Thanks for watching everyone! This turned into a far larger project than I initially expected it to be, but it was a fun process and I liked going back to visit some games I hadn't touched in a _very_ long time. I remember when MockRock was going to be an Icons and Smash co-channel 🤔 Let me know what you thought! *Main channel:* th-cam.com/users/mockrocktv *Twitter:* twitter.com/MrMockRock *Patreon:* www.patreon.com/mockrock *Twitch:* www.twitch.tv/mockrocktwitch *Teespring:* teespring.com/stores/mockrock *TimeBolt affiliate link* (excellent software I use to speed up editing on my videos, use code "MOCKROCK" for a discount): mockrock--timebolt.thrivecart.com/order-page/
@ryanspencer9602it’s not, creators can upload a video as private or unlisted to allow only specific people see it before launch, or to do things like add comments like this before the video is made public, as is the case here
Honestly, the two channel thing feels weird and muddled. I watch / listen to MockRock for MockRock, and I generally don’t feel any major differences between videos. It just sorta makes videos slightly more confusing to find. Wondering how it affects the channel’s popularity.
Hey, one of the devs behind Beardbarians here, just wanna give a huge thanks for the mention! We may not have killed smash bros, but damn did we have fun trying :)
Honestly I feel like one of the biggest factors that prevents other platform fighters from getting as big as smash is that they get labelled “smash killers”. They never get to fully grow into their own identities because they’re always going to be linked to smash bros in some way, Multiversus is “Smash with Batman and Shaggy”, Nick All Stars is “Smash with SpongeBob”, Rivals is “Smash with Animals” etc (I’m typing this before I watch the video so sorry if this all gets covered and I’ve said nothing of value lmao)
its just like Mario Kart, any time someone describes a kart racing game as “just like Mario Kart”, you know they would rather be playing Mario Kart instead.
smash definitely has well thought out rulesets hero's moveset and kazuya's moveset are more thought out than anything rivals has combined@@krubbington
@@zukosvfxNo they arent, they have a lot of moves but theres no design synergy with their gimmicks to their attacks. Kazuya in specific has 100 moves and uses like 6 of them lol
@@FieryAnubis maybe that's true, but that still leaves you with AT LEAST 200 awesome characters that are somewhat balanced and fun. I've tried around 2000+ workshop characters and I can tell there are hundreds of characters I have installed and play regularly. Most of them do stuff you've never seen before in any platform fighter, and are insanely well polished.
I know it's not gonna get mentioned, but shoutout to Super Smash Flash 2 for slightly speeding up smash 4's death cycle and keeping us occupied while waiting for Ultimate
Icons is such an interesting case when you know that a good chunk of the devs were former Project M members. I was in the Brawl modding scene well before PM took off, back when the initial roster didnt even have half of Brawl's cast yet, and I vividly remember people's complaints at that time: the Brawl newcomers, like Sonic, felt amazing and had so many fun, new moves to play with. And yet everyone from Melee was just... from Melee. Adjustments here and there to help them keep up, sure, but the point was all the Brawl newcomers at the time felt fresh, inspired and experimental, while the veterans were just "yep, thats Melee". And the ironic/best part? They owned up to that. By the time 3.5 came out and the roster was complete, along with Mewtwo and Roy, they did an AMAZING job giving the Melee cast some zest. Sure, Fox and Falcon and the "untouchable" melee favorites weren't majorly different, but characters like Ganon, Samus, Bowser, and so many others were given insanely fun changes that still made them feel like the character in question while giving them fun new tools that helped them stand out. Not every change was a winner, sure, the less we say about some moves and characters at the time the better, but the point is, the team showed they were capable of understanding what made a character loved, giving them the touches they need to keep up with Melee-isms, all while bringing some genuinely fresh and fun moves. ...and then when Icons finally happened, they had the exact same problem as the early PM days. The new characters were insanely fun, yet the "obligatory" melee architypes just didn't have enough to make them stand out.
Howdy! I was a beta tester for NASB1 who followed the game and community for the majority if its lifespan and I just wanted to share a couple fun things you don't seem to know about. 1. There is exactly *one* character on the entire roster who's throws have unique properties, which is Rocko. More specifically they have higher base knockback and lower knockback growth, and this is because he would've have up throw down air infinites and the best up throw kill confirm in the entire game with upthrow > up air if he didn't have that change when he released. We could've nerfed down air and up air but that would've hurt his character identity a lot so we chose to go that route instead. 2. Hugh is the most unique character on the entire roster and it's not even close. He obviously has the PM Yoshi double jump canceling mechanics alongside slippery physics but he also has 2 completely unique hidden moves that no other character on the roster gets, those being a back air and a special input move. The back air was the result of a community meme one of the other testers started involving Hugh having a back air before he was released/properly revealed (which he didn't have when we were testing first testing him), and I was actually the one who got it added into to the game via suggesting the input method, which is just a traditional back air input while holding the strafe button. It's a little finicky to get used to but there was literally no other way to get it into the game cause of the whole air turning thing. The input move though is literally just that one Chun-Li super and you do it by rotating the control stick in a complete circle starting from the downward position and then pressing the taunt button. It's completely ridiculous but it adds a lot to his character and I think you'd appreciate it a lot, or at least I do. Those 2 things alongside the multitude of little quirks in his moveset make him into what I consider to be the only worthwhile character to come out of NASB1. He's one of the worst characters in the game but he has so much personality in his moveset in a game that almost entirely lacks moveset variety and I really appreciate Hugh for that. Great video btw! I appreciate how you approach a lot of the games in this video and the "Smash Killer" topic in general with respect despite the criticisms you're bringing up. A lot of people come across as very snobby when they're talking about these games and you do a great job of not being an asshole when you discuss them.
Icons really is the pinnacle of "Melee players only play Melee." Like the devs had the chance to make the perfect competitive game that they wanted and they just made Melee again.
Regarding crossovers in Brawlhalla: Theres a rule where only one character can have a combination of weapons. ONLY Mako can be the greatsword katars legend, ONLY Isaiah can be the cannon blasters legend, ect. So if a new crossover were to be added, and they are basically required to have a specific weapon pair, then an issue arises where another character already has it. That's why they are skins for existing characters, it keeps them from having to break their own rule.
I guess that makes sense and I figured there might be some kind of context along those lines I was missing (although god knows I tried to find it and couldn't lol). As far as that rule goes, I can't really say I get it when signature attacks are a thing, but I'm out of my element here so I'll trust it makes more sense from the inside
@@MockRockTalkThere's also another reason (and to be honest I really should have led with this), but legends in Brawlhalla are free. It takes coins, yes, but you get them from just playing the game, and it really doesn't take long to get enough to unlock a legend. So if the new crossovers were new legends, you have this lose-lose situation where either you make it purchasable with coins and make no money from the crossover, or you make it cost money and anger the entire playerbase. Then there's licensing issues with making skins, I won't go into that too much but let's just say Rayman went something like 4 years without receiving a new skin beyond his original 3, and you realize that making it a skin is just the most logical decision.
Just to let you know on Fraymakers. Welltaro’s Side B has an unfinished animations because a majority of community hate how it's designed and it's up unfun to fight so instead of finishing the animation, the devs plan to make a new side b for him.
The Brawlhalla influence you mention at 52:40 is real, I was an intern at WB Games back in 2020 and when I was first shown the game they were openly describing it as a "Brawlhalla Competitor", and I never heard them mention smash even once.
I've always wondered, when you're an intern and you see a game for the first time, and it's ass, is it immediately obvious to go "oh yeah this is gonna flop" but you just can't say anything because you're an intern? The first time I saw Multiversus' physics I knew it wasn't gonna be popular, but I'm curious how many people at WB games knew this as well
@@ellie8272 Seeing something years before release its hard to get any kind of gauge of success (most characters weren't even modeled at that point) but I did complain about the movement feeling clunky and unintuitive from the perspective of a regular platfighter player. Open beta MV felt much better than what I played, but the core issues I had remained, so they were likely consciously implemented. All that being said I wasn't directly working on the game and was just an intern; nobodys listening to the intern.
