This is now the third time I'm writing my review of this game! A lot has changed in the game since I wrote the last one so I figured the review also needed a full update.

I can't think of a game that's made me so frustrated but also keeps me coming back to it for so long. I'm not sure if it's just platfighters in general, but there's something uniquely rage inducing about these games compared to other fighting games. I really like this game obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have put 70+ hours into it, but it's hard to recommend it to people without mentioning some caveats.

The game is very fun once you get the mechanics and the characters sorted out, but reaching that point requires a lot of patience with banging your head against the wall. Even during your placement matches the game drops you into the deep end, where you must fight through dozens of matches before finding players at your skill level. To their credit, the devs have fixed a lot of my previous problems with the Ranked mode. Many people also complain about the lack of tutorials, but in my opinion you can find all the info you need on YouTube. Right now the biggest problems I see are lack of players and lack of single player content.

Lack of players is a really hard issue to solve, but playing in Asia you need to wait a very long time to get a match. Outside of Ranked, the other online modes are unplayable. There's no players, so you literally cannot play them unless you go to a server with 200 ping. Even in Ranked, I'm often matched against players to far above or below my skill level. I know that this is just how it goes with an American indie multiplayer game in Asia, but it's really demoralizing to try to play when you feel like there's only a dozen people in your region. I felt a huge difference when I traveled to America and could actually find matches with a variety of players (even though everyone still somehow managed to only pick Zetter and Clairen).

Lack of single player content is a problem that strongly relates to the first. There's nothing to do in the game outside of playing ranked, and everyone in Ranked is so good, even at Bronze, that it's hard to stay motivated. The arcade is fun to do a couple times but it gets boring fast. The game really needs some single player stuff for people to do in order to keep them interested in the game. That's at least part of why the player count is so low. I would love to see an Endless Abyss like in Rivals 1.

I also want to say some positive things about the game though. The combat has way more depth than Smash, and each of the characters are interesting and unique. I especially like Orcane and Fleet. The devs have done an amazing job of addressing a lot of my previous issues with the game, so maybe in a year or so it will be in a good place. Right now, I think the best reason to buy this game is to invest in an indie dev that is trying to get something going, but hasn't quite hit it yet. Or it could be a fun game to play with your friends locally. Ranked just isn't worth the headache right now.

This is now the third time I'm writing my review of this game! A lot has changed in the game since I wrote the last one so I figured the review also needed a full update. I can't think of a game that's made me so frustrated but also keeps me coming back to it for so long. I'm not sure if it's just platfighters in general, but there's something uniquely rage inducing about these games compared to other fighting games. I really like this game obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have put 70+ hours into it, but it's hard to recommend it to people without mentioning some caveats. The game is very fun once you get the mechanics and the characters sorted out, but reaching that point requires a lot of patience with banging your head against the wall. Even during your placement matches the game drops you into the deep end, where you must fight through dozens of matches before finding players at your skill level. To their credit, the devs have fixed a lot of my previous problems with the Ranked mode. Many people also complain about the lack of tutorials, but in my opinion you can find all the info you need on YouTube. Right now the biggest problems I see are lack of players and lack of single player content. Lack of players is a really hard issue to solve, but playing in Asia you need to wait a very long time to get a match. Outside of Ranked, the other online modes are unplayable. There's no players, so you literally cannot play them unless you go to a server with 200 ping. Even in Ranked, I'm often matched against players to far above or below my skill level. I know that this is just how it goes with an American indie multiplayer game in Asia, but it's really demoralizing to try to play when you feel like there's only a dozen people in your region. I felt a huge difference when I traveled to America and could actually find matches with a variety of players (even though everyone still somehow managed to only pick Zetter and Clairen). Lack of single player content is a problem that strongly relates to the first. There's nothing to do in the game outside of playing ranked, and everyone in Ranked is so good, even at Bronze, that it's hard to stay motivated. The arcade is fun to do a couple times but it gets boring fast. The game really needs some single player stuff for people to do in order to keep them interested in the game. That's at least part of why the player count is so low. I would love to see an Endless Abyss like in Rivals 1. I also want to say some positive things about the game though. The combat has way more depth than Smash, and each of the characters are interesting and unique. I especially like Orcane and Fleet. The devs have done an amazing job of addressing a lot of my previous issues with the game, so maybe in a year or so it will be in a good place. Right now, I think the best reason to buy this game is to invest in an indie dev that is trying to get something going, but hasn't quite hit it yet. Or it could be a fun game to play with your friends locally. Ranked just isn't worth the headache right now.