The ACTUAL PROBLEM with NEW Platform Fighters

[@manzanito3652]

My main issue with a lot of platform fighters is that they lack a personality than sets them apart. They either look like the most generic moba (icons/rushdown revolt), or are another casual/party crossovers (nasb, slap city, multiversus). It doesn't help that gameplay wise are either melee with small changes, "melee at home", or just smash but worse. Most arcade fighters from the 90s did better efforts at setting themselves apart from street fighter. If smash is the street fighter, we still haven't got a king of fighters, a mortal kombat, a samurai shodown or a guilty gear equivalent.

[@SoftwareNeos]

What is "melee with small changes"? cause at this point i dont know what people want from platfotm fighters. There are so many differemt types of plat fighters either here or coming out soon (combo breakers, sentinels inc, fractured transcience) but its always called "smash but worse"... but then when multiversus or brawlhala is here being COMPLETELY different... noone likes or tries it. Also. I actually plan to talk about the "platform fighter curse" cause we COULDVE had a KOF or Mk... but through some complications... we just dont. but i gotta disagree. A lot of fighting games litterally just copied street fighter with their own character types. And it took awhile before we got mk or guilty gear... hell the first mortal kombat game was litterally just street fighter with blood and thats how it got buy. So its just weird to me that now we get so many things people can try that are different... but we are still just called smash clones. In the video. I get the biggest reason why. People arent invested emotionally. But sometimes its just not fair. Cause if i said Overwatch was a clone of TF2 . id get smoke for it.

[@manzanito3652]

@@SoftwareNeos I didn't wanna make "melee with small changes" sound like a bad thing. Melee in general plays well, so using it as a base isn't bad (if you do it well, of course) Like, it's overall a step in the good direction, because older platform fighters didn't understand what made smash fun and dropped the ball (play dreamix tv world to see what I meant). Also, brawhalla is one of the most played games in general, and multiversus is gaining a lot of traction. So saying "nobody wants to try them" isn't exactly correct. Although, it may be mostly because of their crossover stuff.

[@SoftwareNeos]

​@@manzanito3652what the hell is DREAMIX TV WORLD?

[@manzanito3652]

@@SoftwareNeos A attempt of a platform fighter by konami. It was optimus prime too, for some reason XD

[@SoftwareNeos]

Omfg​@@manzanito3652

[@kylespevak6781]

I see these main issues: 1. Many emulate Melee. If you're trying to be Melee 2, you'll always be second, and people will just go play Melee. NASB 2 was one of the few to emulate Smash Ultimate in terms of game feel. 2. Lack of side content. This is an issue of all fighting games, but platform fighters specifically appeal to casuals, and casuals don't want to spend hours grinding online battles. Give them some mini games or bosses and you're good. 3. Art styles. Unfortunately, there's a big crowd that will not play most of the 2D platform fighters due to pixel or cartoon graphics. NASB and Multiversus appeal because the 3D. 4. Characters. Unfortunately, due to Smash being the original platform fighter; people got accustomed to the genre having mascots or some kind of crossover element. A new IP is always a hard sell, which may be why most devs focus on gameplay as a selling point. In my opinion, people just need to switch the formula up. Imagine an M-rated platform fighter with the blood of Mortal Kombat and character design of Bayonetta/Devil May Cry. That'd instantly stick out and advertise itself. It's a shame game dev is so hard, I'd do it otherwise

[@bailujen8052]

An idea I thought of side content is take what was done in 3D era Mortal Kombat and Tekken 3. Granblue Fantasy VS has a Fall Guys like activity etc

[@LG555]

What's funny to me, is how so many try to emulate Melee's tech, but don't get it right, while most of Melee's tech is more of a lucky mistake than a deliberate choice to include it.

[@kylespevak6781]

@LG555 actually a lot of it was intentional. I'm pretty sure the booklet mentions L canceling

[@Tribow]

This is genuinely my exact problem with Rushdown Revolt and it's why I always say fighting games need more casual singleplayer stuff. I didn't just want some fancy arcade mode, I wanted an interactive story that ties the characters together, something that gives the characters more personality. I was never really able to pinpoint why I would advocate for singleplayer modes so much, but this video found the words I couldn't.

[@THEMADZGaming]

which is why I think subspace is the greatest single player sub game in a plat fighter which is crazy that it was on the least favorite smash game

[@waffleman8053]

I've been trying to put into words what oc platform fighters have been missing, and i think you hit the nail on the head. Even Rivals still has a lot of problems you pointed out (to a bit of a lesser degree). Most characters still feel a bit more like archetypes than flested out characters. Some are even more unlucky and barely have a backstory at all (Etalus and Absa) The only character that feels like they really wanted to flesh out was Clairen. But the only way to completely understand what's going on is to BUY A BOOK. Hopefully, they flesh out the world in Rivals 2. I wish for one day we can have fan favorite platform fighter characters that are not just mechanical beloved but emotionally loved.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Really glad that they are giving us a story mode. And apparantly the characters have voices and react. SO MAYBE.... we are safe.

[@cyprienramis1304]

@@SoftwareNeos Characters have some funny lines in their taunts, Clairen says "I have tech you can't even imagine", Fleet has one too but I can't remember it, and Loxodont screams "That's not my TIIIIIIIIIIME" every time he dies.

[@robotrannicthesurprisingly9085]

It's not like the team behind Rivals of aether don't know how to make decently interesting and fleshed out characters. Problem is all the fleshed out characters are in Dungeons of aether with only fleet making it over to Rivals2. I just hope they can take some of the skills they gained in writing Dungeons and put it into Rivals.

[@StephonZeno]

My main problem with platform fighters for the longest time was always how so many of these devs are actively trying to make their game the next big e-sports game. Smash always focused on being a fun game for *everyone* to play because it's still a GAME at the end of the day. Not to mention, it's a crossover game featuring some of the most iconic video game characters of all time. Even if you didn't know those characters, their designs, moves, and stages were presented so well, it made you WANT to check out their games. Ever since playstation all-stars, so many of these other plat fighters are just so focused on being some big, e-sports game, that every other aspect of the game is lacking in any charm or personality whatsoever. Overwatch should be a prime example how amazing aesthetics, engaging character design, immersive sound design, professional acting, and clever writing, can do so much for your game.