One of my personal issues with the Nick All-Star Brawl games is how heavily skewed the representation is towards the 90s, while series from the 2000s onwards are largely ignored and/or underrepresented. I recognise that the former era of shows has more nostalgic appeal, but it really feels unfair for an "All-Star" series to ignore such large chunks of its history. Part of what makes Smash Bros. so fun is that you get characters from niche games like Ice Climber, Kid Icarus and F-Zero brought into the spotlight standing alongside titans like Mario and Pokémon. A Nickelodeon fighting game could have provided the opportunity to do just that, helping more under-appreciated and/or lesser known series like It's Pony or Glitch Techs get more recognition. NASB2 is a great game, don't get me wrong. It has probably some of my favourite feeling combat and character designs out of any crossover platform fighter I've played. I just hope that if Fair Play Labs are given the chance to keep working and building on the series, they can extend some of that love to more of Nick's animated catalogue and give some obscure series a chance to shine, rather than just going back to the well of arbitrary secondary reps or leaning solely on the big name franchises that just happen to be under the network's umbrella.
In its defense, Nick generally cancels anything that’s not an absolute powerhouse. Could use some Loud House rep, but that’s the only show I can think of that’s stayed past the early 2000s.
I’ve often been fascinated by that! Like, crossover kart racers are a thing, and so are traditional fighting games, but those are both less common. There’s no reason someone couldn’t make a crossover MOBA. But they just don’t because Smash made platform fighters the default crossover game
@@unseenasymptote4976 I can't really speak for mobas, but the thing Is platform fighters hit the perfect sweetspot between being able to give characters completely unique movesets that let them represent who the character Is trough gameplay (Kart racers could, at most, give them a unique item), while also being simple enough for casual fans of the property crossing over to pick up (unlike a more traditional fighting game, which would have a more complicated moveset)
Honestly, I think the reason we don't have a game that truly rivals Smash Bros yet might be because there hasn't been a developer who's been willing to give the budget and marketing for one to be made. A lot of companies that do have a bunch of widely recognizable characters often hire small indie developers to make the game, and not end up giving them enough time or money to make it properly, and then the big companies end up doing something stupid that spells failure for the game. The prime examples include Playstation All Stars, Nickelodeon All Stars, and Multiversus. But I will say NASB2 is my persoanl favorite, and if there's a NASB3 in the works, I wouldn't mind if it was mostly NASB2 with more content. And then you have smaller indie made games that have a lot of passion behind them, but don't often have the budget to get a lot high profile characters, or make the best visuals. The best examples from this video being Brawlout and Rushdown Revolt. Now Rivals of Aether did manage to become very successful, and its sequel is doing very well. And while I did back Rivals 2 on Kickstarter, and think the game pretty fun, it's obvious the game was made for the players who like to play the most optimally, and I'm not one of those players. So when I run into a player who plays like they're in a Melee tournament in casual 1v1, it can get pretty annoying. Sorry for such a long comment, I just had a lot to say on this subject. By the way, I haven't played the game, but I love the concept of the health system from Rushdown Revolt, and would like to see it in more platform fighters.
I fully admit to being ass at Rivals 2, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. Any game is gonna have players who can kick your ass, that's just normal, I don't let it get me down and allow myself to incrementally improve over time
Great video (as usual) Mock! I will say, at 6:24, when you’re making the “helps you so you can hurt them later” about PS All-Stars, you did unfortunately happen to show the one Street Fighter character who has a mechanic like that (AKI has moves that poison her opponent, and when hitting a poisoned opponent with certain moves, it greatly increases her combo potential and damage output)
27:16 myself jumpscare 😭 i'm glad you enjoyed nasb2, it's super fun! i really enjoy just how many options characters have in that game, with the high amount of moves + slime mechanics. and in the latest patch, basically every character feels viable. that's my main platfighter, so i took a peek at that section, but i'll watch the rest of the video for sure. bruhhh the PRICE! this is my biggest gripe with the game. despite how good it is, it's really hard to convince others at $50. i've seen it on sale for as low as $5, but i really wish they'd lower the base price
Aw, nice to see the Nick Brawl series get some credit! I love both a lot, and I just can't believe how good they ended up being. Yeah, the first game doesn't have budget, but I couldn't believe Nick cared to get an experienced team and that characters could wavedash with good online! And innovated with airgrabs and air strongs (Which Sakurai mentioned wanting to do in an interview after Sora came out - maybe we'll see these in the next Smash?). Then the sequel innovates more with this slime meter, one of the best single-player campaigns, the best online I've tried, and some of the most fun characters - I can't believe how much I love this rhino from TMNT ha! Really surprisingly amazing titles I'll always be amazed by and super excited to see that series continue! Excited for whatever next Nick Brawl there might be, and whatever Smash there might be, and loving cartoons a lot, I also wish the best for Multiversus. I really still don't love the floatiness or lack of grabs, but the team seems nice and I also think some characters like Jason turned out pretty great overall! Also keeping an eye on Rivals of Aether 2 while I've found it pretty annoying, but their first big patch was about making it less annoying ha! But yeah! So cool that Smash was the only real option when I was a kid. I was hungry for more and tried Playstation Royale which really didn't do it for me, but now there's plenty of more fun Platform Fighters around! Hopefully lots of them can have successful futures and we can all have fun playing a bunch of them at home or tourneys and see all sorts of characters celebrated in the format!
Now that I think about it, compared to any other given "[insert popular game here] Killer", being hired to build a Smash Killer seems to be even more thankless of a job than it already would be for any other franchise. The sheer volume and variety of brand power behind Smash is a suffocating thing to go up against, the fact that PSA was gimped in terms of support from Sony too really feels like rubbing salt into the wound.
No game is made as a [game] Killer. Fans of whatever the most popular game in any given genre just call every other game in the genre that because they think the world revolves around them.
@Awesomeness-iz3dh Time and time again games are developed with the goal very clearly being to compete with another popular title and try to get a piece of the pie, the ideal end goal being to become the new top dog. Look at the hero shooter and battle royale crazes we've seen in recent years. Companies were _blatantly_ trying to compete with successful hits, in the live-service market, where games directly compete with each other not just for the player's money, but their time as well. The term "killer" may not have been used, but the intentions are more or less the same.
@@GumshoeClassicwhat is funny, is that most of these Smash type games mostly try to go after the competitive scene, since they aren't catered to by Nintendo themself, though they also always kinda proof, why Nintendo doesn't really care for the competitive scene.
@@user-be3qc7re9o This applies to pretty much every competitive game that doesn't nickel-and-dime singular whales to keep afloat, including most fighting games. Only a few thousand people are still playing, but the hundreds of thousands who bought it and dropped it after a month are where the money lies.
There seems to be a common theme with these games where the way they differentiate themselves from Smash is by being more complicated. But I like Smash because it isn't complicated. That's why I stopped playing other fighting games after I tried Smash 64. So in a lot of cases, I look at these games and go, I'd rather play Smash so that I don't break my brain. Of course, Smash also has a good number of overly complicated characters at this point, but fortunately the core design is such that there's a lot of characters you can just play without needing to worry about complicated gimmicks and the like.
Ignoring that your definition of complicated is rather broad, the problem is that Smash kinda has the monopoly on the basic platform fighter, simply because it did its thing as easily as it reasonably could. How do you compete with the simplicity of a direction and an attack button? Any more simple and it's just boring. Literally if Smash had a Smash Attack button (THE Y BUTTON IS RIGHT THERE) it would be perfect.
@Tiquono I don't want or expect other games to do simplicity better than Smash, I just don't want them to improve on it through (substantially) increased complexity. Making more user friendly versions of things like wavedashing and eliminating L-canceling while preserving the general feel of Melee, in the context of a game with good stages and competitive support, is all I'd really want.
The reason they do that is because if you're a casual player Smash already exists and appeals to you. The competitors are meant to appeal to people who have problems with smash, which is mostly the people who take the game more seriously. Smash is one of the best casual games ever made, I doubt any game could ever compete with it on that front
I can personally vouch for the quality of Fraymakers, as someone who backed it, watching the game improve over time was really a sight to see. The actual game feel is top notch, and assists are such a nice innovation, and let indies with more abstract, less conventional characters make appearances (like Super Hexagon). My point when I was really on board with this was Ultra Fishbunjin's release into the game, notably, the devs asked the community whether he should be released earlier with some unfinished sketch moves, or if they should wait until he was fully finished, and the community chose when he was done. Some people complained about the wait after the fact but he was so well polished that I couldn't care less myself. Here's hoping they can stick the landing when they launch.
Honestly fantastic video, it was so cool looking back at all the platform fighters we have seen over the years and as someone who has seen "smash killer" be thworn around to pretty much any game where 2 characters fight, it was so nice to actually learn more about games like brawlhalla which i had NO IDEA was this big honestly lol a lot of things took me by surprise but it just made me appreciate the genre so much more, truly a fantastic video... btw RIVALS OF AETEHR IS THE GOAAAAAT (but why did they have to nerf orcane in rivals 2 man)
You should do a video on your personal favorite platform fighter characters. Not designed, you have done that, but your favorite to play. I believe that would be an interesting and unique video that wouldn’t be too hard effort
MockRock, I love your videos because of much of a different light you can shed on these sorts of things. You don't see many people talking about or making large scale videos about a lot of these games anymore, and you always find something positive or interesting to say even if the game isn't universally reveled as great.
