NASB 1 & 2 dev here, NASB1's samey movesets deserve more context The *entire core* of that game was built around a high-mid-low dichotomy. Which is to say: the RPS mechanic, throwing characters/projectiles in multiple directions, and the light movesets overall were in service to this system. Most attacks never had the opportunity to diversify themselves when the prime directive was "an upward attack MUST launch up & in front", "a downward attack MUST launch down & in front", etcetera If that sounds entirely arbitrary and restrictive... That's because it was. The team only had one chance to brainstorm a gameplay formula, because unbreakable deadlines, and the core gameplay implementer at that point wasn't interested in just doing Slap City again after working on it for half a decade (fair). There was literally no time nor resources to second-guess the radical new direction, so doubling-down was the only option I wasn't happy about it then, but it did contribute towards a wholly unique gameplay loop which still has a very loyal fanbase to this day. Several of those very fans ended up making a community patch for the first game, which I wholly support and endorse! I'd *still* be making changes to NASB1 if I was allowed to; seeing as that's simply not an option, elevating the passionate players is the next-best thing
Appreciate the insight Thaddeus! I think it's obvious from the video that NASB1 wasn't for me, but I admire that it was willing to experiment and always love hearing these kinds of stories, every game has them and things _never_ seem to be as simple as they look on the surface haha
Likewise, you and the team deserve kudos for making the movesets of NASB2 so varied and unique. The new movesets are anything but samey, and it gives characters such strong identities. Great job with the sequel!
You can't actually kill Smash. That's an impossible task. After all, wasn't Ultimate in particular the highest selling fighting game, beating out Street fighter 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.
I honestly believe that if Nintendo (in some alternate universe of course) remastered Melee and released it, most serious Melee players would hate it for being so different.
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, 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.
Yeah, of all of the channels that I follow that have a main and 2nd channel, MockRock is the one that is harder to differenciate the 2, he just cant do something half baked
@@Pedro999Paulo The simple answer is that this was supposed to be the half-baked channel where I was free to experiment more. Then it started doing better than the main channel. So now I'm not as free to do half-baked experiments lmao The continuously blurring identity between the channels isn't lost on me, no plans to change anything at the moment and again, this video is a bit of an outlier, but not impossible something could change in the future
@@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.
@@FieryAnubisno, TH-cam videos covering workshop shows you 99% of sucky rivals mods I complain a lot about the fact TH-camrs show off spriterips and characters that are mixelated more often than characters that took actual years to make, It's mainly because the most subscribed characters are all mostly when the workshop released. I recommend looking at workshop collections for competitive brackets because they can only ensure quality (except genesis 2024 because it was composed of only rivals 2 contest characters regardless of quality (also yes they had a contest and the winner (la reina) is going to be added to the game) )
i was a former dev on RushRev, and while i’m sad it didn’t pan out how i wanted it to, I’m really glad i spent the amount of time i did with it, both as a dev and the years before hand as a tester and community member. i’m not super active these days as thinking about it still makes me sad, but seeing other people talking about it, especially positively like you did does put a smile on my face to pair with the pain in my heart. thanks for hanging around as long as you did. c: 🖤
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
@@kaorinszNo 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
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.
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
I just hate when everyone calls a new platform fighter "The Smash killer" These games don’t exist to kill an existing one, they’re expanding on the genre the original created
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 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.
18:30 I'm a pretty big Brawlhalla player myself, and I can say for sure that the removal of shields in a platform fighter does make the game less aggressive in the end. Without them, dodging becomes your only defensive mechanic, so if you engage, then you'll put yourself into positions where you'll need to use your only defensive mechanic while approaching. The game then just becomes waiting for your opponent to make a mistake instead; punish their endlag, force a dodge, then get as much damage in during the 2 or 3 seconds where they can't dodge. The entire game revolves around that single mechanic I've seen it compared to Smash, which has an almost RPS-style of engaging with attacks, grabs, and shielding. In the most simple cases, shield beats attack, attack beats grab, grab beats shield. But with Brawlhalla, for example, dodge beats attack... and that's it. The first person to engage loses because of it, leading to a very defensive game overall.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
Often times they are better though, Smash is not even close to the best of its kind, it's just the most popular and mainstream and will continue to be.
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 is why I think single-player/story modes are more important than they get credit for. The characters of ROA are one of my favorite parts, but a lot of the appeal came from aesthetic and playstyle alone. I only interacted with characters like Maypul and Forsburn *after* doing the story and learning who they are, unlike Smash, where you'd likely know a good chunk of the cast long before purchasing.
