Rivals of Aether II

.

An easy recommendation for anyone who is into platform fighters. This is pretty much the only non-Smash, non-Brawlhalla platfighter that I can consistently find matches for in ranked play. The gameplay feels extremely good, even if the character movesets aren't always clearly communicated in-game (If you're hoping to find out what a character can do, you best keep Dragdown Wiki handy). It essentially feels like an easier Melee with some inspired moveset expansions (I particularly love that the grab/pummel game is now a 50-50 mind game). I will warn you, if you're looking to get into this game, you will get rocked online, probably for a long while. I know it took me awhile to finally stop getting bodied by everyone online, and I kinda had to kill my ego to make it that far. I will also say that Rivals 1 might be preferable for some people, especially given the less appealing art direction and the buggy workshop support of Rivals 2. Frankly, I don't necessarily have a preference between the games (though the fact that I have 10 times the hours on Rivals 2 might say otherwise). I think the thing that really got its hooks into me with this game is the totally fair and reasonable monetization. You buy the game, and you get every character, current and future. There are also free monthly events with passes to grind, which you can grind retroactively, so there's no FOMO. I had an extremely fun time just blasting through the event passes, and it gave me all sorts of fun customizable rewards. Honestly, I probably spent a lot of time playing the game because the game just naturally rewarded me continuing to play. I got to unlock cool stuff, while I was improving in my skills.