Rivals 2 Steam Charts & Stats

Seems like an improvement in the audio and visual department from the previous game, but even despite me not liking Rivals 1 that much, I'd prefer to go back there instead. Everything feels so... different.. here and not really in a good way. The shield and ledge mechanics and the new attacks present in this entry don't really feel like they belong to the core Rivals cast. Visually the game looks pretty, and the soundtrack does give some fresh air to breathe. Can't comment on the voice acting since i turned it down to 0 the minute i purchased the game (sorry!). But the gameplay is just not it, to me at least. Barebones in terms of content, only an Arcade mode alongside extras akin to Smash Bros.' Stadium mode, which included Target Test, a more fancy version of Target Test in which you have to break as much of them within a time limit, and Edgeguarding Practice. Only beginner tutorials are present. The game overall is less accessible to newer players in the genre despite it sharing more similarities to the original platform fighting game (Super Smash Bros.) series and seems to alienate even veterans coming from Rivals 1. Oh yeah, you also have to create an account to play online, which make with that what you will. Skins, which were obtainable by DLC, special events or ingame achievements in the predecessor, are now obtainable via microtransactions which feels a bit more bleh imo.

If you like smash brothers it's great but if you loved Rivals Of Aether it's as mid as all of the other smash clones. Buy it if you like ulti but want to wavedash.

the ui feels unfinished at times also it took me 5 minutes to change my rumble settings because the menu would not save my options the controls feel vary laggy to play with, and overall pretty disappointing considering that the previous game has a nearly limitless roster with workshop. at this point in time the game is not worth 30$ for this amount of content and micro transactions for literally anything. hopefully the game recessives multiple updates that improve the quality of the game,but i do think that games should be complete on launch i understand why its like this. no hate for the devs but for now i will stick with rivals 1.

don't typically write reviews but i can't help but feel as if this just takes too far a step away from rivals and towards smash. this really no longer feels like rivals of aether so much as just another smash clone to me. it's made it very difficult to actually want to play the game despite prior excitement.

Bought this game in hopes to play casually with friends, went into Arcade mode to try and learn the controls and found I can't even progress past the first fight because my start button doesn't register? Seems to be a common issue on the forums with no dev response in over a week. Will most likely apply for a refund and never look back.

First time ever writing a review, and I want to make it clear. I do thoroughly believe this game can succeed well. And I mean, really well. The first rivals of aether was very fresh to the series, and knew what it wanted. It wanted to be something different, it wanted to be a 2D plat fighter that felt easy to pick up, average to get good, and hard to master. Rivals 2 sits in a serious growing pains issue, and this is coming from a Platinum player at 1220 ranking (so no git gud commentary needed, I've been looking into it). The game has amazing highs, and really terrible lows, making it a mess as it stands right now. The Highs - Game looks great, and movement is probably at its best offline. The free flow of movement off platforms, the dash dancing and juggle game feels nice. Shield and grabs are responsive, and I never felt like I misinputted due to lag or faulty game. The new mechanics are very interesting, making it stand out from others. The game is continuously adding more characters, constantly being patched, and avoids FOMO by making events permanent. All great ways to keep the community engaged. The Lows - The game is going through an aggressive growing-pains phase, as it isn't fully sure what it wants to be. For those saying "Ugh, it's now just Melee/Ultimate", they're partially right. Shields and grabs are objectively so good that parries feel not needed. This becomes especially apparent when a few characters can release a parry on an option and get punished for successfully parrying. This leads to another big issue - balance. There is a definitive god tier characters, who are very good and have very few weaknesses, and then some who struggle (Poor Lox). Despite everyone having kill moves, this game feels the worst at "not killing", and this is due to the SDI and DI in general. Very often you will hit someone with a smash attack offstage, but because they are hugging the wall, they can tech, airdodge and punish you. This leads into the third problem, which has divided the players in "Played melee" and "New to game" - No in game help. You will struggle, you will lose, and nothing in the game will tell you what caused you to lose. The community has to help you. And the community is not the best at helping these new players. Many players coming from these games are going to struggle to stay because of a current lack of support and ways to improve. Final Thoughts - Is the game well polished and playable? Yes. Is it for everyone? NO. This game, as it stands, will beat you to a bloody pulp and you must suffer. And this playstyle is, for many, an unenjoyable one. You are not playing rivals 2, you are playing rivals of melee, to an extent. It will feel familiar, but also alien. And until there is a clear distinction to help those players, it's gonna have further issues down the line.