Reasons why there’ll never be a Smash killer: 1, it’s too entrenched of a series in the genre to ever be made irrelevant. It’d be like trying to make a Street Fighter killer. 2, even if by some miracle somebody came remotely close, then Nintendo would sue them into oblivion, as evidenced by the Palworld debacle.
Onto the actual games: I actually really liked PSASBR’s controls, but I agree that it definitely needed health bars rather than the insta-kill supers. Multiple anime platfighters have been able to make both health bars and super meters work, so idk why PSASBR felt the need to be different. Also, my favorite PlayStation IP, Gravity Rush, was relegated to DLC. Haven’t played Brawlhala. The guest characters sound interesting, but the repeated movesets turn me off. Brawlout: idk what that is. Slap City: heard of it, but never looked too deeply into it. Some of the features sound fun though. Nick ASB: was excited for at first, but like Brawlhala the moveset design turned me off. I should probably check out the sequel though, since it does sound much better, I just haven’t had the time. Icons: I’ve never been super interested in a pure Melee clone without much else. Rushdown Revolt: sounds really cool. I might have to check this one out. Probably too high of a skill ceiling for me, but it might be fun to just check out CPU battles or something. Multiversus: is it weird that the crossover aspect is the second least appealing thing to me about it? (After the monetization, ofc). Idk, I just never really wanted Steven Universe vs Game of Thrones, and I feel like casting such a wide net results in losing out on a lot of would-be must-have characters. I feel like if they tightened their focus I’d be more interested. RoA: I absolutely love the first game. I’m holding off on getting the sequel for a little while, since the modding community was such a huge part in getting me into the first one.
@ I’ve seen multiple videos on the matter, so yeah, I feel like I know what it’s about. A competing company (Sony) backed a Pokemon clone that, between Sony’s backing and how it took the internet by storm, made Nintendo worried it might cut too deeply into the market, so they made some absolute bullshit patents to sue it over and assert dominance.
@@GurrenPrime That's not the full story. Market dominance had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. The whole reason why the Patent Lawsuit even took place is because Nintendo found that Palworld's use of the Capture Ball mechanic directly used Source Code from their games. As such, Nintendo filed a lawsuit using the patent to have it changed, which it's doing in the upcoming sequel.
@GurrenPrime Secondly, Patent Lawsuits are NOT a new thing. Sega sued the Simpsons over the use of Patents in a "Crazy Taxi Clone" back in 2003, yet no one said anything.
Absolute banger of a video. Always been curious about other platfighters but never got around to playing too many of them. Thanks to your retrospectives/reviews, I'm definitely gonna be trying Rushdown Revolt and the first Rivals!
This was an excellent video! As a casual Smash player I’ve heard many of these games, even tried a couple but I haven’t seriously considered playing them more. However this video has done a great jobs showcasing these games’ strengths and opened my mind to giving them a try.
It's interesting to think about what the platform fighter genre would be like if the genre creator hadn't been a crossover game like Smash. Other fighting games aren't defined by this notion, so we don't see them as beholden to that idea as we do in platform fighters, with games like PlayStation All-Stars and NASB. And because the Smash roster is so absurdly compelling, it makes it hard to accept rosters of original characters like for ROA. Like, abstractly I can see that the ROA cast is well-designed both mechanically and artistically, but I just can't get excited about it in the same way.
I would love to see a video where you just go through a bunch of different platfighters and just give your first impressions of each one. Stuff like the kirby platfighters, slayers for hire, indiepogo ect
The problem with calling something an ""X" killer" is that it makes you think "oh man this is just going to be the thing I like but better and it rarely ever will be. 2+ decades of hearing about a "Wow killer" and none of them stay longer than a few months (FF14 not included) will teach you that.
I blame HungryBox for that. Don't get me wrong, he's a cool guy, but calling every new Platform fighter the "SMASH KILLER" or "SMASH BROS IS DEAD" kinda makes me cringe a bit.
Thanks for actually bringing up Maypul. She's somehow flown under the radar so far (likely because her skill floor is high enough that most people haven't run into a good one yet) but good god is her design horrendous. I genuinely do not enjoy playing the game when she's on screen which is saying a lot because aside from her this is my favorite multiplayer game ever made
GIVE ME HUGH BACK IN NASB2 AAAAGH! I know it's stupid, but I don't care. The fact that we lost characters in between games is incredibly frustrating, and that frustration is just amplified when you remember Hugh was literally added because the "Hugh nation" (online group of Hugh superfans) all came together for one single purpose, get Hugh in by campaigning and not sending death threats to the creators
Maypul gets a ton of complaints??? Most people I know complain about Kragg and Clairen and sometimes Wrastor, which I agree on Kragg and Clairen, having EWGF on roughly half of your hitbox or being insane in so many ways I can’t even describe, but I have yet to hear anyone complain about Maypul until this video.
Playstation All-stars was seen at the time as the "we have smash at home" joke, or as Smash but bad. But beside that there where plenty of people that liked the game
9:37 You know they could have collaborated with Pepsi instead of having Pepsiman as a guest fighter, he would be the Captain Falcon clone, but instead of the Falcon Punch, Pepsiman does the Soda Pop Punch.
Its insane that I actually thought to myself "Wow, finally, someone actually giving credit to NASB2 and not just randomly shitting on it" I was actually shocked by the response a lot of people had, as someone who beta tested the first game, the sequel is just a straight up better game in all aspects and feels so much more like a love letter to these Nicktoons than the first one (which just felt like mashing lifeless action figures together). I was also fine with the base roster honestly, but the DLC choices were extremely disappointing, if they could've gotten some obscure or cult classic franchises for the DLC this game would've been perfect to me I still play NASB2 with my friends every now and then, it's a great game that deserved better
I do genuinely think there is a difference between platform fighters and smash clones. For instance, I think nickelodeon all star brawl is definitely a smash clone. Nickelodeon already made basically a mario kart clone, and then they're like "okay, let's hire these guys to make a super smash brothers game but with our characters", whereas the whole reason that rivals of aether only exists is because they really like the gameplay that smash provides and want to make their own game with their own characters. Even other crossover games like slap city, which is technically a crossover with a bunch of ludocity characters, I wouldn't term a smash clone, but more as a platform fighter. Now the thing is, being a smash clone isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think despite being the biggest and most obvious smash clone, the Nickelodeon All Star Brawl games are some of my favorite games in the genre, and NASB 2 in particular is my favorite platform fighter ( it's still a smash clone, but it's also a platform fighter, since that's still the genre. Not all platform fighters are smash clones, but some smash clones are platform fighters) and I actually like it way more than any of the official smash games, and then there's games like Icons which is a platform fighter like Rivals of Aether, but it's also just kinda bad.
5:40 One thing to mention about the supers in that game is how unbalanced they are. You demonstrated Sly’s level one super and you can see how far it reaches. Meanwhile a character like Sir Daniel Fortesque’s level one super is an attack that can only hit mid air opponents in front of him. This kind of balance is all over the roster and makes some characters basically impossible to use since they have very weak supers
This video is so comprehensive and well made and has presumably commissioned thumbnail art but it's still only on your side channel? What is the threshold for main channel content these days?
If I'd known how this video would have turned out going in, I likely would've just ditched the casual facecam aspect and made it a full channel video instead. The original plan was to just pop in and take a glance at everything, maybe ending up with a 30-40 minute casual overview, and I just kept finding stuff to talk about haha
As much as Multiversus can stumble itself, I do genuinely still like the game and want to see it suceed, I really do hope the best for it bc I see it's potential and how the devs clearly listen to criticism and want to improve, I just hope the game survives so we can get there (or at the bare minimum it gets an offline version in case it does go EOS bc even the biggest haters of this game can probably agree that the amount of animation and voice acting present here deserves to be preserved)
Fun fact: I picked up the rivals 2 demo with a friend, got my ass kicked but loved it, bought the game on launch, and immediately got a tendinitis and could not play it (am like almost recovered so might pick it back up next time I feel like it)
I agree that shields dont cause passive gameplay. If anything they might cause the opposite. I used to play brawlhalla a lot, and one of the main complaints against that game was the passive playstyle that is seemingly encouraged by the dodge system and lack of DI (or at least in the way smash has DI). Online play was plagued with people who just wouldn't approach, forcing you to engage first and ultimately be whiff punished due to how fast and lagless dodging is. Obviously some of this is skill issue on the part of mid-level players like myself, but it's still worth considering that when dodging is your only defensive option it has to be pretty darn good in order to escape combos and the like. Though I want to be clear that I don't think passive play is inherently bad, and I still love brawlhalla. It's just a playstyle difference.
