Full disclosure: I was part of the early beta testing period before the game went into Early Access. Take that for what you will.

Rivals of Aether is arguably the best platform fighter that wasn't made by Nintendo. Dan Fornace and his team have a clear understanding of what the competitive Smash Bros. community enjoys about platform fighters while making the game more accessible to newcomers. While most of the playable characters are amalgamations of pre-existing Smash Bros. characters, they at least have some unique mechanics in their move-sets that help them stand out. My favorite characters thus far are the ones that are wholly unique to this game. There's a reason why Orcane is the de facto mascot.

Having said that, the single player content is a bit lacking. The story mode was clearly an afterthought, with each of the characters' individual chapters consisting of five quick matches before you get to the final boss. Kragg and Wrastor's campaigns in particular feel like what would normally be one scene in any other video game being stretched out and padded over several cutscenes.

Abyss Mode is where all the single-player effort went into. It's essentially all the bonus challenges in previous Smash Bros games mashed into a gauntlet-style challenge mode. You earn experience to level up your character and unlock various abilities with the coins you obtain from playing the game in general. Unfortunately, it's a huge grind to max out a single character's level and unlock all their runes if you do this by yourself. You can speed this up through local multiplayer, but I hardly have anyone to test that out with. A form of online multiplayer would've been neat.

Overall, if you want the taste of Smash Bros but you can't/won't get a Nintendo console, this will satisfy your cravings.

Full disclosure: I was part of the early beta testing period before the game went into Early Access. Take that for what you will. Rivals of Aether is arguably the best platform fighter that wasn't made by Nintendo. Dan Fornace and his team have a clear understanding of what the competitive Smash Bros. community enjoys about platform fighters while making the game more accessible to newcomers. While most of the playable characters are amalgamations of pre-existing Smash Bros. characters, they at least have some unique mechanics in their move-sets that help them stand out. My favorite characters thus far are the ones that are wholly unique to this game. There's a reason why Orcane is the de facto mascot. Having said that, the single player content is a bit lacking. The story mode was clearly an afterthought, with each of the characters' individual chapters consisting of five quick matches before you get to the final boss. Kragg and Wrastor's campaigns in particular feel like what would normally be one scene in any other video game being stretched out and padded over several cutscenes. Abyss Mode is where all the single-player effort went into. It's essentially all the bonus challenges in previous Smash Bros games mashed into a gauntlet-style challenge mode. You earn experience to level up your character and unlock various abilities with the coins you obtain from playing the game in general. Unfortunately, it's a huge grind to max out a single character's level and unlock all their runes if you do this by yourself. You can speed this up through local multiplayer, but I hardly have anyone to test that out with. A form of online multiplayer would've been neat. Overall, if you want the taste of Smash Bros but you can't/won't get a Nintendo console, this will satisfy your cravings.