[@FloridusMan]

I agree with you wholeheartedly

[@sonicrunn3r895]

I feel like in general this is what happens with a lot of games. They hyper focus on trying to be the next big E-Sport at the expense of the casual experience.

[@EduSolsa]

There wer so many franchises that I started play after the show up in Smash. Like, I knew Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy 7, Pikmin, etc and knew they were good, but never felt curiuous to play those games until the show up. Even Trophies/Spirits I would search to leanr more about their game and maybe play as well

[@StephonZeno]

@@EduSolsa Imagine how many of us were introduced to the Mother/Earthbound series and F-Zero because of the first Smash? Up to this day, Smash Bros.' roster just can't be beat in terms of crossovers.

[@tubesism]

Make a new platform fighter focused on being a fun casual party game, and I’ll show you a flop. I don’t think you realize how much smash ultimate is propped up by Nintendo. Unless you pull a Brawlhalla where f2p accessibility alone makes it the most popular fighting game period!

[@destinymace]

Reminds me of how Meet the Team and the comics got me into TF2. Lore, even in a game that's more focused on game play, can carry a game to the finish line.

[@Nathidev]

Those are seriously amazing Now valve are trying to make a 6v6 hero shooter. Really doubt it'll live up to TF2

[@Beastmd]

“The casuals were right” is a banger . Now that rivals 2 has the mechanics, It’s time for them to expand in the other direction

[@negative1001]

While I don't think that emotional tie is the most important piece of the pie, it can still absolutely make or break a game like you say, even beyond platform fighters. A game like Overwatch got as big as it did because of it's badass cinematics they posted before the game came out, and while I'm sure it still would've fairly successful without them, I doubt people would've had such a big emotional tie to the game even after the constant failures. This is what gives crossover fighters such a huge advantage over its competition since all the work is already done for you, even in the old days with stuff like Marvel VS Capcom or Smash. Unfortunately I think a big problem is that a lot of platform fighters are made by much smaller indie teams that likely don't have the budget to create these immense worlds, cinematics, etc. But as you said, I think those games would greatly benefit from having in game lore told through gameplay, like Mortal Kombat styled intros, character interactions like Multiversus, even simple stuff like win quotes against every character. Even if it's not immediately fully fleshed out, having characters have things to say about each other can tell a lot to the player about both the character speaking and who they're speaking to. Hell even things like stages should be implemented better into the lore, like instead of just a cool looking city maybe it's the hometown of a fighter, and they comment on that when they fight or are seen in the background when not playing. I'm hoping devs start to see the importance of character/world building since they are the gateway into what the devs actually want to show players; the gameplay

[@SoftwareNeos]

Well said

[@SoftwareNeos]

I think your right. Its prolly not the most important stuff. But i just noticed the lack of it in this space. So it seemed more important

[@maddoxreddish4352]

hell tf2 has survived years without any updates because the community likes the characters so much, idk much about overwatch, but the way your talkin it seems its bout the same as tf2 characterwise

[@negative1001]

@@maddoxreddish4352Absolutely. One of the best about TF2 are the voice lines. Hearing each character say funny shit about each other is great, and stuff like the comics or the Expiration Date animations add a lot to the overall experience

[@kindasomeviews]

I think what we're looking for is polished characters that have at least some depth, but imagine why we love Dante so much. Yeah a good amount of us have played DMC, but we love him cuz he's badass and want to emulate that. He slays demons, does it as a job and does it with 0 issue while poking fun at their expense before one-shotting them. I dunno who'd wanna miss out on that. It's why he works in so many fighting games, on top of having tons of stylish moves and weapons. Even if it's a character talking shit to another character, I think most will get behind that too. But no most platform fighters just focus on mechanics and hope that'll carry

[@ikedood2112]

This is also true of traditional fighters. Every new fighting game, especially indies, have to get people to care about their characters and worlds for longer than a couple hours, and many don’t. It feels more pronunced with platform fighters because there are so few successful ones compared to the myriad of successful traditional fighters. We even see people clamoring for the return of series that haven't had a new entry in a while, which shows how much these fighters impact their players. I myself often wish that Soulcalibur was more successful simply because I love the characters and story of that series.

[@foxygramps1207]

Although I think some plat fighters fail for different reasons, you definitely hit the nail on the head for ALOT of them. So many of these games skip straight to just gameplay and forget to have any soul or identity. Look at another genre in Overwatch. They've fumbled the gameplay side of their story modes at every turn. But the worldbuilding and character work is so solid that every character has their diehard fans.

[@DoctorMario606]

Id say Rivals got lucky because around its release it was like the first "smash clone" we had gotten from an indie developer that really tried to make it overtly competitve, so it was able to stand out.

[@PurposeDriven7_]

What’s gonna be interesting for rivals 2 is many melee pros have stated they’re willing to commit long term to this game. Melee pros AND rivals pros colliding into one scene? This will be a site to see.

[@SoftwareNeos]

"Pick Up A Pencil" - Software Neos

[@makinbacon5800]

✍🔥

[@Kalani_Boi]

If rivals 2 gives more lore drops and adds depth to the characters that arent very devolped in the story of aether in the new campaign, I think a lot more people will be invested. I really want games like rush rev and combo devils to succeed, but lets be completely real. These kinds of platform fighters will last a couple months TOPS before the active player count falls below 100. Great gameplay, but nothing else to keep the average player coming back consistently.

