the world of platformer fighting games has long been dominated by only a handful of successful titles Nintendo has long held the jonlizz crown with the Super Smash Brothers series and while publishers have attempted time and time again to break into the scene few have been able to gain
any sort of foot food Fiat PlayStation Cartoon Network TMNT or any other iconic franchise Nintendo has proven indomitable as the king of platformer fighting games but while triple-a publishers have been unable to challenge smash an indie developer has successfully taken up the fight where countless others have failed
bringing fast-paced gameplay a fresh aesthetic and a focus on competitive balance a game that started from humble beginnings has risen to become one of the most popular and well-designed experiences in the platform fighting genre this is violence appearing before we start talking about rivals we have to look
at the games that inspired it in the first place since its rise to popularity in 1999 Super Smash Bros has redefined what it means to be a fighting game breaking away from the traditional 2d formula the original smash was physics based rather than life meter based and created
a genre that came to be known as the platformer fighter in 2001 the concept was pushed to the next level with the release of smash 64 sequel super smash brothers melee for the Nintendo GameCube due to its speed precision melee has become one of the most beloved and
long-lasting competitive games in eSports spending seven years as a main event at evo and cultivating a die-hard community that has continued to flourish for nearly two decades even though three new smash titles have come out since melees release none have quite been able to recapture its magic as
many of the mechanics that defined melees lightning speed gameplay were removed in brawl smash 4 and ultimate unhappy with the state of the official sequels third-party developers decided to make their own versions of smash melee inspired mods like em and brawl – were created using Rawls engine and
developers even created separate games like super smash flash and super smash land which incorporated characters like Naruto and Goku into the battle it was out of these attempts to match up with melee that rivals of aether was born rivals of aether is the brainchild of Super Smash Land
designer dan for NAEYC development on the game started in 2014 and rivals was picked up on Steam greenlight in June the following year fans seemed to immediately gravitate to the games fresh take on the platform fighter formula while melee may have been well loved it was also notoriously
difficult at high levels many of the techniques required were extremely trying to execute properly demanding that players practice constantly to even have a chance in the competitive scene rivals of aether set out to fix that problem for NAEYC laid out in a 2019 interview quote rivals came about
because I really loved melee but I was never good at it it was really hard rivals is my attempt to make an easier version of melee but some stuff was based on my experience playing competitive smash I was not a fan of ledges at all guarding stalling anything
like that for those familiar with the platform fighting genre the basic gameplay of rivals will come as no surprise two to four characters battle each other on a central platform attempting to knock each other off and taking opponents stalks until only one player remains like smash whenever a
character receives damage their percentage increases the higher their percentage goes the farther they'll be knocked back by attacks thus making it easier to send them flying offstage to their doom this is the basic formula for the platform fighting genre and rivals even included mechanics like wave dashing which
is one of the most well known advanced techniques from super smash bros melee but we're rivals really shines is in the new gameplay mechanics that it introduces first there's no shielding and instead of being able to hold shield and block attacks rivals has built a carry system to
replace it if you know an attack from your opponent is coming you can attempt to block it with the precisely timed parry if successful you avoid the damage from the attack as well as briefly stunning your opponent leaving them open to a punishing combo rivals of aether has
also been away with ledge gravity now all characters are given a wall jump which can only be used once before your feet have to touch the ground again this means that players can recover back to the stage from farther or lower down than they otherwise could but are
vulnerable to their opponent's attacks the entire time these changes increase the pace of the game encouraging players to constantly engage with each other with rather than camping which has become common in new were smashed items however the biggest difference between rivals and smash isn't mechanical in nature for
most of smashes history Nintendo has been infamously disconnected from the competitive scene wishing to maintain a novice friendly environment but for rivals competition is at the heart of its identity if this edgeguard here from the gecko like we designed rails competitively other things like stayed striking and even
like the balance and kick designs like we went into the game thinking of we want to have like these types of characters to satisfy like these kinda archetypes so it's basically competitive from the ground up I guess it's kind of what makes it a little unique compared to
