Now time for nitty gritty nit-pickky analysis of my experience so far. I'm going to make a warning, almost all of this post is going to be negative. I don't want people to think I didn't enjoy this though, I did, I LOVE this game so far and want more of it, but @
RoA_Zam
is right when he says that the negatives are more important for a designer to know about than positives. Again, love this game, love the characters and setting, and I want this game to succeed, so I'm going to give it ALOT of tough love.
Don't say it's negative. Call it criticism. That was my mistake in wording. Negativity doesn't help anything, while criticism is something not positive, but can still be taken into consideration to help something.
The game controls just fine, some things that bother me though is dashing and wall jumping. In smash bros you can press Guard and press either left or right to dodge out of shield, but you can't here. You have to do it at the same time and it feels like it has a picky time frame. And why is dodging so tricky to use? Why can't it just be like in regular smash games where you just press the direction opposite of the wall you're facing? It was easy to do and intuitive. (Why is wall jumping either so easy to do in games or arbitrarily difficult, Im looking at you Super Metroid) I think everything else control wise has been mentioned previously, other than that the game feels great.
There is no shield, so how can you roll out of one by pressing L/R and left/right at different timings? It results in a parry + nothing afterwards if L/R are pressed before directional inputs.
I personally love how wall jumping is in this game. Once you dissociate smash bros style wall jumps from RoA wall jumps it becomes easier. I suck at wall jumping in SSBM but it's super easy for me in RoA. Personal opinions.
I had the game at my school's Gaming club, it was easy for people to get the hang of, and even the ones who don't regularly play Smash could win against the computer. But mechanics such as the wave dash and Wrastors air smashes they had no idea about. How's the game going to teach these mechanics to the player? Especially Wrastor's ability because it's so inconsistent to the rest of the cast, intact I'm still mixing up trying to do a smash attack on the ground, so I can only imagine how confused a newer player will get.
I've talked to Dan about the eventual inclusion of a part of the UI devoted to tutorial stuff for each character. It's not as important right now since it's the alpha stage and that the characters + new modes + new stages are the main focus right now.
My friends were able to pick it up within about 2-3 hours. If someone doesn't understand something, try to find a way to show them how it works. Hands on learning + Auditory learning is typically a winning combination to get someone to learn something.
Speaking of Wrastor, I'm going to make a post later regarding characters after having more time with the game but Wrastor has something that I feel like needs to be said now, HE HAS NO KILL POWER. Not even with his smash attacks because you ned to sweet-spot them. Why? Even with his crazy good combo game he still can't use any of it to finish a stock, and the one tool that he can use, which is already harder to utilize than the other rivals just due to the fact it goes against regular muscle memory, needs to be sweet spotted. If you miss it, even at high percent, it won't kill. It will with Zett's fire or Orcane's puddle, but not Wrastor -_-
Wrastor has great kill power. It takes a while to learn spacing though, just like Fox or Captain Falcon taking time to learn how to control spacing in SSBM. Every Strong attack and Up Special have good kill potential on stage. Up Aerial juggling like Marth in SSBM, forward Aerials to make a wall to get opponents off stage like Jigglypuff in SSBM, a Neutral Special that Kills at over 50% from the top platform on Rock Wall (Until the blast zones are increased from being so tiny on the ceiling), etc all make him good at killing. If you don't think he has kill potential, then that just means he isn't the right character for you.
1'll also say something really quick about Kragg since I know his "balance quirks" are always a much discussed topic here: So I realized that everyone's garuntee kill power revolves around their respective element. Like said earlier, for Zett it's setting people on fire (awesome), Orcane is being on his puddle, and Wrastor needs to be in the air. But Kragg can kill just using his normal moves, he doesn't need a crazy setup or situation like everyone else does he just punches stuff and wins. He doesn't have a weakness like everyone else does in the game and that's why he's so dominant, he doesn't even feel slower compared to everyone else which is the one thing that I think can balance him out better. Now mind you he's still beatable but the fact that he's the only one without ANY kind of handicaps is somewhat questionable to me in terms of balance.
I definitely feel like he should have slower moves. His mobility is fine since he's still kind of slow. I can gimp other characters all the time with his Neutral Special (Rock) all the time though, so there's that. My roommate has found rock as his primary method of getting kills since it's such an easy thing to do if you're patient to wait for an opening to throw it.
I mentioned in an earlier post about a flaw of the UI, the stock and character information along the bottom of the screen being a problem from a spectator's perspective. I thought it would be better when you're actually playing, but it's even WORSE. My last post summed it up so I'll just leave it at that.
Already been talked about way too much in this thread. Me and Dan discussed ways to make it more visible in match which will be implemented later. Like I said, the other things come first before UI though. Core details before Aesthetics.
The Biggest problem I see this game having is the fact that it will INEVITABLY be compared to Smash Bros. It's weird, when Skull Girls was being produced, no one bated an eye at it despite it being OPENLY identical to MvC. Smash Bros. did something SOOO different, SOOO Unique, literally an entity the world has never seen before, people literally debate whether it's even an actual fighting game. So because of this, EVERYONE is going to be judging it, for shallow reasons yes, but that's unfortunately the reality behind it. I already seen it happening in Youtube comments.
It's inspired directly by Smash Bros. It's a game about building up % damage. There's no way it won't be compared to Smash Bros. A lot of people will like the competitive aspect of it though. It has a fun leisurely side as well besides all the competition. I personally think this game is everything that Smash Bros could have been (aside from 2d style instead of 2.5d). I love this game as it is whether it's considered a clone or not.