@@SharurFoF yeah, admittedly it's rather simple, mostly just a short series of battles, and only the main 6 have them, but they have proper narrative sections between each fight, all weave together in the end, and even save your best times! This is all for ROA 1, as I haven't touched the sequel, but I hear it has full voice acting
On the topic of crossovers spawning a genre, team games were kind of like this with marvel vs capcom. Until dragonball came out (which is stronger than basically any fgc ip) there weren’t a whole lot of team games and even fewer that weren’t crossovers. But since we swim in a much smaller pool and also our devs talk to us and each other, it never really felt like the monopoly smash has.
After playing Mighty Fight Federation, Yooka & Laylee in Brawlout feel more poorly thought out in comparison. I mean, a move that allows Yooka to eat projectiles with his tongue, in a platform fighter where only ONE character out of about 12 uses projectiles? Why? At least Yooka instead grabs opponents with his tongue in Mighty Fight Federation.
Not to be a downer, Rivals 2 looks lovely, but I think in 20 years, when we look back on them both, the original will still be the more loved one. The art style is just so much more timeless, and the community accessibility for a pixel art game can not be understated
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
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.
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)
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
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
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
@@ellie8272 That's fare. I was writing this comment on the spot. I do think I have a lot of fun playing this game most of the time. Though there are still characters I find super annoying to fight, namely Maypul and Wrastor.
There also an issue with the audiences smash thrives on it’s casual fans and Nintendo fans and that crowd tends to be console games yes a good number are on console but very few are on the switch (you know the console smash players own) yes this can cause issues with why not just play smash but that’s already an issue with the genre Most smash fans probably don’t play PC at least not for these types of games and the ones that aren’t PC exclusive are PS5 and Xbox games only Another issue is the price too many in the genre either go 60(you know because smash didn’t have enough upsides so removing a price advantage isn’t going to help) or are free to play but filled with terrible monetisation Casual play also doesn’t get enough respect the genre is too focused on melee a game that is kind of terrible casually and especially single player so they don’t think to add the items or the story mode or the stage builder they thing 1v1 evo maybe 2v2 if they want it to be the USP and they often times don’t even think about proper coach co-op and single player for people with reasons they can’t go online (think bad internet, online locks, bad reception areas that sort of thing) And finally the first impression needs to be good so many have failed because despite the updates that day 1 release was too off putting and it can kill even the best games let alone a genre that gets boiled down to smash clones (looking at you NASB and multiversus relaunch)
Really enjoyed this deep dive into platform fighters (and you acknowledging that "Smash Killer" is a buzzword clickbait term). It's really interesting to compare these games with each other in terms of mechanics, character designs, and their history. Rivals of Aether remains the GOAT. Fantastic video as always! Also, thanks for brigning Byte Breakers to my attention because that looks SUPER interesting. As an avid Smash Run fan, a battle-royale platform fighter sounds extremely cool!! I love it when people experiment with platform fighter mechanics for new genres.
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)
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
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.
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.
@@thevioletbee5879 They did manage to get El Tigre in NASB2, more than likely in thanks to the influence the show's creator, Jorge Gutierrez, had online. More of that in general would be appreciated honestly.
@acmeanvil3022 I was just gonna bring up how the og comment brought up how they relied too much on big-name nostalgia picks and didn't do enough obscure reps. Yet el Tigre is probably (imo at least as someone who grew up remembering that show and watching it) the most obscure legacy pick nick has. And he made it into nasb2 lol. To this day I ask people my age (I'm 27 rn) or older if they even remember El Tigre and almost all of them have said no lol. Doesn't get more obscure than that if you ask me.
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!
I was glad to see Byte Breakers get mentioned - I played a good amount of the prototype when it was online (and more time than I’m proud to admit messing around with combos in the training room) and it might be the platform fighter I’m the most excited for recently. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Rivals 2 (even bought it week one) but it was just a bit too complex for me to really dive headfirst into, especially when I hit the middle ground between casual and competitive skill levels. Byte Breakers just showed a lot of promise to me. Some things could definitely use some work - the map for the battle royale mode just didn’t feel great, the system for taking stocks felt a bit forced with not a lot of ways to play around it, and the ratio of damage dealt to player health felt pretty off. But Odyssey did an _incredible_ job with Omega Strikers in regards to listening to their audience and refining both their prototypes and post-launch updates/patches. That may only be possible because of the size of the studio and the audience, but I still have more faith in Byte Breakers than I’ve had a _lot_ of other titles others have considered promising.