I'm trying to like this game. I really am, but it just doesn't feel like Rivals. The 3d aspect is cool and the game looks fresh. I love the creativity in the game. It's bright and vibrant and I love it. It's a big step up from Rivals original and beloved style to which I still love to this day, but this game GAMEPLAY wise is just not as fun. The game putting in shield is nice, but it gets boring when every interaction is based on who's shield got hit first. If your shield gets hit you basically get a free combo, so there's no reason to NOT shield and just wait. There's so many defensive options in the game which makes it just frustrating to play.

TO EVERYONE DEFENDING THIS GAME , DO YOU EVEN PLAY IT????? The game gets 200 live players when i am online. I'm fully convinced 90% of people who say good things about this game do not play it. This game is so dead you cant even queue for 2s. It is also unfinished, super bland maps to the point it makes you sad. and id say there is a 70% chance you wont find a character you like in this. ive never played a game that favored camping and cheap mechanics more than this. The only one i can think of is Multiversus..... and the fact i have to sit here and compare the 2 is very sad. Floor hugging neutral sitting kids and a egotistical furry unwelcoming player base who wont teach you, by the way there is no tutorials in this game either XD, so people who haven't seen platform fighter Hell and done their time were basically sent to die and refund the game. Please like i could go on and on about this game faults. yall can spam reviews all you want the game will be on mixed before you can get your next shield hug off.

EU queue times are incredibly long, sometimes even up to tens of minutes. In and of itself it's not unexpected for a pretty niche game to have long queue times, but when you're queuing for a match you're locked in the queue screen, leaving it means leaving the queue entirely. It would be nice to be able to go into training / bot matches while searching for an online match.

I've been playing Rivals of Aether 2 and noticed the Steam reviews have become mixed. Curious, I checked why that might be the case. It mostly just seems to be a coincidence that it became mixed. A good amount of people left a negative review around the same time. Some of it is because the game deviated from Rivals 1 gameplay, but like....the first game isn't going anywhere. You can still buy it/play it without any issue. Do you know how many fighting games would love to have that luxury? A good number of the RoA1 crowd think RoA2 plays like Melee/Smash4/Ultimate now, but....no. Melee's gameplay is way more precise with way less emphasis on defense, Smash4 plays way slower, lacks movement options, and punishes unsafe aggression, and Ultimate feels like fencing....so aggression without the approach (if that makes sense). RoA2, to me, is a game that heavily revolves around counterplay. I never felt like I was in a situation where there was absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent a loss, albeit, that's because I'm actually aware of the game mechanics. A large amount of review also complained about how the game feels to beginners and this is a criticism I couldn't counter if I tried. As of right now, the game severely lacks tutorials and singleplayer modes to help you get better. This is being addressed, but it's gonna be a while. Right now there's some very basic tutorials and an arcade mode, but nothin too helpful. This wouldn't feel as bad if there were casual multiplayer things to do...but there isn't. People rarely play free-for-alls and that's the closest thing to a casual multiplayer mode the game has. Unless you have friends who have the game, you're outta luck. There also seems to be server issues. I haven't had problems myself, but depending on where you live, you might have problems. RoA2 uses server-based rollback with no peer-to-peer options as of now, so if you're super far from the servers they have, you might experience the lag problems I've seen other reviews complain about. It's something the devs are aware of and will likely address, but solving networking issues is a slow process and it might not be as important as finishing new characters on schedule. Speaking of that schedule, RoA2 is a live service game, probably one of the best. There's no slimey predatory practices here. No FOMO, no P2W, no money-hungry nonsense. All future characters will be free, the singleplayer modes will be free, and stages will be free. Which is great, but it also reveals that this game isn't necessarily "Feature Complete". Like I said earlier, there's barely any singleplayer modes/tutorials. However, RoA1 released in a very similar fashion. I'd argue it was even more scuffed than RoA2, so I'm not surprised. Yet, some reviews are very surprised. I'd blame communication for this one. I think some people expected the game to be completely done, but the team has a ton of work to do. It's work that they need money to get done while financially supporting their effort. It's why there's a live service model to begin with. Without support from the community this game's fate could end up like Rushdown Revolt (cool game btw). This is what baffles me about many of the reviews. They need the community's support. They can't address a lot of issues without that support. Why not encourage people to give it a try anyway? Their support would go towards improving the game anyway. Most of the negative reviews aren't complaining about the game heading in a bad direction. It's just not currently in a state that they would call very good, but they believe it will be very good as long as the devs keep working on it. ??? Isn't that positive? I don't get it. Look, if you believe in the game, give it support. If you like how the game plays and just need more features, give it support. If you never played the game and are new to the genre, I'd buy the first game unless you don't mind playing a game that's in active development. Give it support, or don't. Buy it if you believe they can deliver.