This will be a critique of my favorite game as I give the main reasons as to why I decided to take a step back from it for a while. I have been playing the rivals series on and off since it came out over 10 years ago. I've gone to tournaments, hosted my own events, and tried to build up a scene for the series in both places I've lived. I am by all means a super fan. So what I post here is purely out of love and with a desire to see the game succeed. This post will also be long, so see my TL;DR if you'd prefer, just make sure you reference my reasoning before you comment.
TL;DR: I'm a super-fan taking a break from Rivals 2. The game is great but two main gameplay flaws hold it back:
- 1. Archaic Ledge Mechanics: Ledgehogging and long ledge invincibility options reward players in the corner too much, favor characters with oppressive F-airs coming off ledge (like Zetterburn), and turn off new players because ledgehogging simply looks lame as a kill option.
- Fix: Shift invincibility to actually inflict panic in the corner by favoring buffered get-up options, make Ledge Getup Attack a high-risk/high-reward reversal tool, heavily nerf stalling on ledge, and make ledge-hogging a much less common option.
- 2. Loss of Uniqueness / Need for Resource Depth: Adopting Smash mechanics (ledges/shields) flattened some of Rivals 1's original identity. While pummels are great, Special get-up attacks alone don't add enough depth.
- Fix: Introduce a single universal resource system that adds EX Specials, a Lag Cancel meter, or balanced Cinematic Ultimates to boost player expression and marketability. It should be clear only one needs to be added.
1. Archaic Ledge Mechanics
It's no stranger to everyone that the addition of shields and ledges was a bit controversial. Being within the community for so many years though, I knew I could trust the developers to implement these mechanics and keep it from feeling samey with the rest of the games within the genre while still keeping the rivals feel. There is nothing wrong with trying to imitate smash, after all it is quite literally the highest selling fighting game of all-time.
My main gripe is with Ledges. Ledgehogging is a core principle of the game. Here I'll explain why it is a genuinely frustrating mechanic that turns new players off and then provide solutions to fix it.
The short, summarized answer here is that purposely putting yourself in the corner should not both net you a truly absurd amount of invincibility, as well as be your best universal kill option.
Let's talk about some of the gameplay design decisions that were likely made 25+ years ago, when Melee was being developed. The intention behind adding invincibility to the ledge in the first place was to give recovering players a time to think before making a getup action. This also prevented things like Falcon dtilt from being an instant death if a player could time it correctly. However, are these truly sensible? In any fighting game, being in the corner is often a bad thing, and honestly, it should be. This adds an element of push and pull of taking space and maintaining spacing. You can feel this tug of war on stage but as soon as your opponent grabs ledge, the tables turn and you are put in a disadvantage due to the amount of invincibility given. While being on ledge typically severely limits your options, in Rivals 2 you can drop off ledge so quickly that it starts to limit you more by your own aerial kit then it does by the universal mechanics.
Imagine with me for a moment you are playing Street Fighter 6, and while poking and playing neutral with your opponent, you are backed into a corner. Being in the corner means you can get hit for a huge follow up from their drive impact, have less spacing options and can be whiff punished easily. Makes sense that "corner bad" right? Now, let's add a mechanic that gives you a brief amount of invincibility by touching the actual edge of the stage willingly. Suddenly, you are given the freedom to use plenty of options, but obviously you are still whiff punishable. Sounds awesome! However, a critical flaw is found when you look at your opponent. Your opponent intimidated you enough to push you to the corner, as well as hold the space they gained well enough for you to still be in the corner. They outplayed you and put you in this position. You should be given options to escape or even reverse the situation, but the person who outplayed you positionally should be given an advantage. Full stop.
In rivals, this example also gives characters with overpowered aerials a massive advantage compared to the rest of the cast. Think about how often ANY Zetterburn player will simply f-air from ledge compared to how often an Absa or Orcane player will. This alone will bump a character up or down a full tier in my opinion. Zetterburn f-air is hard to punish from shield, starts combos, kills, and is even hard to whiff punish. Contrast this with the lack of invincibility on special ledge getups or even normal ledge getups, and you start to see how 1-dimensional ledge play becomes. Just always aerial from the ledge if you want to attack.
This isn't even mentioning how often characters will get hit and slide directly into grabbing ledge, putting them into an advantageous state by getting hit. I believe this is a massive design flaw that feels like a random, unearned reversal mechanic.
So, what's the solution? Let's make it easy on the devs too.
They have done too much groundwork to remove ledges completely. That much is obvious. Being in the corner of any fighting game should provoke a feeling of panic that an opponent should be able to exploit. Being in the corner should still reward high-risk options to get out of it though. Rivals 1 honestly did such a fantastic job at this, making edge guarding feel extremely dynamic. To appeal to new players however, we are keeping the ledge, with these changes:
Ledge getup attack (LGA) should change to be a combo reversal tool. Decrease Invincibility during the move. This effectively makes it the universal, high risk, high reward tool, acting as a way to open up their opponent. Hitting this move should have low end lag and send at a favorable, low-growth angle for any character to follow up and reverse the situation.
Ledge getup special attack (LGSA) should be the slightly safer, more strategic attack that feeds into the character’s gimmick or can create a unique situation. Balanced around what is already in the game, but an increase in invincibility to all options that aid in stage control. Galvan, for example, sets up for a reversal, and should have around the same amount of invincibility given on both LGA & LGSA.