It just goes to show how much Sakurai and his team went into for thinking of the small things that help the Smash games function properly, clearly, and have polish too. Those things that most of the other platform fighters failed to achieve or over all ignored, I hope someday You decide to look into all of those visuals and particle effects and how they are more than just effect but convey what is happening and the current state your character is currently in,
I really want them to take another crack at PSASBR with new characters and bringing it more inline with other examples of the genre with classic mode as an optional side mode
So as someone that played PlayStation All-stars for years and years I really wish it didn't turn out the way it did with the studio, the game was actually fun, a huge critisism is the fact that supers can only kill you but that was what combos into supers were for, or kill confirms as we call em lol, however some kill confirms were better than others and others didn't have practical ones for certain supers I really loved the combo system in the game, like you said it was more traditional with it and i like that WAY better despite me Still loving smash more to an extent, the characters were very fun and unique and the combination of games in stages was awesome Its a very important game to me and I'd love a sequel but with actual health bars or make it so every character has a practical kill confirm, with better supers and the game flow would be sick, at least that's what i think
One of the funnier examples of how merciless game development can be is Dan Fornace having to change the name for “Rivals 2” to “Rivals of Aether 2” last minute because of the announcement for Marvel’s Rivals
I've played a lot of Smash games and Smash clones. Brawl, Smadh 4, and Ultimate are by far my 3 most played games. I've also played a lot of "Smash Clones" like Rivals 1 & 2, NASB, and Slap City. I think out of all of them, Rivals 1 is the game where everything just felt like it went right. It took a lot of work and years to get it there, so I'm hoping the same is true for Rivals 2.
Rivals of Aether1/2 has THE best air dodge of any plat fighter: -you can wavedash with it -you dont become fully helpless after it and can infact use it for air dodge purposes unlike melee/PM honestly -not spammable like brawl/sm4sh but also not so huge endlag so have the choose to get hit and then die OR air dodge and die from end lag like ultimate
Maybe it's because I've played a lot of 2D fighting games, but I don't mind the whole "this character is like a reskin of a Smash character" thing, usually. When one game is so influential to its genre, yeah it will show. Granted when you compare the most obvious let's call them archetypes, the difference between The Kid and Zetterburn is undeniable.
Man with all of the jokes about Goku needing to be in Smash you'd think the Jump Stars games would be more well known, but they're always left out in videos like these. It's a shame too, it's a really unique pair of games that shows that platform fighters don't need to copy Smash's structure to be fun. I like how the characters in that game are significantly simpler but you can play as multiple of them that you can swap, as well as having assists and proto-spirits baked into the regular gameplay. They also really want to hammer in the fact that it's based on the mangas specifically, with stuff like the stages taking place in pages, the characters losing color as they lose health and the teams consisting on panels from the different manga
NASB was sort of doomed from the start, even outside of the idea of it being a "Smash Killer". The development team was given a shoestring budget, but rather than actually working within the limitations a shoestring budget would allow, (like being a relatively polished game with a maximum of 12 characters), they made a broken mess with a bloated cast of over 20. Every single mistake they made with the first game bit them hard with the second. They had to start from scratch rather than building on the first game. They had to cut characters instead of adding them. They had to fight off the poor reputation the first game had, as well as the rep of this just being the first game with DLC. There was just too much going againt them at that point. If anything, the series is a GREAT example of why building an actual foundation should be the top priority for a fighting game. Without that, fanservice can only go so far.
Brawlout's rage meter, and its problems, aren't even original MK vs DC had a very similar system with the exact same problems: Certain characters could combo out of breaker (usually the top tiers, including Green Lantern, the best character in the game, where it was kind of his whole thing).
Hey MockRock, I've been rewatching some of your old videos, and I was wondering, why'd you change the intro to remove Sylvanos? Was it just to cut down on the Intro length, or was it because you wanted to focus more on Smash, or was it something else? Just something I've been wondering.
X Killers, solve for X, is never a phrase uttered by people who enjoy X, solve for X. It's always used by people outside that circle. Consider "halo killers" from back in the day.
14:40 mock rock two things can be true at once, you can like smash and think it’s great while also liking rivals take on defensive play. (The video was great tho just a lil critique that I wanted to add)
I probably would have bounced off of ROA 2 if I wasn't playing it with my friends. It is too complicated, per my other comment. Fortunately it's playable without fully engaging in all the character-specific gimmicks, but it also feels like you're really missing out on something valuable when you don't engage with those things. I really want there to be more characters that don't really have gimmicks. So far it seems like Clairen is the only one who kind of qualifies. But I'll keep playing it with my friends and maybe I'll eventually get a handle on all of it.
I think a lot of what rivals is facing in terms of complaints is just what you get when you have actually distinct characters in a successful competitive game. The types of complaints at least sound identical to the ones you get on street fighter or guilty gear
NASB2 is so cool, I got it on Switch and just wish it ran better. There’s so much effort put in, but it’s hard to have fun playing with friends when loading screens can take well over a minute, and the game runs pretty poorly.
This one was a commission, for all the skills I've had to pick up over the years on TH-cam, illustration is still black magic to me lol. TH-cam lets you A/B test thumbnails now so I'm doing some testing to see if commissioning them more often is worth it, for this video the commission crushed the thumbnail I made so could be promising
Before Watching - I feel the term “smash killer” has significantly declined in popularity after Multiversus and paticularly NASB, though I forgot which one came first.
![ILLSLICK X YOUNGOHM - We're The same [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yUJNkobYR0E/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for watching everyone! This turned into a far larger project than I initially expected it to be, but it was a fun process and I liked going back to visit some games I hadn't touched in a _very_ long time. I remember when MockRock was going to be an Icons and Smash co-channel 🤔 Let me know what you thought!
*Main channel:* th-cam.com/users/mockrocktv
*Twitter:* twitter.com/MrMockRock
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*Teespring:* teespring.com/stores/mockrock
*TimeBolt affiliate link* (excellent software I use to speed up editing on my videos, use code "MOCKROCK" for a discount): mockrock--timebolt.thrivecart.com/order-page/
Why does this comment say 9 hours ago when the video says 3 hours ago? Is TH-cam developing dementia again?
@ryanspencer9602it’s not, creators can upload a video as private or unlisted to allow only specific people see it before launch, or to do things like add comments like this before the video is made public, as is the case here
@@SidechainWolfgang oh, thank you for clearing that up lmao
"The Term *Smash Killer* was Invented for Clickbait"
THANK YOU!!!
It's honestly kinda crazy how this is supposed to be your second "lower effort" channel with how well made your videos are.
This video was supposed to be a LOT lower effort than it ended up tbh, sometimes they just sorta do that and you're already in too deep haha
@@MockRockTalkThe Sunk Mock Fallacy
Honestly, the two channel thing feels weird and muddled. I watch / listen to MockRock for MockRock, and I generally don’t feel any major differences between videos. It just sorta makes videos slightly more confusing to find. Wondering how it affects the channel’s popularity.
Hey, one of the devs behind Beardbarians here, just wanna give a huge thanks for the mention! We may not have killed smash bros, but damn did we have fun trying :)
Honestly I feel like one of the biggest factors that prevents other platform fighters from getting as big as smash is that they get labelled “smash killers”. They never get to fully grow into their own identities because they’re always going to be linked to smash bros in some way, Multiversus is “Smash with Batman and Shaggy”, Nick All Stars is “Smash with SpongeBob”, Rivals is “Smash with Animals” etc
(I’m typing this before I watch the video so sorry if this all gets covered and I’ve said nothing of value lmao)
rivals is smash with actually well-thought-out movesets
its just like Mario Kart, any time someone describes a kart racing game as “just like Mario Kart”, you know they would rather be playing Mario Kart instead.
smash definitely has well thought out rulesets hero's moveset and kazuya's moveset are more thought out than anything rivals has combined@@krubbington
@@zukosvfxNo they arent, they have a lot of moves but theres no design synergy with their gimmicks to their attacks. Kazuya in specific has 100 moves and uses like 6 of them lol
@@zukosvfx i think you're confusing large movesets with synergistic movesets
Rivals of Aether workshop is one of those places you don't expect to see competition but man it is one tightly knit community full of talent and skill
Mostly talent and skill.
