Rivals of Aether II

the game is alright, however the main two aspects that would never allow me to recommend this game is the extremely low player count in EU, and the horrid online community. people in-game have been fairly civil, aside from an occasional passive player who refuses to play the game, but when it takes around 7 minutes to find a match on average (usually anytime between 2 to 20 minutes in quick match queue which automatically queues you into all modes except for solos ranked), i decided to check discord servers seeing how its also recommended by the devs to match-make that way. advice ? dont. players are extremely condescending and dismissive towards newer players, and/or are very immature. not complete randoms either, 3 of my very first interactions were with people that claimed to either be tournament organizers, or server couches. there are very, very few new comers or casual players to grow with, and this is not the type of game that you can improve in by just repeatedly playing someone vastly better than you. from someone who personally found it enjoyable to do so in guilty gear strive, granblue fantasy versus, and tekken 8. i would say it'd take me around 120-150 hours to get the muscle memory to be average in this game as someone who never learned competitive smash before, and thats way too much of a dedicated time for sitting in empty queues and matching people who have at least 5 times the amount of that time requirement... i personally blame the "esports drive" for killing many otherwise fun looking games but that might be an entirely different topic. does it become fun after that time and effort investment? doesnt look like it. the only people that seem to be enjoying the game are fun players, players that would find ways to have fun regardless of the medium, most of which are rivals 1 veterans. and to be honest? my biggest gripe is that there is a fun game here somewhere, that mostly feels inaccessible with the dire player count and needless toxicity. if youre buying this game with a group of friends to mainly play locally or online with eachother, then most of the biggest issues might not heavily impact your experience.

As of writing, 525.5+ hours in this game as a plat player. I can't recommend this game if you want to keep your sanity. It's not the devs fault for what it's worth, they're the best platform fighting game studio since Nintendo in the early 00s. Dan Fornace and his team are excellent devs who truly care about game balance and making the game palatable towards both casual and competitive players, especially with the newest update. That being said, the players are grimy and care more about a W under any circumstances rather than actually developing their punish game and creating flashy and creative combos. Everyone on ranked and unranked alike play as if their mother and firstborn child are on the line. Oh, they lost the first game? Switch to Lox, Kragg, and now Slade and just camp corner until your opponent loses their patience. Clairens are especially guilty of this paradoxically enough and will rinse repeat the same approaches at level 500 that they did at level 3 even after you parry them multiple times. La Reina is 50/50 The Character. Zetterburn is Melee Fox/P+ Wolf with worse animations and anyone who tells you otherwise just hates that comparison because they probably play the character. The characters in this game all have insane potential for truly unique combo routes but, and I really do mean this, most players you encounter (I'd wager 80-90% online) do not actually care about trying them no matter what mode you play on. Very easy to tilt in this game and go hours without fighting a single unique player. I've mained Ranno, Fors, and finally settled on Maypul after getting many characters to level 100+ and no matter how much you want to Play The Game, there will be a hoard of people who don't. It wasn't as much like this in RoA1 and I can't help but feel let down not by the devs but by the transplants who saw better defensive mechanics and thought it was a free ticket to play as lame as possible. I regret most of the hours I put into this game, I'd say 350+ at least have been painful that I only stayed along for because this game is frankly addicting and pulls you into thinking it's worth it. It's not. I played Melee for a long time and left that because of the same reason, there's not enough time on this Earth to wait for other people to approach who simply don't want to. I'm maybe getting a couple more games in before I decide to permanently remove this game from my steam library, again, not because of the devs but because of the players. I sincerely cannot recommend this game in good conscience to anyone wanting to relax after a long day at work. Maybe if you're unemployed and smoke weed all day though. EDIT: Been a few months since I wrote this and saw a lot of comments on it, frankly deleted some of the nastier and bad faith ones but kept the critical ones that at least addressed the points. I did permanently delete the game from my library (only way I could get it back is by contacting Steam Support) and I have not regretted it a single moment nor had any desire to want it back. I'll occasionally watch an ep1c video on YouTube to see the current meta and I don't miss the way even the best players play. I can agree that the way the game is designed is the dev's fault but I don't think the rewarding of boring win routes is all that intentional and something they're actively trying to combat. I've put a lot of hours into a lot of competitive games both on PCs and consoles and this is the game that has made me lose my composure the most often, I know I'm not alone in that seeing people at tournaments, messages I got in game, and the amount of quit-outs I had while playing. I applaud the devs for taking good aspects of games they love and trying to mitigate out the bad aspects, but as is it has a long way to go if it ever wants to see Melee status levels of cult. I think the characters they're adding aren't helping the hype aspect of the game that Melee has had for so long without updates and they only seem to appeal to people who are more curious about their own personal growth via wins rather than the creative limits of the game itself. Rant over, this is the last I'll comment on this. Catch me in +R or R6.