A bit of context on the mechanics behind taking stocks - it’s a bit different in Byte Breakers. Characters by default have 100 health, and knockback scaling works somewhat similarly to typical, just with the numbers swapped (lowest launch distance at 100, goes up as number goes down.) But when you hit 0, you enter a sort of critical state where any damage of significance sends you flying for an almost guaranteed KO, but not just off the screen - touching any blast zone or solid stage element while being launched from the attack takes you out. It’s a little odd at times. In the critical state, getting hit with a spike or a near-horizontal angle while above the stage is always a KO. More complex stage terrain feels almost opposite from other games - instead of being able to survive longer by teching on walls and ceilings, it’s an extreme disadvantage because all it would take is a slight tap to bump you into a wall and end your run. Add in the significantly faster (compared to similar games) speed at which damage piles up, and it feels like your stocks fly away in a game where you’d expect to be able to take a lot more damage by using the terrain to your advantage. I do hope this system gets reworked while the devs are cooking behind the scenes, but it could definitely be serviceable if they reworked the damage or health numbers so that every member of the 6-character cast didn’t have at least an 80% combo. (This bottom-of-Elite-Smash and Gold-ranked Rivals 2 player found all of these in about a week after the prototype went down. I’m a bit scared of what people who actually knew what they were doing could do with this game.)
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.
This was a really good retrospective, thanks for making it. Playstation All-Stars is a game I'll always go to bat for; for as many flaws as it has (poor visual style/cohesion and odd character choices being among them, for sure), I think that as long as you accept that it's a different type of game from Smash, it can be a ton of fun. A group of work friends and I played it together for several months in a row and had a blast the whole time, gradually learning the mechanics, how to set up for supers, how to deal with seemingly-overpowered combos and characters (Kratos), until we all found our favorite character collections and could go toe-to-toe with each other, and spawning tons of in-jokes and other laughs. If they ever give it another shot, with a bigger budget, more characters, and better polish, I think it could be a success.
It's the same animation from the original Yooka-Laylee, and it also got recycled in Mighty Fight Federation, despite the fact that Impossible Lair came out earlier, and Yooka had a more lively idle animation in the stages, where he has the old idle animation in the overworld.
We can call them "platform fighters" but we are still in the smash killer phase. The genre needs a goldeneye or halo or tekken to earn its proper title.
Currently making a similar video, giving an overview of why this Sub-Genre has struggled so much (other videos on the topic either do surface-level gut assumptions or just cover one area) and this video was really helpful on gathering info from games people don't really talk about anymore. Good work as always!
Me and my college roommate were consistently in the top 50 on the ranked duos leaderboard for PS All Stars Battle Royal. I would play Sackboy/Dante/Kat and he would play Raiden every time. The game had SO MUCH ROOM for combos and creativity that went completely unexplored for all but a tiny subsection of tryhards- for example, you’re showcasing a Dante ‘infinite’ at 4:46, and you can see in the clip that the infinite combo protection kicks in and sends ratchet flying after a couple loops. But, if you’re playing doubles, Dante’s teammate can interrupt the infinite with a hit that crumples ratchet, which lets the Dante player restart the combo for more damage or a kill confirm
PSABR in doubles really showed how much of a balanced and different game it was, it was the Multiversus where there were a lot of strats for duos before Multiversus capitalized on the doubles branding of platform fighters.
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.
I do find it funny that every other platform Fighter releases has been "Is this finally the smash killer?" But for Rivals 2 the community is just like "WOW we get TWO smash games now" lol
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
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
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)
Absolutely agree with the Rivels praise! Definately my favorite non-smash titles in the genre, and the value of the workshop addition cannot be overstated. But... no one ever talks about runes for some reason. 🤔Check them out if you havn't, they are in rivals 1 only (so far).
I think Matt McMuscles put it best, their are certain terms game developers shouldn't use like genre breaker or _ Killer, so let's add horror entertainment to that list
A movie length MockRock video?? Thank you for making my work less boring today 🙏 Also that comment about being happy to not be in the games industry is so real as someone who also has a CS degree lol
NASB2 is so much fun. I’ve never really gotten into playing Melee bc of the lack of a buffer system and small viable cast (by generous estimates, about 10-12 of the cast is viable). But NASB2 has a lot of great things from Melee, and a lot of new stuff. I have discovered the joy of wave dashing across the stage, zipping up to an opponent and whacking them with a big robotic hammer. Marvelous.
All Star's roster is kind of why Sony shouldn't try something like that. Simply, most of the most well known "Sony" characters aren't theirs. Meanwhile Nintendo can still make a great roster with no third parties.
Watching this and listening to your researched and experienced opinions has made me feel a lot better about how I feel about these games, as I often feel crazy or guilty about my opinions about these games. It was also very entertaining learning about behind the scenes things things and new games. Loved watching through this video, thank you for putting this together
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
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
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!
Fun Fact: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is from the Super Brawl series. The series was on the Nick games website, with Super Brawl originally being a game for the holidays.
