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An Increasing Trend in Indie Games: Platform Fighters (Or Smash Clones)

Say what you will about Super Smash Bros, whether it’s a fighting game or not. If there is something that is undeniable about the series’ legacy, is it has created a local multiplayer experience that feels unique to its own. Its already a big draw amongst Nintendo’s IP’s because it has an increasingly large roster of either Nintendo icons or other game characters battling each other to no end. But the gameplay is what gives Smash its identity as a blend of a fighting game and 2D platforming. People have claimed Smash Bros is responsible for creating the genre platform fighters. Each character has a distinct fighting moveset that they can use, but the stages are normally set up like a platforming level rather than a traditional fighting game arena. This gives players opportunities to explore and even use to their advantage. There’s also an emphasis on beating up on the opponent because while there’s not a health bar in default Smash, you can pound on your rivals for a higher % to create a better chance at knocking them off the stage. Of course there’s items if you want to create some chaos, but you can always disable those if you’re not in the mood for an assist trophy like Waluigi hitting opponents with his tennis racket. But overall what makes Smash such a distinct game is that it pits Nintendo and other well known characters in a free for all fight to see who will survive in a platforming/fighting game hybrid. Other AAA titles have tried to capture that Smash magic like PS All Stars Battle Royale and the Japan Only Dream TV World Fighters. But many have failed to replicate the same experience that Smash delivers to Nintendo fans.

While AAA games haven’t live up to Smash status as platform fighters, Indie developers have been hungry to create their own takes on the genre for years. Whether they are borrowing gameplay elements of Smash itself or putting their own ideas in, many different Indie studios have either produced their own platform fighters or have games that are currently in develepment. Some are simply trying to create their own Smash Bros gameplay wise, but others are throwing in their own ideas to the genre to make their games stand out. I’m gonna take a look at many different indie platform fighters, released or not, and looking at exactly how they play compared to amongst themselves and to Super Smash Bros.

Lethal League:

The first game on this article is perhaps the most different to Smash out of all the games that will be included here, but it definitely has hints of Smash in its gameplay. Developed by Team Reptile, Lethal League actually started out as a flash game, but soon eventually got an official downloadable release in 2014 on PS4 and Steam (Windows and Linux). It’s a multiplayer fighting game where its set in a futuristic urban setting and players could choose between 6 characters. The goal is to hit a ball at the opponent within an arena. The match keeps on going until the ball knocks out someone and then the next round starts. It’s like Smash by allowing the player to freely explore the environment by walking and jumping around. The big difference is the ability to slam the ball to use it as a projectile and the opponents can hit the ball back if they time the counter correctly. Anytime the ball is hit, it goes faster bouncing around the arena and will continue to bounce until someone falls victim to a hit. It feels like a game of tennis with the continuous ball hitting, even though its taking inspiration from batting in baseball. Each player has a life bar for each player and it keeps going down whenever someone gets hit.

No Caption Provided

Lethal League is widely regarded as some of the better local/online multiplayer games to come out this generation. It takes elements from others games to create its own satisfying formula mixed in with an artstyle that looks like a long lost spinoff of the Jet Set Radio series.

Indie Game Battle:

OK, this game is the antithesis of Lethal League. When Lethal League took minor inspiration from Smash and included its own combat system to make itself feel distinct, Indie Game Battle didn’t try to make itself feel special. This was an early access title on Steam created by Blob Game Studios that was meant to be the indie answer to Smash Bros. Many elements from Smash Bros were used in this game such as the percentage-hit system, the 2D platform stages, summoning round shields and even similar launch attacks. There was even a character that had a carbon copy of Kirby’s inflatable mid air jumps. Though with it being an early access title, you’d think they would add new modes like an adventure mode or online to this, right? Turns out there were very little additions done for this game as the only new things added were new characters and stages. Sometimes they removed characters from the game as well and there was never any fixes on the A.I.

Hmm, yeah this doesn't look familiar.
Hmm, yeah this doesn't look familiar.

Now what about the roster? With this being an Indie Smash like was there any big name indie characters that gave the game a draw? Well, eventually it got characters like Dust from Dust: An Elysian Tail, Captain Viridian from VVVVVV and the Goat from Goat Simulator. But those are probably the best-known characters I can pull because mostly everyone else was either a character from a little known Blob Game or from other indie games that have small followings. Also this title eventually got canned for getting hate as a Smash clone and for the developers not providing the necessary changes in its early access cycle.