It's just smash melee with furries except every character is strange except for Claren because she's just Marth edit: please stop queueing me in with the same person over and over again please

As an ROA 1 player and someone who loved the title for how different it felt in many ways to the rest of the platform fighters out, I simply cannot enjoy this game in the same way that the first captivated me. The sheer power of floorhugging/CC centralizes neutral interactions around those two mechanics in a way that heavily benefits certain characters over others and creates simply unfun gameplay cycles unless you tailor your play around them. It's not fun to fish for grabs and fight against mechanics that feel like they do nothing but hinder player expression, especially coming off of the first game which was so reliant on good fundamentals and callouts in a way that was super rewarding. I don't feel rewarded for holding down and winning an interaction where I got hit first, and it feels worse on the receiving end. It feels paradoxical to implement mechanics like ledges, shields, and grabs to appeal to the wider platform fighter audience and then provide absolutely nothing of note for casual players to enjoy beyond just spam queuing casual/ranked games. This game is so complex and intricately crafted that it is notably unfun unless you are fully aware of its intricacies; i.e. it is very unwelcome to casual players. Anyone looking to get into this game has to pass the 150+ hour check of getting bodied repeatedly, and while this was a fun loop in the first game because its simplicity made it more accessible, it just isn't the same here. I keep coming back to this game because I know it is well made and I know it's objectively good, but all it does is tilt me with unfun mechanics that feel like they're fighting against the fun this game can be.

Every ranked match is a battle against uninstalling the game. They have somehow manufactured the game so every character has some infuriating aspect to them that makes me want to do literally anything else. I peaked gold (scrub) but I don't care to push anymore because its just too frustrating (I play melee and other fighters like guilty gear and don't get mad at all) Don't buy if you are a casual or want to have a life otherwise.

Great game to play with friends and players at a similar skill level. It can be frustrating to get curb stomped, so use discord servers to find opponents rather than matchmaking if you're matching against highly skilled opponents and not having fun. What's great: - art and animation are gorgeous and highly readable - each character has a unique playstyle with in depth mechanics - comboes, spikes, and big smash attacks feel great - core mechanics are easy to understand and allow for a slow progression into advanced techniques - lots of great mixup and counterplay options - "battle passes" that are 100% FREE and not time locked (e.g. you can select winter 2024's battle pass today) - several QoL settings that lower the barrier to entry for newer players (e.g. wavedash assist, assigning short hop to a button, etc) - solid tutorials that explain and teach the core and advanced mechanics - characters are well balanced with frequent balance updates - lots of great cosmetics that are easily earned through gameplay What's not so great: - occasional performance issues (seems to be related to specific maps, skins, and abilities) - UI looks clean but is difficult to navigate and find specific things - character-specific mechanics are not explained or easily discovered without using third party resources - once in a blue moon game crashes when starting a game (never during a match, thankfully) - low-ish player count forces uneven fights when matchmaking during off peak times When I started playing, and for my first 20 or so hours, I prefered the mechanics from SSBU. After learning the depth of each of character and understanding the core mechanics, I much prefer Rivals 2. I love the ebb and flow of battle between advantage and disadvantage states. It always feels like there is a winning line, even when I'm down 2 stocks. Highly recommend.

Nothing but sweats play this game. I have played the arcade and training and watched some guide videos on my character and I have won 1/15 "casual" matches and all my placement matches have been again people moving like Leffen in the glory days of Melee. If you are trying to play this game outside of the arcade mode or on the couch with a friend you will find an absolutely miserable experience. That being said. The characters are nice looking and their mechanics are familiar with some cool twist. The controls feel a tad sluggish and unresponsive, but this one could be me because seeing how everyone else is moving Im eother missing out on some pivotal tech that either makes or breaks you from being able to play this game on any enjoyable level...or what you are all thinking by now. That I suck. Truth is I have over 3k hours in all smash games played project M which this very much feels like and Im by no means amazing but Im better than average at the least. As it stands the characters are great so far but the environment to want to learn the game is severely lacking.

floor hugging sucks, sick game otherwise

Game has great bones, ruined by the devs' insistence on keeping floorhugging and overpowered shields for whatever reason.