Aerial from ledge (AFL) should be the least invincible of all 3. As it currently stands with aerial from ledge invincibility, it makes broken moves even better and does not make bad moves any better. A universal low amount of invincibility allows all characters to aerial attack from ledge, but prevents it from being the obvious choice for oppressive aerial-heavy characters like Zetterburn. This was something borrowed from Melee but it was significantly more difficult in that game, as well as being significantly unbalanced in that game as well.
Jumping, rolling, and getting up currently have a very low but fair amount of invincibility and should remain as such.
The invincibility given after grabbing ledge should be present to prevent something like a Wrastor uptilt from ruining the game for example, but should be changed to incentivize buffering an option from ledge as your most safe option. Players should retain invincibility throughout that animation process if they buffer an option, but those who decide to delay, even for a few moments, should be punishable. This makes ledge stalling and ledgehogging less polarizing, as most characters have an option that hits ledge from a disadvantageous or advantageous position. If you want to go for a ledge hog, you should know the exact timing to receive the invincibility and already have a roll buffered. It should be a very tight frame window and uncommon to see. I wouldn't even be against removing it entirely.
Why should ledgehogging be less polarizing?
In a fighting game, aesthetics are just about everything. I cannot think of a lamer way to kill an opponent then to literally receive invincibility and passively deny their recovery. When newbies view this technique deleting 2 of the 3 stocks every game, they do not think the game is exciting. My changes transform ledge hogging from the easy, reliable, nearly thoughtless option to get a kill, into a knowledge check, read, and a timing tech all in one. Something actually interesting to explain to a new player when it happens rarely.
Even if you disagree with my adjustments, I hope you agree that the corner should provoke panic, and that ledge hogging (as it is now) is a fundamentally uninteresting viewing experience, and both need to be adjusted. Invincibility is also too powerful of a tool in any fighting game, and as such it is completely reasonable to seek tuning.
- Loss of Uniqueness / Need for Resource Depth
Now, I am completely aware Rivals 2 does not have an infinite budget. The following will be more of a critique of decisions NOT made. The changes I propose would need significant investment to be implemented, which I understand that the developers likely do not have.
Let's think about what made Rivals 1 different, lack of shields, no ledges, no grabs. As a contrast to smash, it seems like there is just less in the game. In my opinion, many of these areas "lacking" in the first game actually added a significant amount of depth and diversified it from Smash. Depth and diversification are a good thing, regardless of if "standard mechanics" had been implemented in from other games of the genre or not.
What does Rivals 2 offer? It offers ledges, shields, grabs, those standard mechanics we might have expected from a smash title, but it also adds 2 different special getup attacks, as well as a different pummel system. I hope I am not the only one that thinks the most interesting of these has been the pummel system.
This is because while special getups are different, they are fundamentally the same as getup attacks. You would use the large majority of them in the exact same situation you would a getup attack. This was not necessarily an area that needed an improved amount of depth.
What this game really needed though, was a flashy, earnable, button or meter used for player expression. This could be something already proven and done before, as I detail below, or it could be something original the dev team makes.
Ultimates
While Supers/Ultimates would be expensive to implement, they would give this game an extremely easy and uniform way to understand the character as well as add another layer of depth (when and how it could be used). This could have been spammed as marketing fodder and honestly I struggle to understand how it could have not led to more sales. There is a reason some of the most viewed fighting game videos on Youtube are "Every character's Final Smash/Ultimate". Not only that, but I trust the developers enough to actually make this mechanic fair and fun. Even if they fucked it up too, I do not think it would change the games flow if you implemented a Band-Aid solution like making the game 4 stocks and only allowing 1 ultimate per player per match.
EX meter
Now that we've talked about the more expensive solution, let's talk about enhancing moves already within the game, or even just being able to cancel out of moves with a resource.
I hope I don't have to explain too much why enhanced specials might be a great thing for the game. A common complaint in the game is that everything starts to feel samey and a rinse-repeat towards the top. I think having an earnable meter that allows you to even simply add an elemental effect and buff the damage or unique aspect of a move, would add a significant amount of depth to the game. Interested to hear what changes you guys would like added to your characters kit if they had EX specials.
Lag canceling
This is likely the cheapest way to add a high amount of depth to the game. Putting a resource that allows you to uncommit to something you now know was a bad idea, or even for enhancing combos, would add a significant amount of depth and would likely just need the UI for the meter and another pause effect similar to the one we already have with parry.
Even just adding one of these, and to be clear, I am just asking for one, would add a lot of depth and uniqueness to the game. This was something that became lost in the transition of smashifying Rivals 2 in my opinion. These are all proven to work as they are commonplace in most fighting games for good reason.
Conclusion
I haven’t touched on this until now, but having experimental modes to test these proposed changes, as well as others such as “Rivals 1ifying” Rivals 2 would be very beneficial and add a lot more life to the game. (Remove shields, ledges, give characters 2 up specials, keep grabs in!)
Regarding the ledge, even if you disagree with my ledge adjustments, I hope you agree that the corner should provoke panic**, and that ledge hogging (as it is now) is a** fundamentally uninteresting viewing experience, and both need to be adjusted. Invincibility is also too powerful of a tool in any fighting game, and as such it is completely reasonable to seek tuning. Two things I didn’t touch on are ledge refreshs and ledge-drop b-airs, how do you think these should be treated given the corner philosophy?
What do you think? I'm interested in what people's ideas might be for EX Specials and Ultimates. Would all of Etalus's EX specials give him armor? What about Absa getting a second, temporary cloud?
Do you think this game even needs something to add expression and enhance its identity to be less of a smash clone?
Credit to SIke as well for helping me edit this. I appreciate it bro!