99% of WS creations suck.
@@FieryAnubis maybe that's true, but that still leaves you with AT LEAST 200 awesome characters that are somewhat balanced and fun. I've tried around 2000+ workshop characters and I can tell there are hundreds of characters I have installed and play regularly. Most of them do stuff you've never seen before in any platform fighter, and are insanely well polished.
I know it's not gonna get mentioned, but shoutout to Super Smash Flash 2 for slightly speeding up smash 4's death cycle and keeping us occupied while waiting for Ultimate
Icons is such an interesting case when you know that a good chunk of the devs were former Project M members. I was in the Brawl modding scene well before PM took off, back when the initial roster didnt even have half of Brawl's cast yet, and I vividly remember people's complaints at that time: the Brawl newcomers, like Sonic, felt amazing and had so many fun, new moves to play with. And yet everyone from Melee was just... from Melee. Adjustments here and there to help them keep up, sure, but the point was all the Brawl newcomers at the time felt fresh, inspired and experimental, while the veterans were just "yep, thats Melee".
And the ironic/best part? They owned up to that. By the time 3.5 came out and the roster was complete, along with Mewtwo and Roy, they did an AMAZING job giving the Melee cast some zest. Sure, Fox and Falcon and the "untouchable" melee favorites weren't majorly different, but characters like Ganon, Samus, Bowser, and so many others were given insanely fun changes that still made them feel like the character in question while giving them fun new tools that helped them stand out. Not every change was a winner, sure, the less we say about some moves and characters at the time the better, but the point is, the team showed they were capable of understanding what made a character loved, giving them the touches they need to keep up with Melee-isms, all while bringing some genuinely fresh and fun moves.
...and then when Icons finally happened, they had the exact same problem as the early PM days. The new characters were insanely fun, yet the "obligatory" melee architypes just didn't have enough to make them stand out.
Howdy! I was a beta tester for NASB1 who followed the game and community for the majority if its lifespan and I just wanted to share a couple fun things you don't seem to know about.
1. There is exactly *one* character on the entire roster who's throws have unique properties, which is Rocko. More specifically they have higher base knockback and lower knockback growth, and this is because he would've have up throw down air infinites and the best up throw kill confirm in the entire game with upthrow > up air if he didn't have that change when he released. We could've nerfed down air and up air but that would've hurt his character identity a lot so we chose to go that route instead.
2. Hugh is the most unique character on the entire roster and it's not even close. He obviously has the PM Yoshi double jump canceling mechanics alongside slippery physics but he also has 2 completely unique hidden moves that no other character on the roster gets, those being a back air and a special input move. The back air was the result of a community meme one of the other testers started involving Hugh having a back air before he was released/properly revealed (which he didn't have when we were testing first testing him), and I was actually the one who got it added into to the game via suggesting the input method, which is just a traditional back air input while holding the strafe button. It's a little finicky to get used to but there was literally no other way to get it into the game cause of the whole air turning thing. The input move though is literally just that one Chun-Li super and you do it by rotating the control stick in a complete circle starting from the downward position and then pressing the taunt button. It's completely ridiculous but it adds a lot to his character and I think you'd appreciate it a lot, or at least I do. Those 2 things alongside the multitude of little quirks in his moveset make him into what I consider to be the only worthwhile character to come out of NASB1. He's one of the worst characters in the game but he has so much personality in his moveset in a game that almost entirely lacks moveset variety and I really appreciate Hugh for that.
Great video btw! I appreciate how you approach a lot of the games in this video and the "Smash Killer" topic in general with respect despite the criticisms you're bringing up. A lot of people come across as very snobby when they're talking about these games and you do a great job of not being an asshole when you discuss them.
Rivals content (kind of) RAAAAAH
She rivals on my Aether til I 2!?!??!??
Icons really is the pinnacle of "Melee players only play Melee." Like the devs had the chance to make the perfect competitive game that they wanted and they just made Melee again.
Regarding crossovers in Brawlhalla:
Theres a rule where only one character can have a combination of weapons. ONLY Mako can be the greatsword katars legend, ONLY Isaiah can be the cannon blasters legend, ect. So if a new crossover were to be added, and they are basically required to have a specific weapon pair, then an issue arises where another character already has it. That's why they are skins for existing characters, it keeps them from having to break their own rule.
I guess that makes sense and I figured there might be some kind of context along those lines I was missing (although god knows I tried to find it and couldn't lol). As far as that rule goes, I can't really say I get it when signature attacks are a thing, but I'm out of my element here so I'll trust it makes more sense from the inside
@@MockRockTalkThere's also another reason (and to be honest I really should have led with this), but legends in Brawlhalla are free. It takes coins, yes, but you get them from just playing the game, and it really doesn't take long to get enough to unlock a legend. So if the new crossovers were new legends, you have this lose-lose situation where either you make it purchasable with coins and make no money from the crossover, or you make it cost money and anger the entire playerbase. Then there's licensing issues with making skins, I won't go into that too much but let's just say Rayman went something like 4 years without receiving a new skin beyond his original 3, and you realize that making it a skin is just the most logical decision.
Just to let you know on Fraymakers. Welltaro’s Side B has an unfinished animations because a majority of community hate how it's designed and it's up unfun to fight so instead of finishing the animation, the devs plan to make a new side b for him.
The Brawlhalla influence you mention at 52:40 is real, I was an intern at WB Games back in 2020 and when I was first shown the game they were openly describing it as a "Brawlhalla Competitor", and I never heard them mention smash even once.
I've always wondered, when you're an intern and you see a game for the first time, and it's ass, is it immediately obvious to go "oh yeah this is gonna flop" but you just can't say anything because you're an intern?
The first time I saw Multiversus' physics I knew it wasn't gonna be popular, but I'm curious how many people at WB games knew this as well
@@ellie8272 Seeing something years before release its hard to get any kind of gauge of success (most characters weren't even modeled at that point) but I did complain about the movement feeling clunky and unintuitive from the perspective of a regular platfighter player. Open beta MV felt much better than what I played, but the core issues I had remained, so they were likely consciously implemented. All that being said I wasn't directly working on the game and was just an intern; nobodys listening to the intern.
One of my personal issues with the Nick All-Star Brawl games is how heavily skewed the representation is towards the 90s, while series from the 2000s onwards are largely ignored and/or underrepresented. I recognise that the former era of shows has more nostalgic appeal, but it really feels unfair for an "All-Star" series to ignore such large chunks of its history. Part of what makes Smash Bros. so fun is that you get characters from niche games like Ice Climber, Kid Icarus and F-Zero brought into the spotlight standing alongside titans like Mario and Pokémon. A Nickelodeon fighting game could have provided the opportunity to do just that, helping more under-appreciated and/or lesser known series like It's Pony or Glitch Techs get more recognition.
NASB2 is a great game, don't get me wrong. It has probably some of my favourite feeling combat and character designs out of any crossover platform fighter I've played. I just hope that if Fair Play Labs are given the chance to keep working and building on the series, they can extend some of that love to more of Nick's animated catalogue and give some obscure series a chance to shine, rather than just going back to the well of arbitrary secondary reps or leaning solely on the big name franchises that just happen to be under the network's umbrella.
In its defense, Nick generally cancels anything that’s not an absolute powerhouse. Could use some Loud House rep, but that’s the only show I can think of that’s stayed past the early 2000s.
Mockrock: this doesn't seem hard. This should be a fun low stakes project.
Five months later
What is interesting to me, is how games trying to copy Smash not only copy its gameplay, but also the crossover aspect. Only Rivals kind of doesn't.
I’ve often been fascinated by that! Like, crossover kart racers are a thing, and so are traditional fighting games, but those are both less common. There’s no reason someone couldn’t make a crossover MOBA. But they just don’t because Smash made platform fighters the default crossover game
@@unseenasymptote4976and even more interesting, the crossover aspect was a later addition to Smash.
@@unseenasymptote4976 There is a crossover MOBA out there: Heroes of the Storm
Brawlhalla was originally all unique characters, but once Ubisoft acquired them they slowly started pumping out crossovers to get more players in.