I was actually waiting for you to talk about Multiversus again! I quite enjoy the game so its a shame it isn't doing super well, the entire gaming culture is brutal and I wish that non perfect nor groundbreaking games could be given more chance I find you analysis to be really thoughtful and well informed and this video is no different
I think my favorite part of rivals 2 is the characters. It feels like something I’ve been waiting for without knowing I was. Every character just feels so unique, so clever, so well thought out, and they all feel really good to play. I also love that it’s an original IP in a world of remakes and cinematic universes. Very refreshing and definitely my game of the year.
Loved to hear the mention of competitive Workshop, as someone who’s been around the scene for a few years as a character dev ^^ It’s absolutely one of those things that nobody would believe if you told them it existed (something something “I’ve only watched Alpharad play Ronald as a frame of reference”), but once you show it off it’s genuinely one of the coolest things in any platform fighter I’ve seen, and the community has pulled off a ton of crazy things in the plat fighter space (workshop is at majors like Genesis/Riptide and they’ve gotten the rights to a whole bunch of IP’s just to make certain characters legal in said majors)
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 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
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.
Your footage of Kat in PASBR just unlocked some memories for me. Damn, I wasn't feeling the game, but when she was released as DLC, she was just so unique and fun. Floaty, but not awkward, she was so great, and I would just adore for one of the indie smash clones to implement her playstyle
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
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
Icons may be the saddest example of a platform fighter that could give the genre a bad reputation because it is a DreamWorks reskin of melee, i think that is to be expected when the devs are diehard competitive fans and not fans of the whole thing, they remind me of that time i encountered a "pokemon fan" who somehow told me "Who cares about the designs of the pokemon? If it is useless (in conpetitive/adventure) then what is there to like!" WE ARE TALKING ABOUT POKEMON! THE DESIGNS ARE THE REASON WHY EVERYONE LIKES IT! If anything this is a pattern that most PF did follow, too much love for the competitive, little love for the aesthetics, and even less love for the casual experience, sadly the only game that did everything right was the only one that was a sequel to a mid-bad game, we are no longer in the 90s for a great sequel to a bad game to get as much attention as it deserves, now we have options and we discard those that were proven to be bad Also, Rivals didn't do everything right, the early designs were ass (aside from Orcane) and it obviously didn't have a good casual experience, but it managed to go from low to the highest over time, so I'm not counting with the rest of PF struggling a lot
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
![Silliest Top Tiers In Fighting Games [Bumbles McFumbles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TY9dLO5ucJc/mqdefault.jpg)
NASB 1 & 2 dev here, NASB1's samey movesets deserve more context
The *entire core* of that game was built around a high-mid-low dichotomy. Which is to say: the RPS mechanic, throwing characters/projectiles in multiple directions, and the light movesets overall were in service to this system. Most attacks never had the opportunity to diversify themselves when the prime directive was "an upward attack MUST launch up & in front", "a downward attack MUST launch down & in front", etcetera
If that sounds entirely arbitrary and restrictive... That's because it was. The team only had one chance to brainstorm a gameplay formula, because unbreakable deadlines, and the core gameplay implementer at that point wasn't interested in just doing Slap City again after working on it for half a decade (fair). There was literally no time nor resources to second-guess the radical new direction, so doubling-down was the only option
I wasn't happy about it then, but it did contribute towards a wholly unique gameplay loop which still has a very loyal fanbase to this day. Several of those very fans ended up making a community patch for the first game, which I wholly support and endorse! I'd *still* be making changes to NASB1 if I was allowed to; seeing as that's simply not an option, elevating the passionate players is the next-best thing
Appreciate the insight Thaddeus! I think it's obvious from the video that NASB1 wasn't for me, but I admire that it was willing to experiment and always love hearing these kinds of stories, every game has them and things _never_ seem to be as simple as they look on the surface haha
Likewise, you and the team deserve kudos for making the movesets of NASB2 so varied and unique. The new movesets are anything but samey, and it gives characters such strong identities. Great job with the sequel!
Hi Rep
Oh hey, I didn't know you had an account here. Btw, I hope the 3rd game is gonna happen.
Hbox did your game dirty
"The Term *Smash Killer* was Invented for Clickbait"
THANK YOU!!!
just like the "Halo Killer"
You can't actually kill Smash. That's an impossible task. After all, wasn't Ultimate in particular the highest selling fighting game, beating out Street fighter 2?
@@primhose Halo Killer precedes clickbait. These terms were invented for Coke vs Pepsi style brand fights and the like.
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.
I honestly believe that if Nintendo (in some alternate universe of course) remastered Melee and released it, most serious Melee players would hate it for being so different.
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 :)
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.