[@sebastianguerrero6617]

One problem is that the hardcore fans of the genre really over estimate the importance of melee, yes it's community has longevity but thats all that game has going for it and doesn't appeal to most people The hardcore is not the majority

[@DjKlzonez]

9:00 I was really expecting a Flash Party mention. The game everyone keeps forgetting about and conveniently not acknowledging online for some reason. Sadly that game doesn't have lots of story in game, but the characters have personalities and some stories outside the game. The problem is that there's not enough of this, no interactions or no other personality between them in game.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Soon my guy. Soon

[@DjKlzonez]

@@SoftwareNeos I've tried so hard to get people to acknowledge it on Twitter and for some reason they never do! I can't keep doing this lol

[@hesho24]

Platfighter devs are NOT avoiding the illiterate allegations 💀

[@thatonecaster6501]

for as much ppl as ppl lark on blazblue about it's story I think it's revolutionary how many offline modes it has

[@gyroh6593]

I remember seeing a rivals 2 match between clairen and loxodont and one of the commentators pointed out with a bit of hype about this matchup being canon because in the lore those 2 characters have beef or something. In Dragonball fighterz this can have the same effect if a Goku player matches against a Freeza player. So those matchups add engagement towards players and spectators because of reasons related to the backstories of these characters.

[@Athorment]

Is this why Celeste did so well? The gameplay is as close to a platform fighter's "Single player mode" as it gets, but the selling point is not AI enemies to fight and do combos on but Madeline's journey

[@SoftwareNeos]

I.... have no idea. Never played that game. But i know people like it

[@Clownbelt-u2s]

Is it really tho? I played Celeste and I dunno if I’d compare it to a plat fighter. Also the marketing and target for both games are different. There’s a difference between marketing for a platformer that most likely focuses on 1 character and marketing for a fighting game whose backbone is unique characters and interactions.

[@Athorment]

@@Clownbelt-u2s if you focus on the differences you might miss the similarities. Imagine if you were playing Madeline and as soon as you beat it you heard "Congratulations!" and then you got back to the character select screen with Theo, Badeline, shovel Knight, Super meat Boy or whatever. Then you would be able to say "Sheez, that was just ONE adventure mode for ONE character interacting with like 2-3 other characters". The interactions is what people crave according to SoftwareNeos. You dont need an Adventure Mode or Subspace Emissary if you will just platform across multiple levels and never actually interact in a meaningful way with other characters.

[@Clownbelt-u2s]

@@AthormentDamn you got me there lol.

[@hoovypooter4489]

...Celeste is just a platformer though? It's not a fighter, it's just a good game lol

[@wateverwill]

these things just cost a lot of money unfortunately say you want a cutscene with 2 characters interacting. you have to write it, storyboard it, animate it. you need good facial rigs or it will look cheap. you cant really leverage any part of your existing game like you can for other game features. if you use existing stages, you need to consider new camera angles. you need a ui system for subtitles. you need to hire a voice actor, but really you want to do a single characters entire voice work in a single session, otherwise you are just burning money. if the characters are moving at all, then you need sound design too.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Listen. I dont even need that much 3d animation. Some portraits of the characters talking with voice acting is enough for me.

[@YouCanCallMeIz]

Seriously, text and some sfx are all it needs. Traditional fighting games got away with this for years- hell, games like Blazblue only amped up their production value after the third game in the series and even then they have some of the most beloved FG characters among dedicated fans just because the story modes are that fun.

[@emperormegaman3856]

@wateverwill see that's the common mistake everyone makes when it comes to single player content. Assuming it means Mortal Kombat style mo-cap cinematic story mode. it doesn't. In fact, most of the time, it would be a bad way to do it, because most fighting game story not named Mortal Kombat aren't that suited to that format. (one of many reasons SF story mode didn't quite work). just have characters portraits and dialogue cutscenes. If the story is well written and the lore well crafted, you're set. What's important in a story mode is the story and character interactions. Sure awesome presentation is a plus, but it's not mandatory, especially if you're a indy studio.

[@cyprienramis1304]

Rivals 2 has all for itself, great communication (the trailers, the Kickstarter campaign), amazing multiplayer (it feels like a mix of the best things from melee, ultimate and street fighter), smooth and free online (which might be a selling point for smash players trying to escape nintendo's rule), and an announced story mode which also benefits from the already established story, beatiful and goofy graphics (and goofyness is truly a selling point in plat fighters as the pioneer of the genre was smash), also it doesn't look floaty and attacks animations are expressive (which is something that truly make some other plat fighter not visually attractive), it has good music and sound design, the characters aren't just goofy in a surface level (like smash DK except for his cargo throw) but also goofy on an advanced way (all of Kragg's moveset, Wrastor's claps,...), it has an already established community even if it's smaller than smash or Brawlhalla, and it was shown in big smash tournaments such as Genesis X or Watch the Throne.

[@punkypony5165]

This is so true. The Clairen & Loxodont Rivals 2 trailer is 6 months old yet I still go back and rewatch that from time to time because it just goes so hard.

[@ArjunTheRageGuy]

1 thing I hate about platform fighters after smash bros is a lack of content that isn't mostly about fighting on platforms, like no adventure mode like from smash 64 to smash brawl, no break the target, no coin battle, no other stuff other than doing what smash is known a lot for. Hell, when it comes to fighting stages, there aren't any stages that are big as that of a adventure mode level that's from smash 64 to smash brawl when it comes to post-smash platfighters

[@D4Bandit]

Never thought about this tbh but it's one of the things I feel Blazblue does right. Even tho I didn't know anyone on the cast nor played the games before, I kept playing not only because the mechanics of Central Fiction are awesome, but because of character stuff too. Playing Terumi for example wouldn't be as fun if he wasn't a sadistic ass f-tier ass piece of crap (that also has more depth in the clusterfuck of lore that BB has) Hearing him as an announcer, hearing what other chars have to say about him, the special intros... All that good stuff that he and the rest of the cast have. Even if I don't play the game much nowadays, it has a place in my heart. Also, just wanted to mention that you were one of the reasons why I even considered buying the game, so thx :)

[@SoftwareNeos]

Im glad you liked that game man. Its underated

[@bobboberson8297]

Melee on the gamecube has better graphics than most platform fighters released today. The smash bros animations and stages are just so much clearer at showing what is actually happening on screen (while still looking cool). Half of these modern platform fighters feel unplayable because I can't even tell what attacks are being used or what parts of the stage I can stand on versus what's just in the background. Basic gamefeel stuff like the attacks having "impact" when they hit just aren't there so you can't "feel" what's going on. The emotional appeal is definitely important too to get people to start playing a game, but the game needs to feel good to play as well or people won't stick around. Also you could probably trim/edit/script this video down to 10 minutes while still hitting all the same points.

