Recent reviews by Ultra

It's the most fun I've had in a social deduction game in years. The idea to have not classes but characters that are role agnostic is a stroke of genius, and it takes full advantage of the fact that it's a video game first and foremost. It's a lovely entry level game for this genre.

EDIT: Not two hours after I wrote this, an experimental branch was released to address multiple balance concerns, AND to give motion sick players another accessibility option! I cannot ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ believe it. This game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome. Buy it.

I've played around six-ish creature collectors. Temtem, Coromon, Pokemon (including many ROM-hacks and fangames), Abomi Nation, Cassette Beasts, and if you don't mind me including something that isn't Pokemon-y, Patch Quest. My previous favorite creature collector was Abomi Nation for it's gameplay loop and strong identity- the story made sense, the gameplay was fun, the beastiary had it's own unique style. I fell out of Temtem and Coromon due to issues with pacing and gameplay balance respectively, Cassette Beasts is...Cassette Beasts, and Patch Quest was the next most fun thing on my list. After getting bored and losing hope (not in a "the world is dying" kind of way) in this kind of genre, I quietly moved on to other things.

Then I played the Beastieball demo.

Then I bought this game.

And now I have genuine, real excitement for where this genre can go.

Firstly, the gameplay is phenomenal. I haven't seen anything like the grid & turn based combination before, and it's incredibly well balanced for being in Early Access. Each and every Beastie in this game has something it can do that other Beasties simply aren't able to do, and if they can, they can't do it as well. From a PvP perspective, the game has enough strategies and diverse win conditions that no two games feel alike even with the same teams. From a casual perspective, you can make a team and win with almost any combination of Beasties- you'll rarely find yourself unable to make something work with just your favorite Beasties in the story.

Speaking of the story, it's the best bar none of any Creature Collector I've played. I'd dare to call it stand-out from a casual perspective; it had me engaged from second one, and kept me engaged far after I was finished with the campaign. I made OCs and headcanons for the game back when I only had 20 hours, and it's only gotten worse (or better, depending on your perspective). The characters are also incredibly charming, the writing style feels like what Temtem wanted to be without the aged jokes or meme culture jokes thrown in. Instead of feeling like they gave an esports game a story, it feels like a genuine casual experience first and foremost, with a captivating battle system and tight balance carefully attached to the end of it just because they could.

In that sort of battle system, you need to have a colorful cast to look at and grow attached to. I can say with confidence that there are exactly five designs out of 100~ that I don't feel strongly about, and that's a good thing; I'm deathly attached to almost all the other designs. I don't feel like they rushed their homework on any of the Beasties in this game even slightly, and put in the game to back up my point is the Research tab in the Beastiepedia (this game's Pokedex) which shows off the concept art and who made it. It's a charming bestiary they have for this game- the only one I've even felt remotely as attached to as this would be Black and White's Pokedex. That's incredibly high praise from me, as they have my favorite designs in the entire Pokemon franchise in there.


My last notes here will be scattered and less organized. You may have already picked up on it from my wording, but I stand in on the competitive side of this game- I played in Bring the Heat, the game's first tournament for Early Access, and placed in the Top 32 out of 107 entrants. I have yet to have a single bad interaction with the people in this community, which is a big plus for anyone trying to get better at the game from this sort of perspective. It's also worth noting that I have misophonia, a sound related sensitivity disorder. This is the only community where people overwhelmingly treat my disorder with the respect and care it deserves, with people even throwing around ways to make the game more friendly for people like me. There are challenge modes and randomizers built into the game itself, with lots of postgame content for people to grind out and use to assist their teambuilding- which by the way, only takes maybe 4 hours of effort if you're being slow. I've gotten teams together in a third of that time. Lena Raine made the soundtrack, and from what I've heard and seen from other people and myself (along with the three tracks I was able to listen to with my friends), it's a knockout soundtrack as per the usual.

Of course, like with anything, there are flaws. The art is unfinished, which although isn't big for me, can be massive for other people. It's fair, too- it's weird to see sketched out flat colors next to the rest of the finished game. The accessibility features for people with motion sickness also aren't the greatest- with the general framing that the game uses it's a big ask, but I'd like to see more care given to it. Additionally, there is a lot of postgame content for people who want to get better and get 6 stars on their profile, but there's no PokeStar Studios or Pokeathlon, no casual modes for people who just want to see their Beasties doing cool things. This is fine for me, since the cool things my Beasties do is WIPE the opponents in three attacks or less, but this can be a big downside for a lot of people- younger me would probably be devasted, for example.

Even so, this game is easily the most fun and the best time I've ever had with a Creature Collector in my 21 years of life. I expect that when Abomi Nation: Monster Rifts comes out this year that Beastieball will have some competition, but right now it's not even close. This game gives me hope for the genre again, and makes me excited for what developers can yet do that hasn't been thought of. Thank you, Wishes Unlimited, for making this game. Here's to another 137.4 hours in my personal Game of 2024!

Once you get past the difficulty curve expected from most if not ALL fighting games, regardless of their specific genre, Rivals of Aether is an infinitely deep, far removed kind of complexity when compared to the Smash franchise. I've recommended this to most of my friends, and every single one who tried the game out loved it.

The characters feel unique, the gameplay is fast and exciting, although the hitboxes are a little screwy. 8/10, would review again

I love the gunplay here. You can do so many things in an encounter, which makes the game a learning curve of movement while fighting and creativity while firing at your enemy. One other thing I like is how although the grinding in this game is very intense and takes long, it somehow manages to feel like an incentive to play even more. Overall, I'd give this a 8.5/10, since I do feel like some characters need a buff/nerf [Phantom desperately needs at least a damage reduction while cloaked and in my opinion Fletcher could use a bit of a nerf on his Sticky Bombs' travel speed] but other then that you did amazing, Splash Damage. Keep up the good work!