Yeah, of all of the channels that I follow that have a main and 2nd channel, MockRock is the one that is harder to differenciate the 2, he just cant do something half baked
@@Pedro999Paulo The simple answer is that this was supposed to be the half-baked channel where I was free to experiment more. Then it started doing better than the main channel. So now I'm not as free to do half-baked experiments lmao
The continuously blurring identity between the channels isn't lost on me, no plans to change anything at the moment and again, this video is a bit of an outlier, but not impossible something could change in the future
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.
@@FieryAnubisno, TH-cam videos covering workshop shows you 99% of sucky rivals mods
I complain a lot about the fact TH-camrs show off spriterips and characters that are mixelated more often than characters that took actual years to make, It's mainly because the most subscribed characters are all mostly when the workshop released.
I recommend looking at workshop collections for competitive brackets because they can only ensure quality (except genesis 2024 because it was composed of only rivals 2 contest characters regardless of quality (also yes they had a contest and the winner (la reina) is going to be added to the game) )
@@FieryAnubis no shade but maybe you should try looking far away from the Ronald Mcdonald Clones and you can find gold. Trust me.
i was a former dev on RushRev, and while i’m sad it didn’t pan out how i wanted it to, I’m really glad i spent the amount of time i did with it, both as a dev and the years before hand as a tester and community member. i’m not super active these days as thinking about it still makes me sad, but seeing other people talking about it, especially positively like you did does put a smile on my face to pair with the pain in my heart. thanks for hanging around as long as you did. c: 🖤
"Pro" player for Playstation allstars battle royale here and you better believe we love any sort of representation! Always hoping for a sequel
It really was the best, but detractors at the time didn't know what the future held.
@primhose the problem I feel like they need to get rid of the supers and just do the percent system
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
@@kaorinszNo 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
@@kaorinsz i think you're confusing large movesets with synergistic movesets
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.
@@ellie8272 I don't work in the game industry but as someone in the movie industry, yeah we can tell
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
Also its the best way for low budget pc user to try smash-like game back in the day!
Why was speeding up smash 4's death cycle a good thing?
I just hate when everyone calls a new platform fighter "The Smash killer"
These games don’t exist to kill an existing one, they’re expanding on the genre the original created
THIS but with Astrobot being a "Mario killer"
@@ironmaster6496 Anyone unironically saying this needs to go lie down🤣
@@ironmaster6496 Nah did people actually call it that?
Mockrock: this doesn't seem hard. This should be a fun low stakes project.
Five months later
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 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.
18:30
I'm a pretty big Brawlhalla player myself, and I can say for sure that the removal of shields in a platform fighter does make the game less aggressive in the end. Without them, dodging becomes your only defensive mechanic, so if you engage, then you'll put yourself into positions where you'll need to use your only defensive mechanic while approaching. The game then just becomes waiting for your opponent to make a mistake instead; punish their endlag, force a dodge, then get as much damage in during the 2 or 3 seconds where they can't dodge. The entire game revolves around that single mechanic
I've seen it compared to Smash, which has an almost RPS-style of engaging with attacks, grabs, and shielding. In the most simple cases, shield beats attack, attack beats grab, grab beats shield. But with Brawlhalla, for example, dodge beats attack... and that's it. The first person to engage loses because of it, leading to a very defensive game overall.
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.
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.
Rivals content (kind of) RAAAAAH
She rivals on my Aether til I 2!?!??!??
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)
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.
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.
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.
@monstercombo007 I can see where you're coming from, but he wasn't the first one
Often times they are better though, Smash is not even close to the best of its kind, it's just the most popular and mainstream and will continue to be.
@Doorway907 A lot of the Pokémon killers are better than Pokémon, they just lack rhe influence to last.
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 is why I think single-player/story modes are more important than they get credit for. The characters of ROA are one of my favorite parts, but a lot of the appeal came from aesthetic and playstyle alone.
I only interacted with characters like Maypul and Forsburn *after* doing the story and learning who they are, unlike Smash, where you'd likely know a good chunk of the cast long before purchasing.
@wolfx8751 There's a story mode?!
@@SharurFoF yeah, admittedly it's rather simple, mostly just a short series of battles, and only the main 6 have them, but they have proper narrative sections between each fight, all weave together in the end, and even save your best times!
This is all for ROA 1, as I haven't touched the sequel, but I hear it has full voice acting
On the topic of crossovers spawning a genre, team games were kind of like this with marvel vs capcom. Until dragonball came out (which is stronger than basically any fgc ip) there weren’t a whole lot of team games and even fewer that weren’t crossovers. But since we swim in a much smaller pool and also our devs talk to us and each other, it never really felt like the monopoly smash has.
I guess you could say Brawlout got lost in the sauce.
Dinner is served AFTER LUNCH!
After playing Mighty Fight Federation, Yooka & Laylee in Brawlout feel more poorly thought out in comparison. I mean, a move that allows Yooka to eat projectiles with his tongue, in a platform fighter where only ONE character out of about 12 uses projectiles? Why? At least Yooka instead grabs opponents with his tongue in Mighty Fight Federation.