smash I guess gameplay and competition may have been the focus but the final touch was to ensure that their creation contained a strong dynamic aesthetic that actually impacts the game elements play a huge role in the theme surrounding rivals with each character representing and utilizing a base element
to their advantage modifying the stage and creating situations to react to or Kain can place puddles that can be used to trap enemies or as a teleport point forsberg creates clouds of smoke obscuring enemy vision of the stage and Kraken summon platforms by using his pillar of Earth
ability each character having unique abilities ties the lore to the gameplay ensuring that each character drips with personality but if original characters aren't your thing you're still covered in its current iteration rivals has brought in two indie game guest fighters Ori from Ori and the blind forest and
shovel knight who many smash fans have hoped for for years and if that wasn't enough in late 2019 rivals of aether opened itself up to Steam Workshop allowing players to design and create their own characters and while these characters may not be usable outside of casual games with
friends it doesn't detract from the fun of seeing the community build and flesh out characters never seen in a platformer fighter before in September of 2015 rivals of aether saw release on Steam early access and although the full release of the game wouldn't come until 2017 that didn't
stop the growth of the competitive scene there was an invitational evo 2015 that a azpm Zach to Chico his name is Z man he actually ran that tournament for rival so if you look at the post-credits they actually says a special thanks to a zpm and that's why
it was a eight-man invitational that uh that he ended up winning and that was before they even had six characters in the game soon after the evo invitational in 2015 online tournament started cropping up giving players a chance to test their skills this online era would affect the
entire future of rivals and gives shape to the competitive meta before launched online started out like when the game came out there were immediately online tournaments starting up there were a couple series the main one was called get good for a while and then it turned into the
national champion series got like really centralized leadership and there were power rankings made based solely on online and everyone abided by and agree dozen followed those generally so online was really serious back then especially compared to now there was a it was a meta like dominated by this
man named ralph he was actually a top 100 melee player and has been for some time he was the first person that really optimized punished game he understood that you win games by taking stocks and he knew exactly how to take him he was just really far ahead
of the game and his neutral was entirely fine he was an extremely aggressive player he went offstage to edge guard a lot most people like staying on stage and he was just incredibly consistent with his with his punishes never lost an online tournament which is insane to me
because even on local people don't have our perfect record he had to have won at least 50 tournaments in rivals Ralph's rule remained virtually uncontested online but as the game grew fans started showcasing the game at LAN events starting side tournaments and slowly spreading the game to a
player base that would best respond to it the smash crowd I thought about it rivals kind of just by word of mouth it came out many people I believe tried to emulate smash and even though that didn't work out for most of them it's kind of like a
I see what you was trying to do and and and rivals was another on that chopping block but I had the reason why I downloaded it was because people were like wait a minute this person gets it what they actually understand smash I love the game from day
one it's definitely like I like the the mixture of like a few smash elements you know like there's like the power shielding there's – Danis wavedashing mechanics and stuff and I like I just like a new field with new characters and new ways to like use mechanics and
we know from smash for blanket we're also being introduced enjoy your bread with fresh blood entering the scene thanks to smaller locals there was more incentive than ever for the community to move offline but with the change of venue from digital to physical rivals current king was starting
to pull away Ralph wasn't as present as he once was and this opened the door for a new champion to emerge as the game became a little bit more mainstreamed we had tournaments like bigger bow and you know started getting into the more land tournaments and he started
to stop playing the game as much and that's when like the first real shift happened when the player named full stream he was unstoppable his roster just tore people apart and just like he was unmatched for the longest time full streams rise might have started online but it
wasn't until early 2017 that he would get his shot at the throne with the inclusion of rivals as a side event at Genesis for both full stream and Ralph were in the bracket and players in the know were ready to see sparks fly unfortunately it was not meant