[@DoctorMario606]

Nah fr. Idk why but almost every new platform fighter I see ever gets the impact or sound design as good as smash imo

[@MizunoKetsuban]

In all honesty I basically only exclusively play Rivals of Aether with workshop characters. Never felt attached to any of the base game roster.

[@Krona-fb4dn]

I 100% feel with what you've said about League. A game by which I will avoid for my life but good lord the characters are very appealing and there is an absolute LOAD of them so they will appeal to someone. Plat fighters have the problem of no investment in them. My friend tried to get me to play league and I played some bot games w/ him. I know league isn't for me since I know the majority of it is screwing around for like 30 minutes but if someone messes up once and you lose then you're just playing a slowly creeping defeat for 30 more minutes and that sounds hellish to me. The item shop also seemed convoluted and needlessly complicated to me. But characters like 1. Skarner 2. Ivern 3. The articuno thing that I played (forgot its name, but she comes back after she dies with a long cooldown and she's in bot lane) 4. Aurelion Sol appeal to me and do give me emotional investment in the game that I cannot ignore. Aurelion Sol is genuinely a brilliant character concept. (going off what my friend told me for the lore) He's a megalomaniacal tyrant that's a dragon, but people hatch a plan to trick him by wearing a crown that lets them control him, which works because he's vain. This may not appeal to some people but it absolutely appeals to others, including me. even though the vast majority of the characters in League IMO are so shallow and uninteresting, its still SOMETHING and people can still bond with bland and bad/ridiculous characters since its better than absolutely nothing. And there's hundreds of them so you'll probably find somebody that's interesting.

[@MrGameguyC]

Agreed. I'm sure many of us have this in our sub-conscience that we haven't put into words. These games don't flesh out their style and world enough, or just don't even attempt it. Likable characters can go a long way. Imagine the loads of fan art we're missing.

[@fatyoshi696]

One thing i want to add is about voice lines. Just a few voice lines can go a long way to flesh out a character and build who they are, a handful of my favorite fighting game characters of all time have sold me on voice lines alone, like zamasu in fighterz who monologues constantly whenever he does literally anything or bog in yomi hustle with his unhinged bit-crushed laughter and distorted one-liners. Too many platform fighters decide to add voice acting then make the characters' voices just an assortment of random grunts, which at that point you might as well not have any voice acting because the characters don't gain anything from it so it's just a waste of resources

[@DimzNoms]

GAWD YES!!! I love this video! It hits so freaking hard is EXACTLY what I am talking about when it comes to Plat.Fighters! Like I got attached to Rivals because of its lore and characters. I will go back and forth about how much missed opportunities and things they left to the wayside, but now I am finding myself making head canons and begging for their characters to be included in the games just to see and learn about them more! Even to the point where I am drafting up fan-made games and junk! Mechanics are important, but if you want longevity... give people a reason to care.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Oh damn. Was good dimz.

[@DimzNoms]

@@SoftwareNeos Honestly... We should make a video together sometime.

[@SoftwareNeos]

@@DimzNoms WORD? discord.gg/dxz9wtw7PF Get in the discord and well talk bud.

[@treyenma5206]

I like that Rivals has a spin off that features a character they're putting in Rivals 2. Unfortunately, I didn't know it it existed until after I saw the trailer for her in Rivals 2, so I don't think they did a great job of marketing it.

[@RainSpitter]

I have to say I been eyeing Multiversus, but the “free to play” model makes me stay out of it. The same thing with Brawlhalla.

[@JustCallMeKart]

As someone who played from the beta's launch to its end, its free to play model isn't incredibly egregious beyond the obviously extremely overpriced cosmetics. In the beta, you got enough roughly currency at the start to buy two characters you wanted, and the game rotated four random characters in the roster each week that everyone can play regardless of owning the characters themselves. After that initial point, getting enough currency for characters did take a bit of work, but it's nowhere near as egregious as Brawhalla. Considering that the relaunch seems to be focusing on a lot on side content and rewarding beta testers with both the first battle pass and their newest character, I couldn't tell you it isn't worth a shot.

[@tyg-zw7nn]

We can say "lack of emotional depth" but let's be frank lol. Rivals of Aether has good art and character design. That other game has awful art and character design. Call it subjective if you want but the color palettes of that game are awful. Everything is dark, looks blended together. Nothing pops. The characters are meh. Call it subjective if you will, but the people have spoken. Nobody cares about emotional ties or storylines. OW has a skindeep storyline. It's about the character designs with basic skindeep tropes that people relate to. I have no clue what the stories are behind the rivals characters but I love their designs. The have 2-3 main colors that pop, hints at their elemental abilities in their design. It's just good art.

[@_Tygon_]

I was literally just thinking about this poor NSAB 2

[@-._____-]

I couldn't agree more. Most platfighters & new IP fighting games are completely lacking when it comes to characters. I find them to be bland and boring husks with no personality. Regardless of game genre, especially for modern games, a character's gameplay is not enough to sell the appeal of the character. People want to see characters interact with the world and others. A perfect example to highlight this is when MvC Infinite was about to release. During that time, when asked about why there was a lack of X-Men characters, one of the devs at Capcom replied with the infamous "characters are just functions" line. That statement was percieved as tone deaf. This shows that characters are important beyond their ability to frame 1 shine or stomp knee. Yes, using popular IPs is a major shortcut, but devs have to find creative ways to showcase the personality of their characters. The thing is that I can't think of one fighting game that had story as a selling point. Most of the known franchises that established themselves during the genre's infancy had solid gameplay, and with sequels, solid characters. Other franchises borrowed from existing IPs.