@@unseenasymptote4976 I can't really speak for mobas, but the thing Is platform fighters hit the perfect sweetspot between being able to give characters completely unique movesets that let them represent who the character Is trough gameplay (Kart racers could, at most, give them a unique item), while also being simple enough for casual fans of the property crossing over to pick up (unlike a more traditional fighting game, which would have a more complicated moveset)
Honestly, I think the reason we don't have a game that truly rivals Smash Bros yet might be because there hasn't been a developer who's been willing to give the budget and marketing for one to be made. A lot of companies that do have a bunch of widely recognizable characters often hire small indie developers to make the game, and not end up giving them enough time or money to make it properly, and then the big companies end up doing something stupid that spells failure for the game. The prime examples include Playstation All Stars, Nickelodeon All Stars, and Multiversus. But I will say NASB2 is my persoanl favorite, and if there's a NASB3 in the works, I wouldn't mind if it was mostly NASB2 with more content. And then you have smaller indie made games that have a lot of passion behind them, but don't often have the budget to get a lot high profile characters, or make the best visuals. The best examples from this video being Brawlout and Rushdown Revolt. Now Rivals of Aether did manage to become very successful, and its sequel is doing very well. And while I did back Rivals 2 on Kickstarter, and think the game pretty fun, it's obvious the game was made for the players who like to play the most optimally, and I'm not one of those players. So when I run into a player who plays like they're in a Melee tournament in casual 1v1, it can get pretty annoying. Sorry for such a long comment, I just had a lot to say on this subject. By the way, I haven't played the game, but I love the concept of the health system from Rushdown Revolt, and would like to see it in more platform fighters.
I fully admit to being ass at Rivals 2, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. Any game is gonna have players who can kick your ass, that's just normal, I don't let it get me down and allow myself to incrementally improve over time
Great video (as usual) Mock! I will say, at 6:24, when you’re making the “helps you so you can hurt them later” about PS All-Stars, you did unfortunately happen to show the one Street Fighter character who has a mechanic like that (AKI has moves that poison her opponent, and when hitting a poisoned opponent with certain moves, it greatly increases her combo potential and damage output)
27:16 myself jumpscare 😭
i'm glad you enjoyed nasb2, it's super fun! i really enjoy just how many options characters have in that game, with the high amount of moves + slime mechanics. and in the latest patch, basically every character feels viable.
that's my main platfighter, so i took a peek at that section, but i'll watch the rest of the video for sure.
bruhhh the PRICE! this is my biggest gripe with the game. despite how good it is, it's really hard to convince others at $50. i've seen it on sale for as low as $5, but i really wish they'd lower the base price
Aw, nice to see the Nick Brawl series get some credit! I love both a lot, and I just can't believe how good they ended up being. Yeah, the first game doesn't have budget, but I couldn't believe Nick cared to get an experienced team and that characters could wavedash with good online! And innovated with airgrabs and air strongs (Which Sakurai mentioned wanting to do in an interview after Sora came out - maybe we'll see these in the next Smash?). Then the sequel innovates more with this slime meter, one of the best single-player campaigns, the best online I've tried, and some of the most fun characters - I can't believe how much I love this rhino from TMNT ha! Really surprisingly amazing titles I'll always be amazed by and super excited to see that series continue!
Excited for whatever next Nick Brawl there might be, and whatever Smash there might be, and loving cartoons a lot, I also wish the best for Multiversus. I really still don't love the floatiness or lack of grabs, but the team seems nice and I also think some characters like Jason turned out pretty great overall! Also keeping an eye on Rivals of Aether 2 while I've found it pretty annoying, but their first big patch was about making it less annoying ha! But yeah! So cool that Smash was the only real option when I was a kid. I was hungry for more and tried Playstation Royale which really didn't do it for me, but now there's plenty of more fun Platform Fighters around! Hopefully lots of them can have successful futures and we can all have fun playing a bunch of them at home or tourneys and see all sorts of characters celebrated in the format!
I guess you could say Brawlout got lost in the sauce.
Dinner is served AFTER LUNCH!
Now that I think about it, compared to any other given "[insert popular game here] Killer", being hired to build a Smash Killer seems to be even more thankless of a job than it already would be for any other franchise.
The sheer volume and variety of brand power behind Smash is a suffocating thing to go up against, the fact that PSA was gimped in terms of support from Sony too really feels like rubbing salt into the wound.
No game is made as a [game] Killer. Fans of whatever the most popular game in any given genre just call every other game in the genre that because they think the world revolves around them.
@Awesomeness-iz3dh Time and time again games are developed with the goal very clearly being to compete with another popular title and try to get a piece of the pie, the ideal end goal being to become the new top dog.
Look at the hero shooter and battle royale crazes we've seen in recent years. Companies were _blatantly_ trying to compete with successful hits, in the live-service market, where games directly compete with each other not just for the player's money, but their time as well.
The term "killer" may not have been used, but the intentions are more or less the same.
@@GumshoeClassicwhat is funny, is that most of these Smash type games mostly try to go after the competitive scene, since they aren't catered to by Nintendo themself, though they also always kinda proof, why Nintendo doesn't really care for the competitive scene.
@LG555
People keep forgetting that Competitive Smash is a MINORITY.
Smash thrives because of its focus on the casual.
@@user-be3qc7re9o This applies to pretty much every competitive game that doesn't nickel-and-dime singular whales to keep afloat, including most fighting games.
Only a few thousand people are still playing, but the hundreds of thousands who bought it and dropped it after a month are where the money lies.
Slap city the true smash killer. If you've never played a cruiser tetron mirror match, you're missing out
Slap City THE BEST GAME EVER MADE
There seems to be a common theme with these games where the way they differentiate themselves from Smash is by being more complicated. But I like Smash because it isn't complicated. That's why I stopped playing other fighting games after I tried Smash 64. So in a lot of cases, I look at these games and go, I'd rather play Smash so that I don't break my brain. Of course, Smash also has a good number of overly complicated characters at this point, but fortunately the core design is such that there's a lot of characters you can just play without needing to worry about complicated gimmicks and the like.
You should try Brawlhalla. It's super simple.
Ignoring that your definition of complicated is rather broad, the problem is that Smash kinda has the monopoly on the basic platform fighter, simply because it did its thing as easily as it reasonably could. How do you compete with the simplicity of a direction and an attack button? Any more simple and it's just boring. Literally if Smash had a Smash Attack button (THE Y BUTTON IS RIGHT THERE) it would be perfect.
@Tiquono I don't want or expect other games to do simplicity better than Smash, I just don't want them to improve on it through (substantially) increased complexity. Making more user friendly versions of things like wavedashing and eliminating L-canceling while preserving the general feel of Melee, in the context of a game with good stages and competitive support, is all I'd really want.
The reason they do that is because if you're a casual player Smash already exists and appeals to you. The competitors are meant to appeal to people who have problems with smash, which is mostly the people who take the game more seriously. Smash is one of the best casual games ever made, I doubt any game could ever compete with it on that front
@@SharurFoFthat's exactly what Rivals 2 is actually
I can personally vouch for the quality of Fraymakers, as someone who backed it, watching the game improve over time was really a sight to see. The actual game feel is top notch, and assists are such a nice innovation, and let indies with more abstract, less conventional characters make appearances (like Super Hexagon). My point when I was really on board with this was Ultra Fishbunjin's release into the game, notably, the devs asked the community whether he should be released earlier with some unfinished sketch moves, or if they should wait until he was fully finished, and the community chose when he was done. Some people complained about the wait after the fact but he was so well polished that I couldn't care less myself. Here's hoping they can stick the landing when they launch.
Damn I forgot how _lifeless_ Yooka and Laylee's idle stance looks in Brawlout.
Honestly fantastic video, it was so cool looking back at all the platform fighters we have seen over the years and as someone who has seen "smash killer" be thworn around to pretty much any game where 2 characters fight, it was so nice to actually learn more about games like brawlhalla which i had NO IDEA was this big honestly lol a lot of things took me by surprise but it just made me appreciate the genre so much more, truly a fantastic video... btw RIVALS OF AETEHR IS THE GOAAAAAT (but why did they have to nerf orcane in rivals 2 man)
You should do a video on your personal favorite platform fighter characters. Not designed, you have done that, but your favorite to play. I believe that would be an interesting and unique video that wouldn’t be too hard effort
MockRock, I love your videos because of much of a different light you can shed on these sorts of things. You don't see many people talking about or making large scale videos about a lot of these games anymore, and you always find something positive or interesting to say even if the game isn't universally reveled as great.
For as much as we complain about Smash, man the "competition" is rough.
It's hard to compete with a series, that had 2 decades to perfect its gameplay barely any competition.
Kirby’s expression in the thumbnail gives me life.
Aw man, now that you updated the video title that little gag at 0:25 doesn't really work anymore :(
Reasons why there’ll never be a Smash killer:
1, it’s too entrenched of a series in the genre to ever be made irrelevant. It’d be like trying to make a Street Fighter killer.