to be as ralph was knocked out just before winners finals by a player named arcanine gosh that's insane yeah that that is the notes on seed getting sick the losers work right full stream intern defeated our canine and took the tournament and while it may not have been
the match that many had hoped for the torch had effectively been passed and full stream would brain supreme for the better part of a year I still remember the first time I lost to him he at that garden of gastronomy completely cloud me for a triode he always
he knew what to look for he knew his wing conditions a lot like Ralph but full sheets my style was a lot more consistent due to his neutral and raster was just a really comfortable character to play on back then after Genesis for the rivals Championship Series transitioned
to a hybrid online offline system where bigger events were held on land while smaller weekly still occurred online while digital tournaments were still happening rivals was definitely heading towards a more offline direction as more and more of the smash scene stood up and took notice but they weren't
the only ones so that was going on rivals was really being explored as an eSport there it had a lot of momentum the DLC was still coming out so there were always bumps of interest all the way through shovel knight coming out and at that point the game
was pretty established and the momentum was there and we just kept on going after a year of growth and hype the rivals seen returned to San Jose in January of 2018 for Genesis 5 and were met with the biggest stage yet for rivals of aether little did they
know Genesis would once again see the rise of a new star I think the biggest turning point in rivals of either eSports was definitely Genesis 5 grand finals we had a game 10 grand finals of cake assault using his fours burden against full streams ori and it was
the most electric and memorable set that has ever happened in rivals like you asked any current rivals top 50 player what the most important central's was and i think 80% of them respond with bats at genesis 5 grand finals and that was when like the top of the
top started seeing challenge and on the Genesis 5 you know paramount theater main stage we had thousands of people watching that were coming for Smash Bros we had thousands of people in the crowd and to have such a fantastic show really opened up a lot of people's eyes
into what rivals can and should be [Applause] and after cake wins Genesis 5 you'll see that some idiot actually runs up on stage and that idiot was me so uh as my bad since Genesis 5 the rivals competitive scene had been thriving earning spots in larger more prestigious
tournaments like Evo and CEO however it's with the smash community that rivals continued to find their biggest success even after the release of Super Smash Bros ultimate rivals managed to organize their biggest tournament ever at Genesis 7 this year with 219 entrants and a prize pool of $18,000
eclipsing all other games present at the tournament except for smash ultimate the future of rivals seems bright and once the game launches on the Nintendo switch production on rivals of aether will be considered finished with no expectation of new content on the horizon however this does not mark
the end of the game on the contrary rivals is expected to take on a new life invigorated by the community that is built up around it over the last five years so been running this circuit and and that's been super rewarding and really fun and it's getting like
bigger every year which is awesome like it still hasn't stopped so we come out on switch I see it definitely handing off to the community and like transitioning away from us which is I'm hoping to see like the baby chick like spread its wings and fly you know
but this next year we're having grassroots like season two and I've almost got too many two people coming to me to put tournaments into it it's crazy just how bits of the community are popping up everywhere still has a letter into grout the switch the switch release definitive
edition is going to be absolutely massive for the competitive scene a lot of longevity and the tournament scene and just relevancy overall and I think the IP has got a pretty bright future but whether it be rivals to or the rivals trading card again whatever Dan feels like
one phrase we've all heard way too many times oh that game looks sick I'll play it when it comes out on switch and so it being on switch opens up the door to rivals for a lot a lot a lot of people for all we know there's some
game breaking play style that none of us have seen because no one's tried it yet but we're gonna have that many more people trying new things at its current sides it's not big enough to sustain like 10 majors a year 12 major 0 whatever we have when the
switch release happens you know it just it just depends on you know the influx of players that we get it seems like half the smash player base if not more is interested in the game it depends on how many of those players are actually not willing to to
play the game and enter it rivals of a third definitive edition will be available on the Nintendo switch this summer let us know what obscure games you want to see covered in the comments below to keep up with all the latest news subscribe to action eSports and ring
the bell to stay up to date with all our newest videos my name's Jonah we'll see you next time