[@Beastmd]

another big issue i realized: unlockables. a lot of emotion and ties that you get from some characters/stages is also the effort you take to unlock them, as well as not knowing what stuff were even in the game until you did everything or learned from guides. earning the content made you appreciate them so much mre falco and mewtwo seemed so much cooler since they were harder to get unlocking wolf and the others after subspace was awesome doing the sephiroth challenge was fire seeing the screen go from 15 to almost 30 characters was a great feeling nowadays, there's no incentive to do anything besides regular battles and online. nasb 2 and ultimate has hella stages that they just give you, while having an entire storyline with no incentive to play it took less than a week to get all of the base ultimate characters I get that rivals 2 wont have much single player content at launch, but I hope they put some content behind their story mode

[@erenattacktitan4964]

dude, sf6 has that old mk stuff, it's called WORLD TOUR. Did you forget this was a thing?

[@SoftwareNeos]

Never played it. So i couldnt recall

[@erenattacktitan4964]

@@SoftwareNeos dude, that was the whole fuss of the sf6 . The majority of the sf6 trailer featured world tour and even if you haven't played as much of it, you still couldn't ignore it since it's one of the main three options at the start of the game. It's hard to believe that you couldn't recall it but whatever, remember it or not that won't change a thing

[@treyenma5206]

World Tour mode is ass. Extremely limited interaction with actual characters and the create a character has no meaningful personality.

[@erenattacktitan4964]

@@treyenma5206 do you think that the mid gen mk stuff was better? I know that world tour is trash, but it's definitely better from what the 3D mk era had

[@treyenma5206]

@@erenattacktitan4964 Hard to say honestly, the actual gameplay (the fighting) is better in SF6, but I'd rather play as an actual character and go into their story than the empty vessel that is the World Tour protag.

[@illyon1092]

Games are art. Making any entertainment medium is creating a piece of art. It's not different from composing music, writing a book, drawing a picture, shooting a film: developing a video game is creating an artwork. And for some artworks, there's the possibility but not the necessity of an immersive narrative. You can write a book with the most well-known fairy tale, but add some pictures and you have a functional children's book. You can shoot a whole film without having any characters in them to get invested in; documentaries work like that. Nobody is going to criticise Munch's _The Scream_ because they don't understand why they should care about the character. And the same goes for video games. Video games started without a narrative, by just having raw, unadorned gameplay you couldn't have by opening a game box you have on your shelf. Some video games introduce characters that relate and interact with each other. And others don't, and that is fine. I'm one of the competitive Fraymakers players, and what keeps me playing the game isn't just the satisfyingly smooth gameplay that I enjoy. It's the way that each and every frame I see in this 60-frames-per-second game is a visual piece of art on its own. I could plaster my whole flat with framed posters of animation stills of these gorgeous high-detail pixel-art sprites taken from screenshots of actual fast-paced gameplay. Fraymakers is _beautiful_ like no other game I've played, and an important part of its appeal lies in the way that many players know these characters from other beloved indie classics they've played. Now they're here in Fraymakers, in a stunning visual style, and you can't imagine just how much amazement I've had discovering all the unique animations they gave to the most recent character that has been released, The Watcher from Slay the Spire. Some of the most intricate visual design in all of indie gaming, unique physics considered for each and every one of the frames of 80+ animations, and those are "just the graphics" to display the gameplay beneath them. Aesthetic /_is_/ emotional depth. The emotional depth I feel towards the game just isn't tied to who the characters are, but to their presentation.

[@funnyusername4774]

You’d think this would be more prominent with how fighting game dlc basically orbits around this exact concept, just look at all the fanfare about akuma in sf6, especially compared to the other dlc characters so far

[@tactical-funky9565]

they really should make a Shonen Jump platform fighter with as much care and compassion put into the game as smash bros. if they did that and it was good the amount of money they would make would be nuts.

[@bailujen8052]

Having as much emotional depth as in Uncharted (every game that came out before 4) is great I feel like you need Enough depth to make a game good, make a story mode which the gameplay is different (Like conquest mode in 3D MK games and other action adventure games) And unique side games like Motor Kombat

[@marcossegon5433]

I feel like the shmup genre and platfighter genre are very similar in terms of issues, where the gameplay is already clearly almost perfected but everyone just emulates the one top dog that has actually succeeded. Whereas platform fighters struggle because they try to copy Smash's formula or fail to make their OCs interesting at all, shoot 'em ups suffer from a very similar situation where they usually get gameplay right but fail to come even close to making their universe look appealing, the only exception being Touhou. While Touhou succeeds for more reasons than just its setting, there is no other game in the genre with as much personality as Touhou. No other shmup puts as much artistic effort into its bullet patterns as Touhou. Only Touhou gives them names and makes them express something about the characters that throw them. No other shmup has a chinese martial artist chase you around the screen with kicks that shoot giant clusters of bullets like Touhou does. No other shmup series has such distinguishable characters with such distinct bullet patterns. The only thing that comes even close is Dodonpachi's Hibachi. Platform fighters have a similar issue as you have explained, where they usually get gameplay right because we already have a good example of what a mechanically good platfighter looks like (melee, and in the case of bullet hell shmups Touhou and CAVE), but all of them save for Rivals fail to address the question of aesthetic appeal.

[@UsingGorillaLogic]

Personality comes a long way I played Awesomenauts for years and I would argue that game was bad but it had a LOT of personality. I would argue fighting games do it best when they handle personality like TF2 where it is in the gameplay. Rivals does this VERY well, when I see Hodan I know exactly what kind of guy he is, and who he appeals to. I didn't like rushrev because the characters kind of look like some Nexon mmo stuff yaknow?

