Rivals 2 Steam Charts & Stats

The game is great, i prefer rivals 1 however i still really enjoy playing this one. I love the studio and Ive been playing rivals for 8 years (SK mains dig up) and its so cool just seeing how far its all come. HOWEVER online servers are a different story. Rival 1s work great, no lag or anything but in 2 every game is interrupted with lag to the point where it becomes unplayable and its hella discouraging, to the point were its not really fun to play online knowing that its going to happen. Still going to recommend it tho because the game itself is good alsoimbeggingaddfunnyshovelfishmanaddfunnyshovelfishmanaddfunnyshovelfishmanaddfunnyshovelfishmanaddfunnyshovelfishmanaddfunnyshovelfishman

Every match of ranked either puts you in a server with unplayable amounts of lag or pairs you with someone with over 100 more elo than you do, usually both. Instead of fixing these problems, the devs decided to nerf the second worst character in the game.

Its a fun game and all but why am i locked out off 90% of the content when i dont have an account? Rivals 1 had online multiplayer and everything else without the need to make an account

Lack of players in low rank makes learning the game without a mentor a real headache. Therefore not recommended. If you are a pro smash or RoE1 player, by all means go for it, but with the current situation I would just play brawlhalla instead.

its genuinely the best platform fighter on the market right now, smash included. it's def in need of some fairly serious content updates. we recently got a beginner tutorial, with three more still on the way. arcade mode is quite fun and grinding bot match can be a nice way to practice but most of what's in the game is fighting other people who are often better than you. if you arent cool with getting your teeth kicked in for a while as youre learning, def at least wait until more tutorial content is in the game. but if you want to see a bunch of furries do some cool shit, ABSOLUTELY pick this game up. also some ppl are mad that theres any cash shop stuff at all but holy shit this game strikes a good balance between keeping the lights on and still pretty damn ethically sound. personal highlights are freely switchable event battle passes with literally zero fomo, being able to buy literally any cosmetic in the entire game no questions asked, and the fact that all characters added to the game will be FREE. etalus is FREE. i genuinely dont think ppl are giving them enough credit for this; fighting game dlc is always a fucking nightmare and its great to see them hitting the best of all worlds.

I have never felt the necessity to make a review of anything before playing this game, So I'm making this review as a means to express the disappoint that I got as a long time fan of the original and if you should try the game or not. First and for most, I wouldn't recommend this game in it's current state due to the massive downgrade in quality of life improvement and content in comparison to the first title, I know the devs are working on it, but it has been very disappointing to have new bugs on the menus every patch, new features not working properly and required features taking too long or not being added nor considered to the game. I'm aware that they had to rush the Launch of the game and it's great that they have been transparent about it, but it still a huge let down. Losing a ranked match due to technical problems such as my keyboard being detected and instantly disconnect my controller is just complete bullshit, and launching the game without a tutorial nor casual modes moved away too many new players that could have stick with the game. Now about the game itself, I can see how some people can enjoy it, mostly Melee and PM players (maybe rush down revolt even) and I tried to liked it myself, until I accepted that the game is just not for me, so I completely dropped it. Which is a shame considering that it's a sequel from a beloved franchise that doesn't seam to be aimed for the fans of the original. IMO the game overall rewards too much defensive and campy play style, so it feels like trying to start an interaction will always get u in disadvantage, because even if ur opponent whiff a command, or get hit, they can still FH and react. I know FH has counter play, I know why the game is designed that way, I just don't like how this contributes to a defensive play style. (and I know FH is one such case, but the whole combat system has a lot of defensive mechanics that contribute to a slower flow but I don't want to get too technical.) Which is why I don't like the new direction, and again, if u like this, it's on you. But for me, fighting games work the best when they reward offensive play style and fast reaction, so u can adapt to your enemy as the game flows. The problem is not the game having shields or ledges, is how they are implemented in the combat design giving more advantage for those who are avoiding starting an interaction. I can understand the devs wanting to change the direction (hell, if the game was just RoA1 but 3d I would just keep playing RoA1), but them why make furry PM? when this discussion is brought up to the community, ppl always seams to see only RoA1 or Melee as the only directions when there could be so many other creative alternatives for a new direction, Combo Devils is coming up with their own ideas, and I'm much more excited to see where this goes. To finish it all, is not like the game has no redeeming qualities. I really like the graphics and art direction, I do appreciate some changes and the introduction to a new engine capable of more powerful features (being able to play in 120 fps is pretty dope), the game can be extremely fun even, my issues with the combat system comes more with a competitive mindset in consideration. So I just don't like the new direction and I personally think this was a huge miss opportunity to improve what the original formula had to offer. This is no threat to the dev team, I don't find any of them incompetent in their work, I know how hard it is to be part of any creative project and I'm sure they are very aware in what must be improved with their game. Making an indie plat fighter to appeal and bring together different communities is a HUGE task that even AAA companies wouldn't be able to. But who knows, maybe the dev team will clutch it and turn this game into the best plat fighter ever created, RoA1 wasn't as polish as it is nowadays even in it's release. RoA2 on the other hand, released way more polished and having new chars being added for free. So I genuinely hope as a big fan of this franchise, that they do it JUSTICE.

