I've been waiting a long time for any new fighting games to come to Linux, we literally haven't had any other worthwhile port since Skullgirls in 2015. Thankfully, Them's Fightin' Herds was well worth the wait, this game is an absolute blast and deserves so much love.

Mechanically, it's more or less BlazBlue without airdashes. It doesn't really have any super unique systems that I can gush about in particular, but it's super well polished and the characters bring their own cool Drive Magic gimmicks to the table. It feels great to play and that's really about as much as I can put into words. Good fighting game, you press the buttons to make the other person fall down and it's fun.

What I can put into words is all the cool extras and flavor the game has. The lobby system is really cute, like ArcSys lobbies but actually good. Instead of having to wait at a kiosk you can just walk right up to someone and challenge them, or enter matchmaking from anywhere. You can even open up training mode while in the lobby, and you can again matchmake while in there. There's lots of cute avatar cosmetics to collect. My favorite part of all though is the treasure chests that will randomly spawn in the lobby every so often. Go up to one and a countdown will begin before it opens. If anyone else approaches, you'll have to fight for its contents! It's a clever way to add some small stakes to a match, I love it.

The lobbies also host a gate to the Salt Mines, a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler. Here you have 15 minutes to fight CPU Predators, mine salt rocks, and find treasure. The difficulty rises for every several Predators defeated (more players can help level up faster), and with it the rewards increase too. Health carries over between fights, and you'll have to think carefully about when to keep pushing, when to spend your hard-earned salt for a refill, and when to shy away from encounters and just search for more salt. If at least two players survive all 15 minutes, the player with the most salt gets to be a playable Bear boss and chase down other remaining players for a final challenge worth extra rewards for the winner. It's more fun than PvE fighting game content has any right to be!

Story Mode is pretty cool, and the writing is fantastic. It's structured like an adventure game using the same interface as the pixel lobbies, you'll explore dungeons, fight Predator encounters, talk to townspeople, and find hidden treasure chests with cosmetics you can take back to the lobby. Some of these battles are really just fighting game tutorials in disguise, highlighting a specific mechanic or element to test you on - platforming challenges teach you super jumps and shorthops, early Predators will use a specific move over and over until you figure out how to anti-air or bait and punish, Velvet's fight asks you to get past a complex zoning pattern, etc. As always with fighting game bosses there's a few moments of frustration (snake, crows, Oleander...), don't make the mistake I made of jumping in on Experienced difficulty just because you play other fighting games, but overall I appreciate what they've done to try and make something more elaborate than just arcade mode with cutscenes. At the time of writing only chapter 1 is finished (out of six main chapters plus a bonus Shanty DLC planned), but that chapter 1 is actually pretty long. I'm looking forward to the rest when it's done.

There's a ton of nice quality of life features. Since this game runs on Skullgirls' engine that means it comes with the same phenomenal training mode and buttery smooth GGPO netcode. On top of that they've added the ability to make your own combo trials and share them with other players, a robust replay system with rewind and seek functionality, training mode matchmaking, a net statistics graph you can check if a match is lagging, and plenty more nice little things.

Oh, and the soundtrack is absolute fire. The dynamic music system that makes it somehow react to the fight, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of arcane witchcraft, makes it even better.

I've been waiting a long time for any new fighting games to come to Linux, we literally haven't had any other worthwhile port since Skullgirls in 2015. Thankfully, Them's Fightin' Herds was well worth the wait, this game is an absolute blast and deserves so much love. Mechanically, it's more or less BlazBlue without airdashes. It doesn't really have any super unique systems that I can gush about in particular, but it's super well polished and the characters bring their own cool [strike]Drive[/strike] Magic gimmicks to the table. It feels great to play and that's really about as much as I can put into words. Good fighting game, you press the buttons to make the other person fall down and it's fun. What I can put into words is all the cool extras and flavor the game has. The lobby system is really cute, like ArcSys lobbies but actually good. Instead of having to wait at a kiosk you can just walk right up to someone and challenge them, or enter matchmaking from anywhere. You can even open up training mode while in the lobby, and you can again matchmake while in there. There's lots of cute avatar cosmetics to collect. My favorite part of all though is the treasure chests that will randomly spawn in the lobby every so often. Go up to one and a countdown will begin before it opens. If anyone else approaches, you'll have to fight for its contents! It's a clever way to add some small stakes to a match, I love it. The lobbies also host a gate to the Salt Mines, a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler. Here you have 15 minutes to fight CPU Predators, mine salt rocks, and find treasure. The difficulty rises for every several Predators defeated (more players can help level up faster), and with it the rewards increase too. Health carries over between fights, and you'll have to think carefully about when to keep pushing, when to spend your hard-earned salt for a refill, and when to shy away from encounters and just search for more salt. If at least two players survive all 15 minutes, the player with the most salt gets to be a playable Bear boss and chase down other remaining players for a final challenge worth extra rewards for the winner. It's more fun than PvE fighting game content has any right to be! Story Mode is pretty cool, and the writing is fantastic. It's structured like an adventure game using the same interface as the pixel lobbies, you'll explore dungeons, fight Predator encounters, talk to townspeople, and find hidden treasure chests with cosmetics you can take back to the lobby. Some of these battles are really just fighting game tutorials in disguise, highlighting a specific mechanic or element to test you on - platforming challenges teach you super jumps and shorthops, early Predators will use a specific move over and over until you figure out how to anti-air or bait and punish, Velvet's fight asks you to get past a complex zoning pattern, etc. As always with fighting game bosses there's a few moments of frustration (snake, crows, Oleander...), don't make the mistake I made of jumping in on Experienced difficulty just because you play other fighting games, but overall I appreciate what they've done to try and make something more elaborate than just arcade mode with cutscenes. At the time of writing only chapter 1 is finished (out of six main chapters plus a bonus Shanty DLC planned), but that chapter 1 is actually pretty long. I'm looking forward to the rest when it's done. There's a ton of nice quality of life features. Since this game runs on Skullgirls' engine that means it comes with the same phenomenal training mode and buttery smooth GGPO netcode. On top of that they've added the ability to make your own combo trials and share them with other players, a robust replay system with rewind and seek functionality, training mode matchmaking, a net statistics graph you can check if a match is lagging, and plenty more nice little things. Oh, and the soundtrack is absolute fire. The dynamic music system that makes it somehow react to the fight, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of arcane witchcraft, makes it even better.