[@FloridusMan]

I don't really think Rivals of Aether really does any characters good personally because the community really doesn't care about the story mode its really just the mods and it being rushdowns this rushdowns that which lends itself to another problem that a grand majority of these games had which other people have mentioned. Being so heavily focused on the meta and trying to be the next Melee has made these so stale, stagnant and hard to get into since really everyone plays the same but with a slightly different combo tool or speed to still be a rushdown and you still break your fingers doing so. Not a single one of these besides Multiversus and some others (although debatable since they still aim for a competitive smash bros or rivals audience) wants to break the mold or be its own thing and it greatly tires me to see this happen over and over again. The appeal of Smash bros besides it being a video game crossover of grand proportions is how it appeals to both casual and competitive players (mostly casual but you get the idea) with various characters with different playstyles for one to enjoy playing as and having its own adventure modes (a CASUAL aspect) with characters in it are very memorable with people still talking about it to this day (SSE not WoL). But since these games only value the competitive aspect so hard that its the only audience for the game with essentially little to no casual aspects, it not only loses some of its potential audience but the lack of variety cripples it with rivals and its modding community being the key example of such as again, no one cares for its story mode, character lore or anything like that, only the meta for it with characters and the modded characters that essentially play the same as the rest. I rag on that point a lot but it shows a key problem on why a majority of these games fail, they largely don't bother doing anything unique to set it apart from Rivals or Smash because they want to cash in on being the "next Melee." Had to hold in these thoughts for awhile but I gotta speak my mind on this issue.

[@lightnin745]

I'd say my main issues with modern platform fighters is that most of them are just trying to be smash. Not every platform fighter needs wavedashing, or a character that plays like marth, puff, shiek, the spacies, etc.

[@SoftwareNeos]

I think this is usually fine. The only 2 archetypes i see is marth and fox. And i just chalk up wavedashing to air dashing in anime fighters. Its a think most game types will have

[@hi-ougidemonfang]

Going from the thumbnail alone. I think the problem platformers Face Is depression in their fan base. We need Super Smash Therapy 2025

[@microblast3700]

The reason platform fighters fail outside of smash, brawlhalla and to an extent rivals is that they don't innovative enough. All platform fighters are too similar to each other unlike what traditional fighters do

[@Lordxenu4]

Its a shame Urdah no longer says "don't get grabbed"

[@SoftwareNeos]

SHE DOESNT?

[@Lordxenu4]

@SoftwareNeos just in the menu, but not during actual gameplay lol

[@SoftwareNeos]

​@@Lordxenu4THAT SUCKS DICK. damn.....

[@flamedarkflare]

Slap city is the only smash clone to actually rival smash as a "game" rather then just a competitive vehicle.

[@NuBOrn21]

I personally think multiversus will take that number 2 spot

[@SoftwareNeos]

I wouldnt be surprised

[@pon9670]

I want a super robot wars platform fighter :

[@theotherjared9824]

Publishers sometimes take getting people through the door for granted. That is somewhat justifiable for a genre as niche as this, but it will never work out in the long term.

[@masonasaro2118]

so what you’re saying is smash 6 needs an actual (censored) story mode and not just a glorified event mode like world of light?

[@SoftwareNeos]

World of light was DOOKIE

[@mechadeka]

@@SoftwareNeos "Who needs gameplay when you can have a boring, repetitive beat-em-up with pretty cutscenes for my NPC ass to clap at?"

[@kylespevak6781]

22:34 It's a pretty obvious problem. Name any game that sold well because of mechanical design 🤷

[@JohnnyDoorknob]

21:02 I am genuinely so confused. The mechanics are way more important to a games quality. Not a subjective feeling when playing the game

[@SoftwareNeos]

You should say that to smash brother fans

[@lukebytes5366]

It doesn't matter how "objectively" good your game is when players don't have a reason to care about it.

[@hylianfelldragon1308]

I guess that explains some things. Despite Smash Bros being the first fighting game that I ever took seriously, when I decided to branch out to other fighters, the only platform fighter that peeked my interest is Rivals of Aether. Most other fighting games that caught my eye are either anime fighters (IE Guilty Gear, BlazBlue and Melty Blood) or 3D fighters. (IE Tekken, Soul Calibur and Sonic the Fighters)

[@SparkLeagueRR]

You're right about RR. There is a big lore tied to the game, even a couple short stories that were written. A lot of it just didn't get into the game cuz of $$$$ very unfortunate.

[@SoftwareNeos]

That fucking sucks. Im so sorry

[@fan.of.nintendo]

I just want something that embraces NOT being Smash. Way too many platform fighters go out of their way to reinvent Melee or Ultimate, and if I want to play those games, I'll just play the originals. With Rivals 2 and Multiversus taking away aspects that made them unique to align more with the conventions of Smash, it really makes be disappointed for the future of the genre tbh

[@SoftwareNeos]

What is "reinvent melee" cause everytime someone says that i dont know what they are talking about

[@Allplussomeminus]

You forgot Flash Party... I guess that proves your point on getting people to care... As it has absolutely no story; there's lore, but no story.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Planning on doing cover on it after 2 vids.

[@Evixyn]

I saw rival two trailer awhile back about that vixen character and her design was heavily pretty and she is a miner / archaeologist or something along those lines. I have no interest in the title but if I was to play it, I will select her as she seems interesting design and lore wise.

