Rivals of Ether Review (Switch Ishop)

After drowning in an unforeseen disaster Battle of Bounty Lately, we can’t say we’ve been particularly fascinated by the idea of ​​slogging our path through another Smash Brothers.-Isk indie fighting attempt very quickly. However, Ether’s rivals An experience that removes as much distance from that mess as possible within (or without) the limits of a style. Here is a carefully crafted, deep and addictive 16-bit platform fighter that takes the root influence of Nintendo’s collision Behemoth and runs in its own direction, resulting in a brawler cutting off a lot of theaters and some surprising hardcore and competitive business.

The land of Ether, where Dan Fornas’ game is set, is divided into fighting civilizations of animal warriors who are deceived by a cunning Lovecraft craze to confront each other. Occurring in six stages – and a hidden final battle – it introduces the original main characters that will be available to players back when the game is first released in 2017, where Story Mode is a small and simple affair, though the setting does a good job of setting the scene and a little to the cast’s motivations for kicking each other’s pans Provides background. That six-strong cast now extends to a total of fourteen Pugilists, forming twelve as well as two delightful guest characters from Ether Earth. Or And myth Shovel Knight.

There may not be a list of many thousands of instantly recognizable characters to choose from, but the fourteen furs on offer here are a well-designed and diverse bunch, each of which uses only its own unique elemental attacks and specialties to punish opponents, but cleverly influence the areas in which they are fighting. Pulling their powers from the four elements of earth, air, fire and water – all of your protagonists work with the same base move-set combo attacks and strong attacks that can be charged, all of which vary depending on the direction you are holding. Rolls, Dodges, Parrys and Double Jump.

Add to this the unique abilities of each character and there is a surprising amount to learn from any of them. Jetterburn, for example, can depress enemies, place flame pools around the arena and inflict additional damage when enemies burn, while arcane water pumpkins can land on the ground so that he can teleport or poles easily capture enemies in the air for bubbles. Here are the slow, powerful warriors, the zippy lightning-based ninja-types and everything in between to suit your favorite playstyle‌ and each of them is a pleasure to invest time in.

Those guest warriors, Ori and Para Knight also very clearly had a ton of time and effort in their design. Shovel Knight can attack his signature shovel drop, kick gems that can be collected from opponents, sit down to fish in the middle fight and even use his blame to open a shop to buy relics and armor to help him in battle.

In short, the relatively short list, in addition to removing a lot more stuff from Super Smash Brothers, here almost simply cleans up the show, denouncing a ton of depth that suits fighting fans more than those who want to party. Usually with pals. This depth is also indicated in the tutorial mode, which will exercise you in every aspect of the game, from the most basic things to the strengths and weaknesses of a person. Visual practice mode allows you to track frame data and display hitbox visualizations.

Ether’s rivals borrow its original concept completely and shamelessly from Smash Brothers – you fight it all in 1v1, 2v2 or 4 players, you see them hitting opponents, increasing their loss percentage before punting them off the screen. For success – this game has a surprisingly different feel due to being very cleverly removed and added to that classic smash setup.

In terms of content, this switch port is, unfortunately, losing the never-ending conveyor belt of fun pumped through the Steam Workshop on PC, where players have an endless parade of new characters and stages. Although fully understood from a technical point of view, it is a real shame to lose the unique aspect of these things.

However, there is Still Here’s a reasonable meat suite for switch players with rivals of ether story backed by versus matches, where you can face off against the CPU or arrange tournaments with three other players, endless abyss mode and surprisingly fun tetherball diversion. All of these do a lot more for those who do not like to take things online and do not want to get into a fierce fight against human enemies, however, do not make a mistake, this is a game about taking things online and it is here Switch version comes a little cropper right now.

While Ether’s rivals appear perfectly flawed in docked and handheld modes, appear crisp and clear, and look at 60fps sensitive all the time when playing locally alone or against friends, the online aspect of things is a bit confusing right now. We struggled our first few days with the game to find out Someone To fight in the casual or rank modes of the online component – not a good sign within the first week of the game’s release – and when we Did Find an opponent, things often log-fest. This, thankfully, was somewhat fixed with two patches already dropped, the latter definitely helping in terms of that log. However, this game Really Players wanted; It needs a busy community to thrive and finding a match online right now is not so easy – whether it’s due to a shortage of players or technical issues, we are not 100% sure.

However, if rivals Ether can solve its technical problems and jump into the match online, it will not be long before Absolutely The platform fighter, with its obvious motivation, can stand shoulder to shoulder, providing a more hardcore and competitive alternative to Smash’s regular party vibe. This is one of the best entries of its generation we have played and if it sorts out the current woes, feel free to easily add another point to the score below.

The end

Rivals Ether is a deep and addictive platform fighter that takes its core concepts from Super Smash Brothers and then rushes in its own direction, resulting in a surprisingly complex indie alternative to Nintendo’s friction behemoth. Each has a list of amazing characters to dig into with their own unique moves and unique abilities, each of which is wonderfully animated in the game’s crisp and clean 16-bit graphical style. The solo and local party game is well served with fun and comfortable modes for four players and, if the developer can now get the troubled online items in order, all of these are equivalent to a game that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Smash or any other platform fighter we have ever played on the switch.