Not to be a downer, Rivals 2 looks lovely, but I think in 20 years, when we look back on them both, the original will still be the more loved one. The art style is just so much more timeless, and the community accessibility for a pixel art game can not be understated
16:40 As someone who was super into modding Smash Bros. Brawl back in the day, I kid you not this looks like an amateur modder's first ever animation.
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
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.
@@LG555
Thing is, most of these competitors fail to even reach the standard SMASH 64 established.
@felixdaniels37 64 is my favorite smash game and I strongly disagree
@@felixdaniels37now you're just glazing the shi outta smash for no reason
"This is not called a DOOM clone"
* anymore
until Quake, every FPS was a "DOOM Clone"
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.
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)
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
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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
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
It's been fun to see single-player games inspired by platform fighters. Shows that the genre can be more than a versus game.
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
@@ellie8272 That's fare. I was writing this comment on the spot. I do think I have a lot of fun playing this game most of the time. Though there are still characters I find super annoying to fight, namely Maypul and Wrastor.
There also an issue with the audiences smash thrives on it’s casual fans and Nintendo fans and that crowd tends to be console games yes a good number are on console but very few are on the switch (you know the console smash players own) yes this can cause issues with why not just play smash but that’s already an issue with the genre
Most smash fans probably don’t play PC at least not for these types of games and the ones that aren’t PC exclusive are PS5 and Xbox games only
Another issue is the price too many in the genre either go 60(you know because smash didn’t have enough upsides so removing a price advantage isn’t going to help) or are free to play but filled with terrible monetisation
Casual play also doesn’t get enough respect the genre is too focused on melee a game that is kind of terrible casually and especially single player so they don’t think to add the items or the story mode or the stage builder they thing 1v1 evo maybe 2v2 if they want it to be the USP and they often times don’t even think about proper coach co-op and single player for people with reasons they can’t go online (think bad internet, online locks, bad reception areas that sort of thing)
And finally the first impression needs to be good so many have failed because despite the updates that day 1 release was too off putting and it can kill even the best games let alone a genre that gets boiled down to smash clones (looking at you NASB and multiversus relaunch)
Really enjoyed this deep dive into platform fighters (and you acknowledging that "Smash Killer" is a buzzword clickbait term). It's really interesting to compare these games with each other in terms of mechanics, character designs, and their history.
Rivals of Aether remains the GOAT. Fantastic video as always!
Also, thanks for brigning Byte Breakers to my attention because that looks SUPER interesting. As an avid Smash Run fan, a battle-royale platform fighter sounds extremely cool!! I love it when people experiment with platform fighter mechanics for new genres.
Kirby’s expression in the thumbnail gives me life.
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)
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
Kora being disappointing is definitely canonical
I’ll always love that show even if some don’t
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.
PaRappa the Rapper in the same game as Kratos is WILD ngl...
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.
@@thevioletbee5879 They did manage to get El Tigre in NASB2, more than likely in thanks to the influence the show's creator, Jorge Gutierrez, had online. More of that in general would be appreciated honestly.
@acmeanvil3022 I was just gonna bring up how the og comment brought up how they relied too much on big-name nostalgia picks and didn't do enough obscure reps. Yet el Tigre is probably (imo at least as someone who grew up remembering that show and watching it) the most obscure legacy pick nick has. And he made it into nasb2 lol. To this day I ask people my age (I'm 27 rn) or older if they even remember El Tigre and almost all of them have said no lol. Doesn't get more obscure than that if you ask me.
@@thesonicslasher75 Yeah. But I think they can get more obscure.
@@acmeanvil3022 that's fair. I get that.
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!
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
I was glad to see Byte Breakers get mentioned - I played a good amount of the prototype when it was online (and more time than I’m proud to admit messing around with combos in the training room) and it might be the platform fighter I’m the most excited for recently. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Rivals 2 (even bought it week one) but it was just a bit too complex for me to really dive headfirst into, especially when I hit the middle ground between casual and competitive skill levels.
Byte Breakers just showed a lot of promise to me. Some things could definitely use some work - the map for the battle royale mode just didn’t feel great, the system for taking stocks felt a bit forced with not a lot of ways to play around it, and the ratio of damage dealt to player health felt pretty off. But Odyssey did an _incredible_ job with Omega Strikers in regards to listening to their audience and refining both their prototypes and post-launch updates/patches. That may only be possible because of the size of the studio and the audience, but I still have more faith in Byte Breakers than I’ve had a _lot_ of other titles others have considered promising.
