Quick Look: Rivals of Aether

This game is preeeeeeeetty cool.

Dope

Time to Smash.

.

Any chance we could get Ben in on some Scientific Fighting Game Measuring?

Well, this looks delightful! I might just have to try a Smash-like now....
Glad to have another card carrying member of the FGC Jason!!

Why does every indie game have to use pixel art these days nothing to set them apart. Last time I played smash was in early 2000s in high school I never could get into it and whenever my friend would wanna play I would get sad since I never told him how much I hated playing smash games. Good quixjlook though Ben explaining things.

Woah, button check on the player select screen is a really good idea. More fighting games should do that.

Excited to see Ben and Jason make it out of pools at Evo this year!

@steveurkel: 3D models with textures, animation, and good lighting are waaaaaay harder to make than sprites. It's usually just not feasible for these <10 person teams to spend that kinda time modeling everything

This game looks better than I thought it'd be.

@steveurkel: Mostly because it's way cheaper.

I see that Crazy Diamond custom color. Now I really need to see Ben explain Jojo to Jeff.

It's really, really nice to see some platform fighter love on Giant Bomb. It's my favorite genre and it would always make me a little more butt hurt than I like to admit when the guys would rip on Smash.

Ben seems to have done more research around this game than any other quicklook in recent times. Well done.

wowow I like this

@icecoldfreezie: @amyggen: @steveurkel: To add to this, I wouldn't be surprised if this anecdote from SF4's development plays a part in all of this:

Seth Killian: When we first started out with Street Fighter IV [...] it was soft. It was lacking some of that pixel-perfect stuff that you want. But I just wanted to testify and say that you can actually get it done with 3D models. You just have to fudge it a bit. Which is, you don't actually have to use the models as the collision. You can do collision apart from the models. You can fudge it with the way collision works and use 2D collision systems even with 3D models.

Initially, it played wrong. That's all I can say. It didn't feel like a Street Fighter and the collision boxes were all mapped to the 3D models and that changed. So, we pushed reboot in the middle and went back to the 2D hit boxes. I think it's a lot of what preserved the Street Fighter feeling.

Credit: https://www.destructoid.com/sfiv-s-3d-polygons-could-have-ruined-hit-detection-172084.phtml

I'm loving how well Ben is filling niches in Giant Bomb's knowledge/enthusiasm base.

I'm also surprised how cool this game looks to me.

Ben gets Smash? Official best duder!

I'm glad to see this game is finally out. I haven't played it yet, but I have messed with Super Smash Land and found it super neat. If nothing else, this has to be better than Brawlhalla (which is still in early access after, what, three years?). I've been disappointed every time I tried that game. (And there was some other Smash clone I played at PAX this year that didn't have short hopping. It was. . .yeah.)

Can we get a salty bet series starring Jeff, Ben, and Jason?

where are the health bars

I might just be spoiled by the crazy indie pixel animation you'd see in something like Crawl, but I can't help but be a bit disappointed that such a promising Smash-like game has sprite work that's just alright.

Dan Fornace is a BEAST!

@chaser324: Skullgirls has it, along with a bunch of other really neat FGC oriented design changes. If only it was fun to play.

Glad to see the Edge browser seems to be working with GB again.

It's early but Ben and Jason seem to have really good chemistry together. Looking forward to seeing more QLs from this combo.

Ben likes Smash! Cool!

Glad to be getting some Smash knowledge dropped on GB. A lot of major outlets don't seem to have the first clue about what makes it a popular competitive fighting series.

Yes!! Finally someone who knows about smash on giantbomb!!!!

the custom colors option is so cool! I really wish more games had an option like that! I'm not super into 'platform fighting' games but that option alone kinda made me want to play it

This video made me think about the possibility of adding Ben to the science team :D

Wait wait, Forsburn and Zetterburn? Are the devs Swedish hockey fans?

@hassun: ive come to the conclusion that things like ranking of fighters will ever be consigned to the months that arent prior to E3 and arent leading into the fall rush. So basically, July.

@dr_mel: I suspect that's because a lot of outlets are staffed by people that are older than the smash loving community. I think that as everyone hires in fresh talent you may find other places accrue that knowledge as well.

@steveurkel: I think if anything, the main criticism I'd have with the art is more that the design execution isn't particularly interesting or striking, not that it doesn't use 3D.

3D Art has soooooooooooooooooooo much more work involved, that cannot be emphasised enough. 3D modelling/animation/unwrapping/texturing tools have gotten better and continue to get better, but it's still the reason why most indie games that do use 3D assets tend to keep it simple, for example by not properly texturing assets and relying on material colours to do the work, or by keeping the model geometry and texturing work simple.

I've only seen a couple videos with Ben so far, but I dare say he is probably the person at Giant Bomb who is best at actually playing games. I feel like he's going to need to handicap himself in the future.

@avyshue: Yeah, but even among sites with younger staff (which, by now, can't be THAT young -- if you were into Melee during its release you could be in your 30s) I see barely any acknowledgement of it. Some confused acceptance of its popularity or viability as a competitive game is the most I see outside of sites that are ABOUT Smash. So it's nice to see someone with a working knowledge of how Smash works on a tournament level.

now i want to play smash

PPMD
Kreygasm

@braves01: He can be the Anti-Brad

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