Rivals of Aether:

Ben Pack provided a great quick look about Rivals of Aether as well as covered the game's updates in the most recent West stream. But if you want to read about it here, sit down. Developed by Dan Fornace, Rivals of Aether is a platform fighter that takes some inspiration from Smash Bros from the hit percentage system to the fact that you have to knock your opponent off the stage to win. But what makes it different from Smash is one, the characters are all unique and Aether actually has its own story mode and two, there’s a greater focus on stage control and you can’t block and grab opponents. For the stages, Smash’s stages have always varied in size going from Battlefield and 64 Dreamland to Hyrule Castle and New Pork City. Rivals of Aether has relatively small stages that pressures the player to control that space whenever possible. Also, being prohibited to perform blocks and grabs forces the player to be on the offensive rather than playing a defensive game. Not to mention Aether has a mode called Abyss Mode, which is like Multi-Man Brawl in Smash where you fight countless enemies, but also incorporates horde mode elements by giving players specific challenges and tasks to the hordes of foes you face.

That Lion is messing that Orca up.
That Lion is messing that Orca up.

Plus with the exception of Ori from Ori and the Blind Forest being a guest character, the roster is rather small but full of unique characters with their own movesets. I mean, Smash doesn’t have a 4 legged Orca who uses puddle teleportation, do they? Does it have a rock beetle that can summon stone pillars from the ground? What’s also worth noting is that this game was in early access back in 2015 but is officially out now. So the developers have taken the time to get feedback from players to improve the game.

Brawlout:

The Zangief of Frogs
The Zangief of Frogs

Much like Indie Game Battle before it, this is an Early Access Platform Fighter that isn’t shy of taking elements from Smash Bros. That definitely seems like the intention of this game as the developers want to create their own take on the genre. However, they have told sources that they are trying to strip out the superfluous elements of Smash Bros to give it more of a fighting game. There are no items in Brawlout and it doesn’t sound like developer Angry Mob Games has any intention to add them in the future. Also you can’t block attacks with a shield and instead must learn how to dodge or counter attacks to give yourself a shot to stay alive. Like Aether, the stages are small but only one of them has any stage hazards. It’s also like Aether in that it stars an original cast of characters, from a luchador frog to a walrus that fights with a penguin as a companion. They also have a guest character in the Hyper Light Drifter being playable, but everyone else is original. Also if you can tell from the gif, this is a polygonal Platform Fighter rather than a sprite based one compared to Rivals of Aether.

EDIT: Brawlhalla:

The future of football
The future of football

Whoops, this one slipped under my radar when I was originally writing this article. Well, now its time to give some attention to Brawlhalla. Developed by Blue Mammoth Studios, Brawlhalla is a free-to-play platform fighter that was first shown at PAX East in 2014 and later went into an Open Beta in 2015. The game officially came out 4 days ago on STEAM (PC and Mac) and PS4. Like some platform fighters listed on here, the goal is to knock someone off the stage. But unlike Smash or even Rivals of Aether, the damage system isn't displayed as hit percentage, but rather the icon of the player going from white to red. As the character icon gets more red, that make the opponent easier to knock off the arena. There's a standard free-for-all mode in Brawlhalla, but the game has plenty of unique local and online multiplayer modes such as 1v1 Strikeout, where one player picks 3 characters with one stock each and arranges an order for their team and faces off against another team of 3 fighters. There's also plenty of different custom multiplayer modes too, such as Brawlball which is like football but it normally composes of two teams of 2 and each team must run the football to the opponent's end of the field.

Brawlhalla currently has 34 characters, or legends, that are playable and each can start off a match with 2 primary weapons out of 10. Weapons range from Katars which are best used for melee combat to a Rocket Lance which can let players traverse across the stage. Weapons can also fall into the stage and they can also be thrown at opponents to knock them off. Players don't have to fight with a weapon as they can choose to be unarmed and use attacks that all characters can perform. To me, Brawlhalla seems like the opposite of Brawlout where the weapons are a MAJOR focus in the combat. There also seems like a complex movement system as players can perform up to 2 dodges on the ground and in the air, they can either perform 3 jumps, an air dodge or fall faster, like you would in Smash. I feel kinda silly leaving this out earlier since this game has over 53,000 reviews on STEAM, hence that this game is popular.

Icons: Combat Arena:

There have been some interesting developments surrounding this game in particular. This is being made from the people behind the Project M mod for Brawl. For those who don’t quite know about Project M, it’s a mod that is meant to make Brawl play more like Super Smash Bros Melee. Why? Melee has been the ideal game in the Smash series for competitive play and when Brawl came out, there were a few things that made Brawl feel less competitive. Melee was a faster game that drew competitive players to this iteration above others. Brawl also had less of an emphasis on combos and included things like tripping which would happen randomly to startle someone whenever they were walking. Project M was made to bring back the faster paced action of Melee within Brawl’s engine and make Brawl a more competitive game. The mod also has things like skins for specific characters that you couldn’t get in vanilla Brawl as well as changed movesets, such as Wario fighting more like he did in the Wario Land games.