A bit of context on the mechanics behind taking stocks - it’s a bit different in Byte Breakers. Characters by default have 100 health, and knockback scaling works somewhat similarly to typical, just with the numbers swapped (lowest launch distance at 100, goes up as number goes down.) But when you hit 0, you enter a sort of critical state where any damage of significance sends you flying for an almost guaranteed KO, but not just off the screen - touching any blast zone or solid stage element while being launched from the attack takes you out.
It’s a little odd at times. In the critical state, getting hit with a spike or a near-horizontal angle while above the stage is always a KO. More complex stage terrain feels almost opposite from other games - instead of being able to survive longer by teching on walls and ceilings, it’s an extreme disadvantage because all it would take is a slight tap to bump you into a wall and end your run. Add in the significantly faster (compared to similar games) speed at which damage piles up, and it feels like your stocks fly away in a game where you’d expect to be able to take a lot more damage by using the terrain to your advantage.
I do hope this system gets reworked while the devs are cooking behind the scenes, but it could definitely be serviceable if they reworked the damage or health numbers so that every member of the 6-character cast didn’t have at least an 80% combo. (This bottom-of-Elite-Smash and Gold-ranked Rivals 2 player found all of these in about a week after the prototype went down. I’m a bit scared of what people who actually knew what they were doing could do with this game.)
"Sony created them, set them up for failure and then punish them for failing."
Boy thank god Sony doesn't do that anymore!
*Concord 👀*
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.
This was a really good retrospective, thanks for making it.
Playstation All-Stars is a game I'll always go to bat for; for as many flaws as it has (poor visual style/cohesion and odd character choices being among them, for sure), I think that as long as you accept that it's a different type of game from Smash, it can be a ton of fun. A group of work friends and I played it together for several months in a row and had a blast the whole time, gradually learning the mechanics, how to set up for supers, how to deal with seemingly-overpowered combos and characters (Kratos), until we all found our favorite character collections and could go toe-to-toe with each other, and spawning tons of in-jokes and other laughs. If they ever give it another shot, with a bigger budget, more characters, and better polish, I think it could be a success.
Damn I forgot how _lifeless_ Yooka and Laylee's idle stance looks in Brawlout.
It's the same animation from the original Yooka-Laylee, and it also got recycled in Mighty Fight Federation, despite the fact that Impossible Lair came out earlier, and Yooka had a more lively idle animation in the stages, where he has the old idle animation in the overworld.
We can call them "platform fighters" but we are still in the smash killer phase. The genre needs a goldeneye or halo or tekken to earn its proper title.
Spectacular video!!! Love hearing the unique meter mechanic ideas some of these have.
Currently making a similar video, giving an overview of why this Sub-Genre has struggled so much (other videos on the topic either do surface-level gut assumptions or just cover one area) and this video was really helpful on gathering info from games people don't really talk about anymore.
Good work as always!
Me and my college roommate were consistently in the top 50 on the ranked duos leaderboard for PS All Stars Battle Royal. I would play Sackboy/Dante/Kat and he would play Raiden every time. The game had SO MUCH ROOM for combos and creativity that went completely unexplored for all but a tiny subsection of tryhards- for example, you’re showcasing a Dante ‘infinite’ at 4:46, and you can see in the clip that the infinite combo protection kicks in and sends ratchet flying after a couple loops. But, if you’re playing doubles, Dante’s teammate can interrupt the infinite with a hit that crumples ratchet, which lets the Dante player restart the combo for more damage or a kill confirm
PSABR in doubles really showed how much of a balanced and different game it was, it was the Multiversus where there were a lot of strats for duos before Multiversus capitalized on the doubles branding of platform fighters.
This is main channel-tier content!
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.
This was an awesome showcase of platform fighters. I wouldn't mind seeing a part 2 in tge future.
I always hated the term smash killer because it always set unprecedented expectations
I do find it funny that every other platform Fighter releases has been "Is this finally the smash killer?"
But for Rivals 2 the community is just like "WOW we get TWO smash games now" lol
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.
It's also the only Platform Fighter game that even Multiversus only has matched, that has excellent sound design on the same level as smash.
@@StateOfTheMind11225 it also gets hitstop right unlike Multiversus.
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
Rivals of Aether 1 is still my favorite platform fighter. Absa, Elliana, and Olympia in particular are just so absurdly fun to play IMO.
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)
Absolutely agree with the Rivels praise! Definately my favorite non-smash titles in the genre, and the value of the workshop addition cannot be overstated. But... no one ever talks about runes for some reason. 🤔Check them out if you havn't, they are in rivals 1 only (so far).
