Recent reviews by Blueberry

Game is too easy, love it.

Lots of potential, game is very fun but has a lot of broken abilites/ults.

Good news is that it isn't just one character.

Updated 11/1/24 to adjust negatives and positives.
The Bad:

While I looked forward to the game and enjoy it I absolutely hate how it plays. SDI /Floor Hugging is absurd and when playing with friends or opponents who also know what they're doing multihits hardly work and using jabs/tilts to combo start end in you getting hard punished for it. (background, top player in my state for multiple Smash games and my old roommates/best friends played at a comp level)

I play Orcane, Kragg, and Fleet but sometimes switch over to Clairen or Zetterburn due to multihits feeling awful in this game due to the floor hugging mechanic. Players will consistently get out of your jab/tilt combos anywhere from 0-150% when it finally stops working on most attacks. You will jab at 150 as Kragg and the opponent will have advantage. Zetterburn has no issue pulling you in from a character model above you into his f smash and keeping you in.

Parry is frame 6, fighting as a heavy against long range or projectiles is hell. It feels extremely hard to parry someone even if you know what they are about to do, which makes sense considering the speed of the game.

Shields regenerate too fast and it becoming the go to option for a lot of play I see online, it feels like Smash 4 where people would just run up and shield except everyone has Yoshi shield so guess what, no shield stabbing.

Invincible ledge getup is a mechanic returning from Melee/PM that I don't care for, where if you grab ledge and let go you can get back to stage with your i-frames. In my experience with how good recoveries are it makes ledge trapping that much more difficult.

Glad they added pratfalling off ledges when hit in shield but with how lagless spot dodge and grabs are it just feels awful running in to play aggro and dealing with either spot dodge grab, crouch cancel grab, or SDI-ing the hits into a grab/hit. The gameplay loop is awful with these mechanics. I'll change my review if they revisit some of these things and tone them down but for now this is it.

Crouch canceling is an intended mechanic and while I don't like it much I see it's purpose, there are indicators showing when someone is crouch canceling... which isn't a huge deal but it's way too rewarding and needs to be less universally useful. Ledgehogging doesnt bother me but I also dont think regrabs should keep refreshing your invincibility 3x. Defensive mechanics are already strong, stalling with invinc to bait out an aggressive move is just one more thing that adds to the boring loop.


The original rivals had movement as defense and I absolutely loved it. I can just go play that, sure... but I'd rather they try and take what made Rivals 1 special and bring it to Rivals 2. This just feels like they wanted to attract the melee fanbase, which... cool. But that just isn't for me nor is it for everyone else with things like floor hugging and crouch canceling. Often it feels like the game is punishing me for playing aggressive.

The only main controller issue I have is when I attempt to DJ with an aerial after running off stage, it will consistently eat my jump as if it weren't inputted and I just die. Not really sure why this happens at all.

The Good:

Amazing dev team, I absolutely love Dan and his work. I met him back in 2019 at Super Smash Con briefly but he was really busy running Rivals stuff understandably. I have confidence that he wants what is best for the game, I'm sure down the road there will be compromises and this game will be completely different in a year. This is the first bullet point obviously because that means for those frustrated with the mechanics there will likely be some changes/revisions to them.

The game feels great at times, when you get to mid percents the combos feel extremely nice. Some characters still get floor hugged here which is absurd to me (not powerful enough tools to combat it plus shields imo) but when things connect they CONNECT. Orcane utilt to nair while pushing yourself at them off stage with fair (back hit) into sweet spot back air as an example of an interaction I'd get that just feels absolutely great. Needs a better offense to pressure / break shields and get them started.

I absolutely want to change my review and look forward to letting the devs cook on this one. I don't regret buying the game at all I just want some redirection on the gameplay.

P.S. bring back Ori. :)

-small feedback- Trading a small percent of health to start your own combo and deal 70 is plain and simply frustrating. Some characters have strong enough tilts to offset this and not get hard punished for jabbing/tilting in neutral. I also think adding more shield stun would allow crossups more easily for aggressive play.

Add startup for grab out of shield, make shield play less rewarding. Jumping out of shield can stay as is, same with tilts but grab offers too much reward for someone just blocking an opponent trying to pressure them. When I attempt to cross-up there isn't enough shield stun so usually while my model is halfway through them they can initiate a grab and it pulls me in from mid/behind them. Imo shield should be a last resort tool that gets you out of a dropped punish but puts you at a slight disadvantage. Make movement the best defensive tool again.

"3 friends want this game"
No the ♥♥♥♥ you don't

Game feels very sluggish... dashes have a super long animation.
Online I expect to get better, it is day 1 after all, however the game should be locked at 60fps for everyone.

I've NEVER seen a fighting game that isn't frame locked, once you set it through your gpu control panel and both players are locked at 60 fps it runs much more smoothly.

Hopefully that's just an oversight.

UI isn't the best, was really excited to play commander video but the combos don't feel satisfying or consistent. People living super long without ways to confirm into kills.

Dash animation goes about 1/3 of the stage so if you try to tech chase and jab reset you will overshoot. Not worth in it's current state, wait for fixes.

At least Orcane feels pretty good

I absolutely love the gameplay but it could use some extra work. Updating my previous review as they are making changes by adding playlists, giving more exp, and more to come.

Here's hoping we see a change in the monetization system as it's pretty bad ($20 sets that aren't even that great, no way to earn them by playing).

I for one love that they kept the old style graphics, this game is beautiful.

Oh how I wish there were an in between review... you know I really love the concept of this game, but it has so much more room to grow. Where the game is good it shines incredibly, but where it fails it fails HARD and it really drags the rest of the experience with it. Region locked armor is okay but it shouldn't become 100% useless, maybe 50%. Region locked equipment is atrocious and makes ocean biomes feel so awful, they're boring and empty with nothing unique except lots of EMPTY water with no monsters at all like it used to have.

The combat is fun but taking out the skill tree made what made this game unique and fun just more less rewarding and linear. I hope he allows us to keep our reins for other regions eventually.. exploring isn't fun or rewarding anymore it's more just a chore. Such great ideas held back by doing it in an extreme manner. There is no way to make getting reins/sailboats again more fun... make it give stat bonuses, anything but crippling your movement in a game where movement is limited.

Please listen, this game could be incredible. There's so much you can do, listen to the community, we believe in you. The old system was flawed, you had ideas to fix it but failed executing them... but you can improve on it and make it what we wanted. I also really hope you plan on adding new classes/races in addition to sprucing up the biomes. Old Cube World felt open and boss fights felt so much more grand than they do now.

Overall I do think this is a good game, maybe not for $20 right now but improvements and patches can make this an enjoyable and unique experience. If change doesn't happen I will shift my review and abandon hope but I don't think that will be the case.

EDIT: Dev abandoned game and doesn't speak to fans, trash game please do not buy.

DLC is extremely fun, who doesn't want to hop around as a poisonous frog or slice your opponent to bits with a beam sword?

Amazing spritework, great music, great replayability, and a good challenge!
I usually don't buy too many indie games but this one looked professionally done, and by one person at that. If you are contemplating picking up this game, I would recommend it, it's also really fun with friends and getting the street fighter-ish inputs for a few hidden moves is also neat.

8/10 spritework
6/10 story (it's not a bad story, 6/10 isn't bad but if you want a story driven game I recommend something else.)
9/10 gameplay and replayability