Early Access game in all but name. Missing critical features on launch that were promised, generally a step back from it's predecessor. Bloated with mechanics trying to imitate Super Smash Bros. Melee, but missing the point and overtuning the mechanics HARD. One example is Floor Hugging. In this game you can tap a direction while being hit to shift yourself over a little bit. This isn't bad on it's own, but there's a catch. If you tap into the ground using this mechanic, you can cancel the knockback and stun you would take, effectively nullifying an opponent's "successful" attack entirely. Not only that, but you get a free punish on the opponent for performing this technique. This can be combined with another tech called "Crouch Cancelling" that reduces knockback by 30% if you take a hit while crouching. These combined make it so if you attack an opponent all they have to do is press down while or before getting hit to instantly turn the tables on you, for free, for attacks of almost any level of power. This encourages a standoffish approach to fights where it's almost always bad to attack the opponent unless using a grab. There's another imitation mechanic from Melee where you can hold onto a ledge to prevent another player from using it. This is fine as well, it's relatively difficult to time holding the ledge to stop a powerful recovery move from reaching it so when you do pull it off you get well rewarded by ending an opponent's stock. The issue is that they decided to port a behavioral quirk where rolling from ledge keeps it occupied. This means visually the ledge can be completely open for up to a second while your recovering character just "decides" not to grab it. this can also happen with attacks off ledge and sometimes the characters just "don't reach" when their arms can easily reach the ledge. This game also has a barrier shield that covers the whole character, it never shrinks and can only be beaten by either shattering it with enough damage, or a grab. The issue is that many characters in this game do not have a safe way to attack the shield, while other characters have easy, fast attacks that can be thrown at a shield safely and indefinitely. This creates an imbalance where a small portion of the cast doesn't interact with the game's mechanics while others are smothered by them. The shield, Crouch Cancel, and Floorhugging promote an incredibly safe and campy playstyle where nobody feels like approaching at risk of getting punished for a hit, and where landing a hit is dependent on if you have one of the 7 Safe Moves of Heavenly Virtue. The game heavily favors good grabs, highly mobile recoveries with large hitboxes to protect them, and safe aerial attacks to beat the oppressive Floorhugging when combined with shields. The original game did not have floorhugging, shields, or a ledge and as this is effectively an Early Access game without saying it is, I can forgive some balance issues. The issue is that I can't recommend a game where it's broken on such fundamental levels in it's design, since that often speaks to a deeper issue with design philosophy. Speaking of which, some characters don't feel like they're in the same game. The frog character Ranno and the Sword user Clairen both have incredibly forgiving and sometimes downright overcentralizing moves that either protect the user from mistakes freely, or diminish the other available tools in their kit with just how powerful the single move is. Other characters can't catch a break in terms of their ability to fight against the system mechanics or powerful characters. Forsburn and Etalus both embody different parts of this problem. Forsburn features generally slower moves with longer recovery than other heavier or longer range characters like Loxodont, and the standout mechanics that he has have been nerfed and tweaked to be less effective than just swinging around a few strong moves. His best tools get nerfed, leading him to feel less like a tricky smoke and mirrors character and forcing him into a more mundane bait and punish hybrid sword character. Etalus on the other hand feels unable to keep up due to a lack of good tools to get opponents away or deal with disjounts. He feels right out of rivals 1, which on the one hand is good but on the other hand means he has more trouble interfacing with this game's mechanics. He often gets completely drowned out by fast moving characters and disjoints while not being able to handle the powerful Floorhugs and Shields as well due to a generally lower speed and stubbier moves. Overcentralizing kits, lost design direction, and characters being held down by system mechanics with tools that mean less and less. They lose identity due the direction this game is headed, and for that I also cannot recommend this game. Finally I want to talk about Singleplayer content, and quality of life features. For quality of life, many control options from the original are regressed. One example is the deadzone selector for the stick. It's not as robust, there's no stick visualizer, and the options afaik dont apply at all to the right stick. The increase in buttons also means shorthop and run buttons don't have room unless you're getting into more complicated control schemes or foregoing parts of the default control, and with such poor deadzone settings a run button or walk button is required to get better control. Singleplayer is entirely missing it's Story and Abyss modes, only having a weak Classic Mode that effectively acts as a cpu enemy gauntlet. Story is rough, big rough. Abyss Mode in R1 was pretty cool, as it let you unlock custom moves and skins, and featured alternative challenges and boss fights as opposed to just fighting CPU bots. These missing features are supposed to come out later in the lifecycle, but with little to no singleplayer replayability or even basic singleplayer playability at all, it's a major step back from Rivals 1, and I can't recommend it for that either. All in all the game has a lot of fixable issues, but the direction it's moved in has me worried that the design philosophy for the game is fundamentally flawed. Until a good majority of issues are fixed with this game, I cannot recommend purchasing it.

