Recent reviews by Nashty77

If you like fighting game, this game is a great change in gameplay. It is a sumo-fighter, like those in the Series Smash Bros series, but it is designed with a competitive mindset in hand. The characters feel both balanced and fleshed out, providing a great experience. I first noticed this game on Humble Bundle, and I was skeptical at first. While, I had played Brawlhallah, it the characters felt empty and unbalanced. The mechanics were also a little unclear, unlike Rivals of Aether. In RoA (Rivals of Aether) exhibition matches are done as a best 2 out of 3, and while both games feature the "sumo" mechanic, where the objective to to knock the opponent out of the ring, RoA's normal gameplay doesn't reward you points for a knock out, but instead penalizes you for getting knocked out. This, in contrast to Brawlhallah's normal scoring system, rewards player for not just knock outs, but kill streaks and kill steals as well. I felt as though it cheapened gameplay, and rewarded those who were good at the latter, but not necessarily completely competent in overall skill. The biggest differences in mechanics, generally speaking, compared to others are that: 1) you cannot grab ledges, but each character is given a wall jump and can use their recovery move once before and after the wall jump; 2) shields do not exist, you can still "perfect shield" like in the Smash series, but it will only activate a "parry" which allows you a brief window to punish your opponents mistakes; 3) it has no grab/throw mechanics, other than Etalus's up air; 4) there are three types of attack buttons, jab/tilt with a normal attack, special attacks, and heavy attacks (like Smash attacks). I feel that, with these mechanics in place, it creates a much different environment and experience than that of other Sumo's, or "Smash-likes."

In summary, I feel that Rivals of Aether offers fun, balanced gameplay with unique, well-developed, and creative characters, all while keeping the game feeling fair and offering a true test of mettle in gameplay. Now I could go on about how greatly unique and fleshed-out each character feels, or how the stages, hazardous or not, are well designed and approached with a competitive mind. Unfortunately, I can't in my right mind do that, because then when you get the game you won't have any surprises left.