I think Matt McMuscles put it best, their are certain terms game developers shouldn't use like genre breaker or _ Killer, so let's add horror entertainment to that list
A movie length MockRock video?? Thank you for making my work less boring today 🙏
Also that comment about being happy to not be in the games industry is so real as someone who also has a CS degree lol
NASB2 is so much fun. I’ve never really gotten into playing Melee bc of the lack of a buffer system and small viable cast (by generous estimates, about 10-12 of the cast is viable). But NASB2 has a lot of great things from Melee, and a lot of new stuff. I have discovered the joy of wave dashing across the stage, zipping up to an opponent and whacking them with a big robotic hammer. Marvelous.
All Star's roster is kind of why Sony shouldn't try something like that. Simply, most of the most well known "Sony" characters aren't theirs. Meanwhile Nintendo can still make a great roster with no third parties.
Watching this and listening to your researched and experienced opinions has made me feel a lot better about how I feel about these games, as I often feel crazy or guilty about my opinions about these games. It was also very entertaining learning about behind the scenes things things and new games. Loved watching through this video, thank you for putting this together
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
1:12:23 HOW TF DID I GET ON A MOCKROCK VIDEO
It's pleak...
See this is proof you'd beat Dakota
Love the video! 1:26:02 I didn't even know Kirby Fighters 2 still had people playing it, I might have to go back to that game
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
Saying “retrospective” after smash killers really shows how effective they’ve been(rivals 2 is the answer tho trust 🙏)
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!
Aw man, now that you updated the video title that little gag at 0:25 doesn't really work anymore :(
What was the old title?
Oh my god Neo Jason WITH THE SLEEPING BAG GRAB SUPER OH THAT GIVES ME A BIG DUMB SMILE
You are so good at making TH-cam video I hope you blow up big time when next smash drops
Fun Fact: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is from the Super Brawl series. The series was on the Nick games website, with Super Brawl originally being a game for the holidays.
Glad to see you appreciating nasb 2 and also glad you covered the competitive scene for each game.
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
I was actually waiting for you to talk about Multiversus again! I quite enjoy the game so its a shame it isn't doing super well, the entire gaming culture is brutal and I wish that non perfect nor groundbreaking games could be given more chance
I find you analysis to be really thoughtful and well informed and this video is no different
29:46 calling a move in your game the “slime burst” is some truly nasty work
I think my favorite part of rivals 2 is the characters. It feels like something I’ve been waiting for without knowing I was. Every character just feels so unique, so clever, so well thought out, and they all feel really good to play. I also love that it’s an original IP in a world of remakes and cinematic universes. Very refreshing and definitely my game of the year.
Loved to hear the mention of competitive Workshop, as someone who’s been around the scene for a few years as a character dev ^^
It’s absolutely one of those things that nobody would believe if you told them it existed (something something “I’ve only watched Alpharad play Ronald as a frame of reference”), but once you show it off it’s genuinely one of the coolest things in any platform fighter I’ve seen, and the community has pulled off a ton of crazy things in the plat fighter space (workshop is at majors like Genesis/Riptide and they’ve gotten the rights to a whole bunch of IP’s just to make certain characters legal in said majors)
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 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
One cool thing about these games is the stages, I was admiring and enjoying this videos seeing the other devs take on the stages
Icons combat arena character design would fit right at home at Concord
Great reference vid for building an awesome plat fighter
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.
I like the way you actually go in depth in the games and how they play instead of just talking about how they're not smash
Your footage of Kat in PASBR just unlocked some memories for me. Damn, I wasn't feeling the game, but when she was released as DLC, she was just so unique and fun. Floaty, but not awkward, she was so great, and I would just adore for one of the indie smash clones to implement her playstyle
44:33 I love rushtown revolt. wayshawn is the best character ever and he is just so amazing. That's why you know the Zach attack and the nuke
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
This video is how I found out Rocksteady is in the nickelodeon one
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
Icons may be the saddest example of a platform fighter that could give the genre a bad reputation because it is a DreamWorks reskin of melee, i think that is to be expected when the devs are diehard competitive fans and not fans of the whole thing, they remind me of that time i encountered a "pokemon fan" who somehow told me "Who cares about the designs of the pokemon? If it is useless (in conpetitive/adventure) then what is there to like!" WE ARE TALKING ABOUT POKEMON! THE DESIGNS ARE THE REASON WHY EVERYONE LIKES IT!
If anything this is a pattern that most PF did follow, too much love for the competitive, little love for the aesthetics, and even less love for the casual experience, sadly the only game that did everything right was the only one that was a sequel to a mid-bad game, we are no longer in the 90s for a great sequel to a bad game to get as much attention as it deserves, now we have options and we discard those that were proven to be bad
Also, Rivals didn't do everything right, the early designs were ass (aside from Orcane) and it obviously didn't have a good casual experience, but it managed to go from low to the highest over time, so I'm not counting with the rest of PF struggling a lot
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