Look, its Madam Marth!
Look, its Madam Marth!

Wavedash, the new name for the makers of the Project M mod, is making Icons: Combat Arena. Judging by simple screenshots, it appears to be a separate game from Smash with visually distinct environments and characters. But if you see the trailer, it kind of looks likes a blatant ripoff. There’s a sword character whose moves look virtually identical to Marth’s. There’s a goat guy who literally has Fox’s Up Smash and dash attack. It feels like this could be to Melee what Paladins was to Overwatch, a game maybe taking too much inspiration where characters play too similar to another source. Hopefully this won’t be the case since this game is far from done and maybe the developers can put more originality to the character’s move sets. But we’ll see what the future holds for this Free to Play platform fighter.

Crowdfunded Darling 1- Bounty Battle:

Neat, I can have the crusader from Darkest Dungeon fight Fish from Nuclear Throne
Neat, I can have the crusader from Darkest Dungeon fight Fish from Nuclear Throne

Believe it or not, there where not 1, but 2 platform fighters that recently got crowdfunded. Both of which are taken inspiration of Smash’s roster by creating a fighter that has an all star cast of indie video game characters. The first of these that I’ll break down is Bounty Battle. This is a game being developed by French developer DarkScreen Games and was funded on FIG. As far as the roster goes, its a pretty respectable selection of characters. There are characters that come from franchises like Guacamelee (Juan), Darkest Dungeon (Crusader), Axiom Verge (Trace), Owlboy (Otus), Psychonauts (Raz) and others. Sure some people are complaining about the lack of other indie characters like Shovel Knight of someone from Hotline Miami, but overall I’d say the roster top to bottom is pretty decent and will likely get updates before the game is out. Though this needs to be stated: Jay and Silent Bob, who you might know from almost every Kevin Smith movie, could be playable. Why? Well there was a Jay and Silent Bob game FIG campaign that got funded last year, so like Friday the 13th, another Indie game based on movies?

Juan is getting WRECKED!
Juan is getting WRECKED!

Now what about the gameplay of Bounty Battle? Is it a direct Smash clone or does it have its own ideas? Well it’s a multiplayer game up to 4 players where players are encouraged to rack combos on their opponents until their health bar goes down. The stages themselves seem to be more like PS All Stars stages where there are platforming sections, but they all feel pretty compact spaces and judging from alpha gameplay, you can’t launch somebody off the stage. Plus there is an emphasis on resource management where you can earn a source of currency called Bounty Points, which are rewarded to you for landing combos or destroying enemies. You can then use those Bounty Points to summon Minions, which seem like they are like the PokeBalls and Assist Trophies in Smash, but with you having more direct control. Lastly, the developers are promising a pretty meaty package as Bounty battle will come with a Challenge Mode and Story mode. This game managed to only get funded over its goal of $30,000 without reaching stretch goals. However, bounty battle looks like a promising platform fighter by creating a Smash like roster for Indies but having its own ideas for combat. Its slated to come out anywhere. PC, PS4, XBOX 1, Switch, Mac, you name it.

Crowdfunded Darling 2: Indie Pogo:

The strategy may just look like jumping on someone's head, but characters can attack each other.
The strategy may just look like jumping on someone's head, but characters can attack each other.

This game was actually funded a week ago on Kickstarter (not on IndieGogo despite the name). If you are reading the title right, its actually quite explanatory to what this game’s gimmick is. Indie Pogo, which is currently developed by Orlando Dev The Lowe Bros., is a platform fighter starring a bunch of indie game characters that are constantly jumping around. The constant jumping mechanic is by far this game’s most interesting factor since it forces players to not stay still. You’re constantly on the move and this makes you much more aware of your surroundings because you’ll never know when your enemy will attack. The stages themselves ranged from being compact to open spaces and the objective is to beat up your opponents until their live reaches zero or if you can knock them off the stage. The movesets of the characters appear to be relatively simple where each character has their own unique attacks and a special attack. It got funded with over $41,000 with a $25,000 goal and only reached 1 stretch goal, but it’s a PC and Mac game for now with no plans to get to consoles at the moment.