[@SR.PlayAlot64]

Okay, having watched this a 2nd time and with a more clear headed perspective, I definitely agree with the main point. When I first saw the title I just wrote this off as a yet another "new things bad" video that I'm so sick of seeing on KZbin. I just didn't pay attention to the video at all, which was admittedly sloppy of me. Maybe I was just in a bad mood at that time, idk, but I am so sorry for making assumptions like that.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Its alright it happens. I try for my topics to be more interesting. To have depth. And honestly.... my thumbnails are SUPPOSED to give off an emotional response. But usually i just do stuff like this. Try to actually talk about the topic and keep SOMEWHAT of a level head. Theres more videoes coming... ive just been hitting a few snags

[@gartore]

Well this video confirms something i was thinking A lot of Plataform Fighters make a not good job for presenting the characters, understandable in licensed games like smash or playstation all star battle royale but in that games (mostly brawl in smash side) make a cutscenes for show an interaction between 2 or more characters and the players like that. And when show the "world of light" trailer a lot of people want see the cinematics for the interactions (until the desepcion when came out and the rest is known) Well if the character is original, is a good idea show any background and personality in almost any medium including the well known character other wise will become a ¿Who? When megaman xdrive came out show a new character RiCO and dont made a good first impression (realy a tutorial and simple info of the stage) Whoever after some updates expand some of her lore and start gaining the love of the fans including in a some fangames. And was that is a risky move because the megaman x saga is loved and well known (and the fans are sill waiting for a X9 (a new game)), bad implementation and make a hate product Now i understand masajiro sakurai's reason for the cinematics as reward in brawl (I think) Sorry for the bad English

[@curse5697]

Rivals 2 is the best platform fighter of the new era of plat fighting games, there's no doubt about it, and it actually tries to innovate while mixing known tech and mechanics, is probably gonna be the best platform fighter of all time down the line

[@Nathidev]

Just wait I'll make an actual good platform fighter

[@SoftwareNeos]

I hope so man.

[@EduSolsa]

Totally agreed. I had a similar experience with "pokemon clones". "Why would I play X game, when I can still play Pokemon?" was what I alweys thought when I see any monster taming games. After XY and SM I started getting fatigue from the franchise and with all the problem with SwSh moving forward, I decided try others games in the genre, but the less similar with Pokemon they were, the more I liked. Even if I don't play Pokemon anymore I still like the franchise brcause I grow up with the anime and games. I will not buy a game that offer the same as Pokemon, no matter if it actually better. I am a casual Smash player. I don't care when I new game say they have wave dash or not. I was sold on Rivals because of their pixel art and was slight curious about what a competitive games feel like (and played Smash Land). But I only stcik with the game, because of its world and spin offs. I k ow I won't play Rivals 2 as much as Smash 6, but I know I will play it much more rhan any other plataform figthers on the market because of its characters. And if they keep expanding the universe with spin-offs I am very likely to play them as well

[@taureanmitnaul6357]

blazblue is great in this part there are a lot of charater interactions and win lose quiotes and the charaters fight each other before the match starts

[@ekwensu8797]

3:38 this criticism doesn't make sense with sf6 since world tour mode is literally what you are talking about

[@SoftwareNeos]

Never played it. Forgot about it

[@ekwensu8797]

@SoftwareNeos that's fine but next time please do research before making blanket statements about games you haven't played. You cant say a false statement about a game, then use footage of that game to make a point about that statement, and then say you know nothing about it. Sf6's world tour mode and character creator is probably the most advertised part of the game, and it's doing really well with casuals. That's not even getting into Tekken 8's full cinematic story mode. Not trying to insult, just think its important to be accurate.

[@Easmodx]

What's the last game shown here? It actually looks appealing.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Thats sentinels inc. A tag platform fighter. They got a trailer you can search u0

[@Easmodx]

@@SoftwareNeos Thank you!

[@mifaro2255]

My main problem is that new platform fighters don't seem to try to create original movesets. Characters are designed to be the game's version of a smash character. Why would i want to play an echo of marth from another game when i can just play him in smash ? That's why i liked Multiversus at first. They tried to actually adapt the characters from their universe and create new moves like smash would. But Multiversus has other problems that made me not care, mainly the overdose of gacha game micro transactions. If i could just have a pack that made me buy every character like in Brawlhalla, i would have bought it. At least Rivals tried to mix stuff. Yes Zetterburn is a fusion of fox and wolf. But the core gameplay and other changes make him play differently. I'm still waiting for fully original movesets though, like in Brawlhalla.

[@SoftwareNeos]

I acfually don't know if there's other plat fighters that have this problem. Like sure you might have a move ir 2 but mosf other plat fighters are unique in the movesets

[@Saferoom45]

That's how I feel about people not giving two shits about the platform fighters. All they care about their characters fighting other characters and just which one is better than the other. Makes no sense whatsoever. Sure I played as sora because he is my main reason why I played smash bros but I manage to play other fighters. From Mario to Mii fighters. And I started to enjoy them. Not to mention there is a tier list of fighters that of show is powerful but none of that really matters, even the videos of low-tier fighters from YEET Smash show they no joke. Iced T. once said, "Dont hate the player hate the game" Well I'm so sorry Iced T., but you are half wrong on this. Like what the hell guys? Cut the creators of slack and give them the support they need, it the main reason why these games are moving forward.

[@liunr7286]

Fans of platform fighters mechanically are an extremely small minority. The vast majority are actually "Crossover fans". While the fgc has multple games their fans have started with (sf, kof, mk), crossover fans start with and end at Smash, and maybe the workshop part of Rivals. Actual gameplay depth is secondary or even tertiary to the only reason they enjoy these games: seeing recognizable characters from their favorite intellectual properties™️ and content™️. They ooh and aah at reveal trailers or their youtubers showing off the cool references, and then they drop off the game once it loses the brief novelty. Fgc players can jump from one game to the next much easier than crossover fans, since their attachments to those characters are mostly limited to the games themselves. But any crossover game with characters from established media completely eclipses original platform fighter characters, and crossover fans wouldn't touch games with these nobodies unless the devs can dangle guest stars or modding like jingling keys.