In fact, I feel like this was Play Station All-Star Battle Royale's biggest faulty, the game was still fun and enjoyable (on a casual level) but I just couldn't shake the thought that "Smash did it better" on every aspect of the game. From the sound design, to stages, to music, to bonus features and content, Smash Bros even FELT better that PSASBR. Now the one thing this game still has over PSASBR is that it feels better, and I'm sure with some tweaks in sound design, will feel just as good as smash, but that's not going to be enough to help separate it from the 2nd world's most recognizable fighting game franchise. The characters and the world are going to have to be REALLY fleshed out and somehow made engaging if people want to connect with these characters they never heard of, which from this build alone, is struggling to do that.
I honestly disagree with almost all of this. I think this game is doing it just fine. You have to remember that this is still just an alpha version of the game. It's going to be sooo much different by the end of the year when it's scheduled for release.
I know other people mentioned this in the past but I'll repeat it just because it REALLY needs to be emphasized, the characters feel somewhat lifeless. I'm sure there's going to be a story mode, but having even just taunts would REALLY help solidify an identity for these characters. And when you're trying to sell your fighting game starring an unfamiliar cast, it's going to be a tough sell. All the biggest Fighting Game franchises now have well established cast that are familiar worldwide, or are based on pre-existing franchises. Skull Girls had an original cast too but their character designs where so unique and intriguing, not only was it visually striking and interesting to look at, but is also says so much about their past, personality, place in the story, AND told SO MUCH about the world they lived in. This grab's people's attention just enough to wanna learn more about them and get invested in them as characters, and not just as a picture on a screen that moves around and punches for you. Unfortunatly (I really hate saying this) Rivals doesn't have that. The character designs are sadly underwhelming. An anthropomorphic Lion?? NEVER SEEN THAT BEFORE!!! (Except Wing Commander, Guild Wars, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Final Fantasy X & Magic the Gathering off the top of my head) BUT HE'S ON FIRE GUYS!! WHOOOAAAOOHH!!!!!!!!! Meanwhile Orcane is a whale with legs…. Whoot. Aaaand we got Falco. Kragg is the only one who stands out as a unique design but even then the basic concept has been done before. (Make him blue and BAM Ya got Heracross) Look I'm not trying to sound like I'm hating, I'm just trying to say you got a REALLY hard sell on your hands for people who are going to be unfamiliar with this game.
Dan was planning on adding taunts, but they're not too important right now.
Rivals of Aether is a completely new IP. As a game in indie development, where is Dan going to get familiar characters from? I personally think they're all very creative. Especially the next one he's going to reveal, which you'll all get to eventually see soon.
Keep in mind that the game will have a Story mode where you learn about characters and presumably unlock others through progressing the story. You'll learn backstories like what he has on the site for each character already, but it'll go more in-depth in-game while all tying in to the concept of Greek Alchemy and the 5th element of Aether.
Lastly, as I was reaching the end of my play session I thought to myself, "I love this game, but if this is all there is too it, I can see myself getting bored with it REALLY fast." I understand this is just a beta created soley to test the core gameplay, which is of coarse the most important part, so OF COARSE a lot of content is going to be left out. But this is something that even AAA fighting games fail to do, all they have in terms of content are Arcade, Multiplayer (local and online) and Training mode…. thats it, in terms of gameplay. (FOR 60$$$!?!? F*** YOU CAPCOM SERIOUSLY!!) Now I know most of these games are aimed for a strictly skilled and competitive audience, as is this game, but one of the reasons why Smash Bros was so successful to both casual and competitive audiences (among many other reasons) is the fact that it gave the player so many activities to do within the game BESIDES just straight up beating each other. Yes there's the standard Arcade & Multiplayer, but there's also event matches, the stadium, Special Smash modes, hours spent collecting trophies, and those are all the universal modes across games. There's the Story mode in brawl, Smash Run and Smash Tour, hell even Project M has All-Star mode, Turbo mode and their unique spin on the blastzone-less stamina mode. All these modes where not only stupid mindless fun to have with friends, or by yourself, but they also provide different challenges to the player to better hone their skills at the game.
http://rivalsofaether.com/presskit/#features
Doing research before stating things always helps.
Now I know Dan is only one person, so of coarse I'm not going to expect him to add the same amount of content as smash, but there's gotta be an easy, simple way to add new twists to the gameplay that not only add a lot more replay ability and variety to the core gameplay, but also help serve as a training tool to it's players, which would be so beneficial considering the kind of audience this game is aimed towards.
New twists? Like being able to act out of air dodge, wall jump out of a fall state from a recovery, parry, having air-based smash attacks, having a puddle to use to strengthen your attacks or as a portal, being able to make big pillars, etc? Yeah I wish we had way more twists than we already do since we're only
halfway done with characters and maybe
less than 1/4th of the way done with all the game modes that will be implemented?
I just want to re-iterate since I know I got a little ranty in some parts, but I LOVE THIS GAME. Despite the negatives it still feels like the competitive smash game I've always asked for; a fun and intuitive combo system, fast but not too fast to the point of being incomprehensible like Melee or PM, and tech-skills are down played as a necessity to be good, and even then the techs have been streamlined to be far more intuitive and a proper tool rather than something that has to be mindless grinded out. I REALLY want this game to be a runaway success story like Skull Girls was, but in WANTING it to reach that level I see a lot of external obstacles getting in the way. I know the people here, including myself, are going to be doing a lot to promote this game and get it out there, and I'll be singing nothing but it's good points, which is a lot in terms of gameplay.
I personally thought skull girls was frustrating to get into with having complex ways of stringing together combos. This game is intuitive and easy to get into within 20 minutes or so of picking up a controller and playing for the first time.
Also you
BETTER love this game.
I hope the official game gives ya the option to add colors.