2, even if by some miracle somebody came remotely close, then Nintendo would sue them into oblivion, as evidenced by the Palworld debacle.
Onto the actual games:
I actually really liked PSASBR’s controls, but I agree that it definitely needed health bars rather than the insta-kill supers. Multiple anime platfighters have been able to make both health bars and super meters work, so idk why PSASBR felt the need to be different. Also, my favorite PlayStation IP, Gravity Rush, was relegated to DLC.
Haven’t played Brawlhala. The guest characters sound interesting, but the repeated movesets turn me off.
Brawlout: idk what that is.
Slap City: heard of it, but never looked too deeply into it. Some of the features sound fun though.
Nick ASB: was excited for at first, but like Brawlhala the moveset design turned me off. I should probably check out the sequel though, since it does sound much better, I just haven’t had the time.
Icons: I’ve never been super interested in a pure Melee clone without much else.
Rushdown Revolt: sounds really cool. I might have to check this one out. Probably too high of a skill ceiling for me, but it might be fun to just check out CPU battles or something.
Multiversus: is it weird that the crossover aspect is the second least appealing thing to me about it? (After the monetization, ofc). Idk, I just never really wanted Steven Universe vs Game of Thrones, and I feel like casting such a wide net results in losing out on a lot of would-be must-have characters. I feel like if they tightened their focus I’d be more interested.
RoA: I absolutely love the first game. I’m holding off on getting the sequel for a little while, since the modding community was such a huge part in getting me into the first one.
You have no idea what the point was behind the Palworld Lawsuit was, do you?
@ I’ve seen multiple videos on the matter, so yeah, I feel like I know what it’s about. A competing company (Sony) backed a Pokemon clone that, between Sony’s backing and how it took the internet by storm, made Nintendo worried it might cut too deeply into the market, so they made some absolute bullshit patents to sue it over and assert dominance.
@@GurrenPrime
That's not the full story.
Market dominance had absolutely NOTHING to do with it.
The whole reason why the Patent Lawsuit even took place is because Nintendo found that Palworld's use of the Capture Ball mechanic directly used Source Code from their games.
As such, Nintendo filed a lawsuit using the patent to have it changed, which it's doing in the upcoming sequel.
@GurrenPrime
Secondly, Patent Lawsuits are NOT a new thing.
Sega sued the Simpsons over the use of Patents in a "Crazy Taxi Clone" back in 2003, yet no one said anything.
Spectacular video!!! Love hearing the unique meter mechanic ideas some of these have.
Absolute banger of a video. Always been curious about other platfighters but never got around to playing too many of them. Thanks to your retrospectives/reviews, I'm definitely gonna be trying Rushdown Revolt and the first Rivals!
A movie length MockRock video?? Thank you for making my work less boring today 🙏
This was an excellent video! As a casual Smash player I’ve heard many of these games, even tried a couple but I haven’t seriously considered playing them more. However this video has done a great jobs showcasing these games’ strengths and opened my mind to giving them a try.
This is main channel-tier content!
It's interesting to think about what the platform fighter genre would be like if the genre creator hadn't been a crossover game like Smash. Other fighting games aren't defined by this notion, so we don't see them as beholden to that idea as we do in platform fighters, with games like PlayStation All-Stars and NASB. And because the Smash roster is so absurdly compelling, it makes it hard to accept rosters of original characters like for ROA. Like, abstractly I can see that the ROA cast is well-designed both mechanically and artistically, but I just can't get excited about it in the same way.
This was an awesome showcase of platform fighters. I wouldn't mind seeing a part 2 in tge future.
I would love to see a video where you just go through a bunch of different platfighters and just give your first impressions of each one. Stuff like the kirby platfighters, slayers for hire, indiepogo ect
The problem with calling something an ""X" killer" is that it makes you think "oh man this is just going to be the thing I like but better and it rarely ever will be.
2+ decades of hearing about a "Wow killer" and none of them stay longer than a few months (FF14 not included) will teach you that.
Same thing with all those Pokémon killers. I wish people would stop with the x killer and just let these games form there own identity
I blame HungryBox for that.
Don't get me wrong, he's a cool guy, but calling every new Platform fighter the "SMASH KILLER" or "SMASH BROS IS DEAD" kinda makes me cringe a bit.
Icons combat arena character design would fit right at home at Concord
Thanks for actually bringing up Maypul. She's somehow flown under the radar so far (likely because her skill floor is high enough that most people haven't run into a good one yet) but good god is her design horrendous. I genuinely do not enjoy playing the game when she's on screen which is saying a lot because aside from her this is my favorite multiplayer game ever made
GIVE ME HUGH BACK IN NASB2 AAAAGH! I know it's stupid, but I don't care. The fact that we lost characters in between games is incredibly frustrating, and that frustration is just amplified when you remember Hugh was literally added because the "Hugh nation" (online group of Hugh superfans) all came together for one single purpose, get Hugh in by campaigning and not sending death threats to the creators
Maypul gets a ton of complaints??? Most people I know complain about Kragg and Clairen and sometimes Wrastor, which I agree on Kragg and Clairen, having EWGF on roughly half of your hitbox or being insane in so many ways I can’t even describe, but I have yet to hear anyone complain about Maypul until this video.
One cool thing about these games is the stages, I was admiring and enjoying this videos seeing the other devs take on the stages
great video as always
Playstation All-stars was seen at the time as the "we have smash at home" joke, or as Smash but bad. But beside that there where plenty of people that liked the game
Funny, how it is not the only "we have Nintendo at home" type of game, that is a Sony exclusive.
Rivals of Aether 1 is still my favorite platform fighter. Absa, Elliana, and Olympia in particular are just so absurdly fun to play IMO.
9:37 You know they could have collaborated with Pepsi instead of having Pepsiman as a guest fighter, he would be the Captain Falcon clone, but instead of the Falcon Punch, Pepsiman does the Soda Pop Punch.
The Pepsi Punch. And when you hit it, it plays part of Pepsiman's infamous theme...specificially, the name shout.
It's been fun to see single-player games inspired by platform fighters. Shows that the genre can be more than a versus game.
Its insane that I actually thought to myself "Wow, finally, someone actually giving credit to NASB2 and not just randomly shitting on it"
I was actually shocked by the response a lot of people had, as someone who beta tested the first game, the sequel is just a straight up better game in all aspects and feels so much more like a love letter to these Nicktoons than the first one (which just felt like mashing lifeless action figures together). I was also fine with the base roster honestly, but the DLC choices were extremely disappointing, if they could've gotten some obscure or cult classic franchises for the DLC this game would've been perfect to me
I still play NASB2 with my friends every now and then, it's a great game that deserved better
This video taught me a lot, thanks!
Hearing the story of Icons was sad. Ngl, it kind of reminds me of how Spellbreak went down on the battle royale side of games
1:21:39 this one got a laugh out of me 😂 small moment in the scheme of things but it has not gone unappreciated
I do genuinely think there is a difference between platform fighters and smash clones. For instance, I think nickelodeon all star brawl is definitely a smash clone. Nickelodeon already made basically a mario kart clone, and then they're like "okay, let's hire these guys to make a super smash brothers game but with our characters", whereas the whole reason that rivals of aether only exists is because they really like the gameplay that smash provides and want to make their own game with their own characters. Even other crossover games like slap city, which is technically a crossover with a bunch of ludocity characters, I wouldn't term a smash clone, but more as a platform fighter. Now the thing is, being a smash clone isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think despite being the biggest and most obvious smash clone, the Nickelodeon All Star Brawl games are some of my favorite games in the genre, and NASB 2 in particular is my favorite platform fighter ( it's still a smash clone, but it's also a platform fighter, since that's still the genre. Not all platform fighters are smash clones, but some smash clones are platform fighters) and I actually like it way more than any of the official smash games, and then there's games like Icons which is a platform fighter like Rivals of Aether, but it's also just kinda bad.
It is fascinating hearing the current states of Nick All Stars and Multiversus.
5:40 One thing to mention about the supers in that game is how unbalanced they are. You demonstrated Sly’s level one super and you can see how far it reaches. Meanwhile a character like Sir Daniel Fortesque’s level one super is an attack that can only hit mid air opponents in front of him. This kind of balance is all over the roster and makes some characters basically impossible to use since they have very weak supers
subbing for the thumbnail!
This video is so comprehensive and well made and has presumably commissioned thumbnail art but it's still only on your side channel? What is the threshold for main channel content these days?
Also, Kat from Gravity Rush was DLC in PlayStation All-Stars who had actually strong mobility and immediately became S-tier.