[@hackerex4787]

I mean, I’m a crossover fan and yet I was hyped af when Loxodont was revealed in Rivals 2 as I have been waiting to see what looks to be RoA’s main villain finally become playable

[@Rulytasho]

I don't agree with a lot of points of this video tbh. The only reason why RoA had lore it's because it had good mechanics and good music, that's it, the rest came after, Lore was non existent, they prolly had a lot of lore in the oven, but they didn't had budget to release it, HECK when the story mode of the game came out, revealing a lot of lore information everyone said it sucked. So no, the lore didn't carried that game, it was the came's core mechanics, that's what made it stick for so long, and then added lore, better pixel art, animation trailers, spin-off game, and MOST IMPORTANTLY the Workshop. I know people who don't now shit about RoA characters, but have the game and play the game, because of the characters that the workshop has, I even invited them to play Rivals once and they were exited to play, but because I didn't had any workshop characters loaded in the game, they didn't want to play. Smash and Multiversus are doing great cause they have legacy characters that you don't need to invest writers to make loredumps on them, people already know who Mario, Bowser, Shaggy, Batman, and all these characters are, they are carried by the legacy, which it could've been the same with NASB/2 but they didn't have the budget to do so, so it's failing too. Mortal Kombat is dying, bro, very few people are playing it, yeah, videos of those things are making numbers, but no one wants to play that garbage, why would they? If they can spend a couple of seconds, looking on youtube a compilation of all the interactions, the fatalities, and the story mode, and enjoying that while eating popcorn. Loredumps and personality is good, don't get me wrong I enjoy that stuff too, but it won't carry your game solo, if you do that, people won't play the game, they just watch the cool interation and the youtubers who explain the lore of the games, but no one will play the game if the mechanics sucked or there's no Rollback, or the character design is garbage. Reason why no one knows about SlapCity if you're not into the platform fighter community.

[@sugarbumful]

As someone who is working on their own game with pre existing characters like Fraymakers. What do you suggest I do in this scenario? It’s completely non profit so I can’t hire the voice actors to do dialogue either.

[@SoftwareNeos]

Even if theres no voice actors. A simple image with sound bytes does well. Look at undertale. Its just simple character sprites with sounds. Youll be fine

[@poppisickle]

3:22 - the way you put sf6 on-screen and then proceeded to talk about trad fighters not having real story modes when that's sf6's entire thing. platform fighter players are NOT beating the "we don't play any other fighting games" allegations 😭😭😭 like yea trad fighters have had those problems but please do more research before you make statements like this

[@SoftwareNeos]

SO 1 GAME JUST NEGATES THIS HUH? ITS NOT THE NORM MAN. Doesnt have it in Guilty gear. Not in mortal kombat. Not in Blazeblue. You have 1 GAME that does this. The point still stands. I can be wrong about 1 game and 99 percent of the rest of the genre still is just Cutscene Central.

[@mechadeka]

@@SoftwareNeos A "story mode" is literally just gameplay with cutscenes spliced in.

[@maddoxreddish4352]

i agree with everything, i only give a shit about the characters in smash because i already know said characters or i get inspired to learn about them, like ness, samus, and the other obscure nintendo characters, i only have rivals bc the workshop so i can play as sans and stuff bc of the workshop, idc about rivals enough to buy 2 unless theres a workshop. yeah the nick game is cool, but the only nick character i care for is spongebob, im not buying a game for characters i dont know or hardly care for, i only got brawlhalla is because smash wasnt on xbox so my friends couldnt play smash with me [also im not a casual player, i play competitive smash so if that changes how you view my opinion, uh, yeah]

[@elshaddollworld3941]

my guy you forgot the melee players when you said top 3 plat fighters ppl care about, wtf?

[@SoftwareNeos]

I said ANY SMASH GAME. so its already in there.

[@AwesomeMooseSmile]

I still don't get how nick doesn't understand this. Maybe the original yes, but Nick 2 has tons of interactions and personality with all of the characters, and it gets pretty much everything right on every level, from the emotional attachment to the new ideas. Unfortunately I think that game's downfall was the terrible marketing and people really disliking the original, because despite that there are still people playing it a decent amount after like 2 weeks, which I couldn't say for the original despite how big of a launch it had. Unfortunately I think you're right, because I heard that rushdown revolt and icons are really good, but like I just don't care because the roster is so unbelievably BORING. Rivals worked because the actual characters are super interesting, even outside of like the lore. A character like Kragg or Fosburn will stick in my mind because of how great of a character design they have and how they're elemental lords. Even with slap city with it's crossover being so obscure they might as well be new, they're so interesting and unique, especially with the story fleshing them out. I wouldn't have cared that much about masked ruby until I played his campaign, and now he's one of the most memorable. Despite all of that i'm still not entirely sure if it's the sole reason, because I think brawlhalla doesn't really have that understanding (even with the crossover aspect, they're basically just skins). Honestly I think that game's just a money laundering scheme.

[@unapologeticasshat9214]

Emotional attachment is one thing but time investment is the biggest thing, and i'm sorry but this is a huge thing that nonsmash platform fighter players ignore because it hurts their ego. Thats why this video sounds like a lotta cope to me. There's no reason to invest in nonsmash platform fighters because they're SHALLOW. You don't have to earn anything. They have the depth of a puddle mechanically and learning curve wise. People stick to smash not just because of characters they attach to but because they know there's going to be a certain depth of gameplay that they'll be able to sink literal years into. No one stays with shitty knockoff platform fighters because they're made to cash in on nostalgia or made to make a quick buck off the genre. They're made intentionally shallow to draw in players who can do "da big Oblina comb0z" so they feel instant gratification.

[@garf6748]

Tell me you’ve never played a plat fighter outside of smash without telling me you’ve never played a plat fighter outside of smash

[@unapologeticasshat9214]

@@garf6748 nasb, rivals, slapcity. That's enough to know that anyone defending non smash platform fighters depth, has no idea of what depth is. That said, rivals is probably the closest second, but its very controlled. Also I don't play input delayed garbage like ultimate. You can get sensitive about melee now.

[@kaminariexp8367]

😢

[@Crazybark]

tf was that last game?

[@SoftwareNeos]

That's Sentinels Inc. A tag platform fighter. Kinda like marvel vs capcom

[@Crazybark]

@@SoftwareNeos thanks for the info, looking into it