As far as the roster goes, here's the link to the roster (not final). I can't put it here for some reason so here's the list of characters:

  • Tesla Kid (TeslaGrad)
  • Zorbie (Titular character of his game)
  • Captain Viridian (VVVVVV)
  • Fishy (Shutshimi)
  • Commander Video (Bit Trip Series)
  • Lilac (Freedom Planet)
  • Blockman (The Blocks Cometh)
  • Orcane (Rivals of Aether-heh, a character from one Platform fighter is in another)
  • Jack the Reaper (Titular character)
  • Shovel Knight
  • Stardrop (Stardrop Blaster)
  • Velocispider (Titular character)
  • Downwell guy
  • Penepole (The Next Penelope)
  • Voltar (Awesomenauts-yes I know the roster shows 3 of them, but the developers have said Voltar is the one they're leaning towards)
  • Octodad (Octodad: Dadliest Catch)
  • Dust (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
  • Gunvolt (Azure Striker Gunvolt)
  • Bullet-Kin (Enter the Gungeon)
  • Kick (Divekick)

Now the first thing you might notice is that this game has a mix of characters from franchises that have developed fan followings over the years and some characters that seem to come from little know IP’s. Here’s the thing with IndiePogo’s development: It was initially revealed last year on Steam Greenlight and back then the roster was mainly made up of mobile indie characters (Stardrop Sprint, Zorbie and Velocispider), and VERY little known Steam or Windows Indies (Next Penepole, Jack the Reaper and Shutshimi). Eventually its got some attention for its core gameplay mechanic of constant jumping and soon the developers were able to negotiate with other Indie devs to get more notable characters like Commander Video, Lilac and Shovel Knight in there. Then when the Kickstarter finally got started, the developers were having polls letting people vote for Indie characters they want in the game and that’s how characters like a Bullet-Kin and Kick got in. The devs have also gone out of their way to ask for permission from other developers to see if their characters could join IndiePogo (how Octodad joined They have talked with developers like Derek Yu (Spelunky), Chucklefish (Stardew Valley) and Psyonix (Rocket League). Yes you are reading this right, they are trying to get a Rocket League car playable in IndiePogo, and I’m all for it. With a roster that is far from complete, it seems like the devs are trying to create a roster that contains some notable Indie characters as the main draws while including obscure characters to give them some exposure and perhaps help those games become more popular. I mean, Bounty Battle is doing the same for games like Rad Rodgers and Super Comboman.

They even did prototypical sprite work for the Octane vehicle from RL. This could be the Hornet of Indie Pogo if Psyonix gives them permission.
They even did prototypical sprite work for the Octane vehicle from RL. This could be the Hornet of Indie Pogo if Psyonix gives them permission.

Also weirdly enough, I’m finding myself more intrigued by IndiePogo than I am Bounty Battle. While I think top to bottom Bounty Battle has a more recognizable roster, I’m actually more drawn to the character choices of IndiePogo. As someone who’s greatly enjoyed Freedom Planet and Divekick, I love the fact that Lilac and Kick are gonna be in the same game together. Also the constant hopping mechanic has me really curious to see how that translates to actual gameplay, and lucky gaming youtube channels who got the demo early seemed to enjoy it. But we’ll see how the public perceives both IndiePogo and Bounty Battle when those two come out?

Now if either developer for Bounty Battle or Indie Pogo is reading this now, there is one character I really want to be in either game. He's obscure in most places, but is beloved here at Giant Bomb. I'm talking about this man:

Inspector Jenks from Contradiction: Spot the Liar! I want to attack Shovel Knight by poking him with devil horn hand gestures and Atlas masks!
Inspector Jenks from Contradiction: Spot the Liar! I want to attack Shovel Knight by poking him with devil horn hand gestures and Atlas masks!

Honorable Mention: Runbow:

So there's a reason why I don't really talk about this one. Yes this game has an all star lineup of Indie Characters and yes it has platforming in it. But its really more of an indie platform racer than a platform fighter. Still, it will be acknowledged as sort of being like Indie Smash but if it Smash was a 2D Platforming racing game.

Still an good roster for a Smash Indie clone
Still an good roster for a Smash Indie clone

In conclusion, its really interesting that many indie developers are trying to have their own take on Smash's fighting game formula. Of course games like Lethal League and Rivals of Aether have incorporated some unique ideas to successfully make their own game stand out from Smash in certain ways. Though hopefully games like Icons don't join the leagues of Indie Game Battle of being blatant knockoffs. It will be really interesting to see how Bounty Battle and Indie Pogo are received since both have some interesting ideas while they're both trying to create "THE ULTIMATE INDIE COLLABORATION FIGHTER".

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