If I'd known how this video would have turned out going in, I likely would've just ditched the casual facecam aspect and made it a full channel video instead. The original plan was to just pop in and take a glance at everything, maybe ending up with a 30-40 minute casual overview, and I just kept finding stuff to talk about haha
As much as Multiversus can stumble itself, I do genuinely still like the game and want to see it suceed, I really do hope the best for it bc I see it's potential and how the devs clearly listen to criticism and want to improve, I just hope the game survives so we can get there (or at the bare minimum it gets an offline version in case it does go EOS bc even the biggest haters of this game can probably agree that the amount of animation and voice acting present here deserves to be preserved)
Fun fact: I picked up the rivals 2 demo with a friend, got my ass kicked but loved it, bought the game on launch, and immediately got a tendinitis and could not play it (am like almost recovered so might pick it back up next time I feel like it)
6:20 But it is something that Shrek Superslam does, which as we're all aware, is peak gaming
The stage mixup in psbr was so cool and i wish stages in smash did that too
I agree that shields dont cause passive gameplay. If anything they might cause the opposite.
I used to play brawlhalla a lot, and one of the main complaints against that game was the passive playstyle that is seemingly encouraged by the dodge system and lack of DI (or at least in the way smash has DI). Online play was plagued with people who just wouldn't approach, forcing you to engage first and ultimately be whiff punished due to how fast and lagless dodging is. Obviously some of this is skill issue on the part of mid-level players like myself, but it's still worth considering that when dodging is your only defensive option it has to be pretty darn good in order to escape combos and the like.
Though I want to be clear that I don't think passive play is inherently bad, and I still love brawlhalla. It's just a playstyle difference.
It just goes to show how much Sakurai and his team went into for thinking of the small things that help the Smash games function properly, clearly, and have polish too. Those things that most of the other platform fighters failed to achieve or over all ignored,
I hope someday You decide to look into all of those visuals and particle effects and how they are more than just effect but convey what is happening and the current state your character is currently in,
I really want them to take another crack at PSASBR with new characters and bringing it more inline with other examples of the genre with classic mode as an optional side mode
So as someone that played PlayStation All-stars for years and years
I really wish it didn't turn out the way it did with the studio, the game was actually fun, a huge critisism is the fact that supers can only kill you but that was what combos into supers were for, or kill confirms as we call em lol, however some kill confirms were better than others and others didn't have practical ones for certain supers
I really loved the combo system in the game, like you said it was more traditional with it and i like that WAY better despite me Still loving smash more to an extent, the characters were very fun and unique and the combination of games in stages was awesome
Its a very important game to me and I'd love a sequel but with actual health bars or make it so every character has a practical kill confirm, with better supers and the game flow would be sick, at least that's what i think
One of the funnier examples of how merciless game development can be is Dan Fornace having to change the name for “Rivals 2” to “Rivals of Aether 2” last minute because of the announcement for Marvel’s Rivals
I've played a lot of Smash games and Smash clones. Brawl, Smadh 4, and Ultimate are by far my 3 most played games.
I've also played a lot of "Smash Clones" like Rivals 1 & 2, NASB, and Slap City.
I think out of all of them, Rivals 1 is the game where everything just felt like it went right. It took a lot of work and years to get it there, so I'm hoping the same is true for Rivals 2.
"it has a banger theme song though"...*MADEON INTENSIFIES*
I love to see brawlhalla shown in a positive light for once
Rivals of Aether1/2 has THE best air dodge of any plat fighter:
-you can wavedash with it
-you dont become fully helpless after it and can infact use it for air dodge purposes unlike melee/PM honestly
-not spammable like brawl/sm4sh but also not so huge endlag so have the choose to get hit and then die OR air dodge and die from end lag like ultimate
hi mockrock i clicked on the video!! :0 i love all ur videos so it was no-brainer.. PlayStation Allstars was a fun first entry
Maybe it's because I've played a lot of 2D fighting games, but I don't mind the whole "this character is like a reskin of a Smash character" thing, usually. When one game is so influential to its genre, yeah it will show. Granted when you compare the most obvious let's call them archetypes, the difference between The Kid and Zetterburn is undeniable.
Man with all of the jokes about Goku needing to be in Smash you'd think the Jump Stars games would be more well known, but they're always left out in videos like these. It's a shame too, it's a really unique pair of games that shows that platform fighters don't need to copy Smash's structure to be fun. I like how the characters in that game are significantly simpler but you can play as multiple of them that you can swap, as well as having assists and proto-spirits baked into the regular gameplay. They also really want to hammer in the fact that it's based on the mangas specifically, with stuff like the stages taking place in pages, the characters losing color as they lose health and the teams consisting on panels from the different manga
1:03:26 "TODAY. WE HAVE. RAVEN." 🗣🔥
NASB was sort of doomed from the start, even outside of the idea of it being a "Smash Killer". The development team was given a shoestring budget, but rather than actually working within the limitations a shoestring budget would allow, (like being a relatively polished game with a maximum of 12 characters), they made a broken mess with a bloated cast of over 20.
Every single mistake they made with the first game bit them hard with the second. They had to start from scratch rather than building on the first game. They had to cut characters instead of adding them. They had to fight off the poor reputation the first game had, as well as the rep of this just being the first game with DLC. There was just too much going againt them at that point.
If anything, the series is a GREAT example of why building an actual foundation should be the top priority for a fighting game. Without that, fanservice can only go so far.
1:27 MADEON MENTIONED GRAAAAAAAAH
the coney stray is CRAZY
Brawlout's rage meter, and its problems, aren't even original
MK vs DC had a very similar system with the exact same problems: Certain characters could combo out of breaker (usually the top tiers, including Green Lantern, the best character in the game, where it was kind of his whole thing).
Hearing MockRock name drop Sly Cooper feels awesome for no reason (I am a Sly fan)
1:12:23 HOW TF DID I GET ON A MOCKROCK VIDEO
It's pleak...
Hey MockRock, I've been rewatching some of your old videos, and I was wondering, why'd you change the intro to remove Sylvanos? Was it just to cut down on the Intro length, or was it because you wanted to focus more on Smash, or was it something else? Just something I've been wondering.
"Smash killer" is a term Smash fans use to refer to other plat fighters because they think the universe revolves around them.
It feels more like a term people use because they desperately _want_ Smash to lose tbh
X Killers, solve for X, is never a phrase uttered by people who enjoy X, solve for X. It's always used by people outside that circle. Consider "halo killers" from back in the day.
@@smallsoul2374 This is more accurate. Op seems to be a prime example.
>Smash Killer
>Platform Fighter
Choose one
You sure? I've only seen people that use the term 'Smash killer' who do NOT like smash bros
Kirby fighters 2 footage at 1:26:03 lets goooo 🗿
All the games that were dubbed “Smash Killer” was cursed to die.
14:40 mock rock two things can be true at once, you can like smash and think it’s great while also liking rivals take on defensive play. (The video was great tho just a lil critique that I wanted to add)
There will never be another platform fighter like super smash bros
I like to see a new PlayStation all star battle royal with new characters and returning ones new stages and the same final boss with new move sets
I probably would have bounced off of ROA 2 if I wasn't playing it with my friends. It is too complicated, per my other comment. Fortunately it's playable without fully engaging in all the character-specific gimmicks, but it also feels like you're really missing out on something valuable when you don't engage with those things. I really want there to be more characters that don't really have gimmicks. So far it seems like Clairen is the only one who kind of qualifies. But I'll keep playing it with my friends and maybe I'll eventually get a handle on all of it.
ah yes, mockrock, the smash killer killer
I think a lot of what rivals is facing in terms of complaints is just what you get when you have actually distinct characters in a successful competitive game. The types of complaints at least sound identical to the ones you get on street fighter or guilty gear
NASB2 is so cool, I got it on Switch and just wish it ran better. There’s so much effort put in, but it’s hard to have fun playing with friends when loading screens can take well over a minute, and the game runs pretty poorly.
That is a really cool thumbnail!!
Did you make it yourself or did you have someone make it for you?
This one was a commission, for all the skills I've had to pick up over the years on TH-cam, illustration is still black magic to me lol. TH-cam lets you A/B test thumbnails now so I'm doing some testing to see if commissioning them more often is worth it, for this video the commission crushed the thumbnail I made so could be promising
Another mockrock banger
Before Watching - I feel the term “smash killer” has significantly declined in popularity after Multiversus and paticularly NASB, though I forgot which one came first.
Every smash bros game is made mechanically deep in ways we do or don't understand.🤣