The dev team are a bunch of really cool people who are extremely creative and have a blast making this game, so I can't say enough positive about them. Like, the recent Valentine's day trailer thing is hilarious and clearly they had a lot of fun with it. There are many positives. Game controls super smooth, looks amazing, characters are diverse and interesting, skins are mega cool, idk. It is a very well-made game, and there's a lot to like. Like I take one look at MultiVersus and come on... it's complete garbage... Like just looking at both games, there's no comparison. All of this said, I hate this game. 10/10 game, and I totally, completely hate it. This game brings me nothing but anger every time I sit down to play. It reliably ruins my mood. Sometimes I am even mad when I win. Like, again, it's an objectively very well-made game in a lot of ways. I'm not going to sit here and argue mechanics and have some Masters player say well you're only in Diamond and you don't know this or that and you could change this or that about your play. I'm not generally an angry person. I play lots of games. Sure, competitive games can get me mad. Not like this game. I have never broken this much personal property from a game before. Thrown a controller a few times as a teenager, slammed a door at one other game one time. This game I get reliably furious. I'm not gonna argue the mechanics. Clearly I think many of the mechanics are dumb, because more often than not I am furious at a loss, rather than like "wow, that guy is insane, what a legend, can't believe I'm in his rating range, super well played". I'm thinking more like "What a complete friggin loser", etc. And I think some of the stuff I do is pretty lame, too. I identified how to win, I guess, and what wins in this game is lame. I don't know. I can't argue it, I guess. Like if I say "crouch cancel is lame" or "shield is lame" or "Lox / Kragg F smash ought not be interuptable by weak attacks" or whatever, like I'm sure there's plenty of great arguments against whatever I say. The game experience is hard to pin down to one thing. But what I can do is relay what the game does to me psychologically. It is a reliable mood killer. It's literally got amsidian hidden in it or something. So yeah, I suppose you can just have everyone throw their vote in the pile and it averages out to the truth. My vote is you should pass on this, at least in its current state. Oh and the servers are laggy and inconsistent sometimes even with wired connection and they disconnect you randomly sometimes. See, like it's a bunch of different things. Idk it might change but I'm done for now.

The game is straight up not finished. Essentially the only way to play the game is versus. Said versus mode is fun enough, but once you put a little time in, the cracks really start to show. I think this will eventually be a good game, but it's not yet.

Game is more approachable than Rivals 1 and I’m able to find many matches around my skill level despite having a job and usually only having time for this on weekends, so that’s nice.