Rivals of Aether

This is the only game where you can fight Obama as Dr. Eggman. 10/10 would recommend to play with mods

I Get to beat up peoples OC's as Jack Black's Steve, you literally cant beat this

I can play as Jerma985, New Norm, Omni-Man, and Ike online. This is the best game known to man.

i love this game but christ the lobbies are filled with bugs that derail the experience every 5 minutes. it was fine before, i just wanna play the game man

A very good game. Not only is the base game fun, but the workshop expands on it. The workshop has so many creative characters. The controls feel responsive and rivals of tether is such a unique and clever idea.

No comments about this game. It is pretty awesome, and there are Workshop mods to increase the replayability!

Playing this on console and playing this on PC where the insanely peak workshop is results in a vastly different experience. Base game is a really solid platform fighter but the workshop takes it to a whole new level. I have over 800 mods installed, over 400 of which are characters. Having multiple of my most requested Smash characters in the workshop like Starfy, Grovyle from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Vivian from Paper Mario TTYD, 2B from NieR Automata, etc on top of several dozen anime characters like Ichigo and yeah I am more than happy with the modding scene. My favorite part of the community is the Undertale/Deltarune part of the fandom because there's unironically like 30 characters and around equally as many stages for that series in the workshop. I almost feel bad talking more about mods than the actual game in this review but the mods are actually just so insanely good and keep the game alive even after there's a sequel game.

It's a super well made platform fighter with all OC's (except for Ori and Shovel Knight) and that makes it super cool! Plenty of content, and steam workshop is very fun to mod with!

recommend. if your playing with mods (which is what i do) base game. its mediocre ig, but with mods. its really good.

The game is very fun, especially with workshop support not joking there is a Saitama mod and yes he does one punch any character LOL

Maybe better than the sequel, honestly. I never found myself going 'wow clairen why are you standing there, instead of uptilting' like i constantly do in 2. It's got crust, but it has a lot of charm, too. Background art is drop-dead-gorgeous, stages have hazards optionally, and there's a cringe but fun story mode, all of which are missing from the paid-beta we all bought as a full game. So yeah, it's good. Maybe play it

I love mods and fun fight gameplay

I'm not a big fighting game fan, I'll admit it here and now...but DAMN is this game fun. The joy of seeing random ass mod characters beat up each other is just incredible

honestly, the workshop CARRYS this so hard, this is the only game where you can have ronald mcdonald vs george from seinfield and sans undertale vs MX absolute cinema, 10/10 would recommend

the mods are so cool and this game is the best i ever play 10/10

it is a fun fighter game i must say i have not completed story mode but i like the game till now

my favorite fighting game i have played in a while mods are really good and the story mode is really fun would recomnd you try it out if you ever get the chance

NOELLE MAINS MADE ME START DRINKING AGAIN [[actual game pretty good but i hate noelle mains]]

my friend keeps killing me do not buy this game unless you're ready for trauma of your friends repeatedly killing you for 33 hours

worth it for the workshop alone as a mess around and find out game with your buddies though the base game is still really solid even if you never dip your toes into comp, really good package (shovel knight my goat)

Great Smash-Like and especially great with the mod support.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, they increased the price of this one because it's THAT superior to the second one. It's pretty good.

I like this game a lot and me and my friend have a lot of fun playing as the workshop characters :D

i mean at first glance it looks like another smash bros clone, but once you discover the steam marketplace that has an insane custom community to add your own characters it basically becomes a super smash bros rival. 10/10, would recommend

it's really funny cuz you can play with any character thx to the workshop (great job for all those dedicates fans btw) 10/10 ;)

This game is epic! because you can add custom characters! by pressing workshop!

Love it. Easily modded, better than smash bros even. Perfect game for a small competitive battle with friends. Quick, to the point, even has a main story for lore nerds. Simple and easy to set up.

It's pretty good. I will admit the workshop support kinda carries this game into from B+ tier into A tier for me. But either way, the base game is honestly really solid. A lot of the characters suffer from being kind of generic and not very interesting, but the ones that ARE interesting are going to stick in my heart forever. Really, though, I think Rivals' best feature is somehow its tutorial. I did not know anything about platform fighters at first, and this tutorial is structured perfectly. It teaches you all kinds of different fighting game terminology and demonstrates them to you directly by having you perform them. This kind of tutorial is what games like Super Smash Bros. actually need. However, I will not be touching Rivals 2 until they add the best character, who is Elliana

This game let me hit monkey D one piece luffy himself with conquests giant throbbing boner (SEE SALT / 10

Great game to relax to for me! Fun with friends and easy to understand. I love how easy it is to mod with the steam workshop! Gansta Mario fighting Steve??? Sure! Why not!

genuinely peak platform fighter gameplay, smash feels so fuckin slow compared to this and don't even get me STARTED on brawlhalla yeah so this one's good

I picked this game up on my dad's account back in 2020 after seeing a mod showcase and immediately picked it up. It is still my all time favorite platform fighter of all time. The game is extremely snappy with a high skill ceiling, and native mod support means it's both good as an incredibly competent plat fighter and a great mod loader, and a much easier game to mod than Super Smash Bros. Crusade or even MUGEN. It's worth every cent you pay if you're into the genre.

The workshop mods are amazing and I highly recommend this game just because of the hilarity they add to it.

Very fun platform fighter with a ton of well made fan-made character & stage mods supported as well. The online multiplayer with friends works wonderfully and also allows you to use said mods online

Rivals of Aether is a very good fighting game that I think everyone would like (as long as they play with the right people, since most fighting games are less fun when playing against someone with a much higher or lower skill level). It is a platform fighter, but it is quite different to Super Smash Bros. since it doesn't have grabbing or ledge-grabbing, but instead has a better wall jump that every character can use to recover. The game plays very differently because of this, and while it is a little strange, it is cool, and it doesn't require too much getting used to. The gameplay is about as fun as Super Smash Bros. if not more fun. Even with Rivals of Aether 2 out for a while, it is still worth playing this game, with the game having some more characters and having Workshop characters and stages. I absolutely love the art style for this game, too. Pixel art is used for tons of games, maybe too many, but it doesn't make it worse. I think that Rivals of Aether 2 has a great art style too, since the 3D models look good, but you can't go wrong with this one. The soundtrack is a masterpiece as well. If you don't buy the game, at least listen to the soundtrack because it is one of my favorites. This game is probably my favorite fighting game, with its great gameplay, cool characters, nice art style, and incredible music.

its cool and fun. i play ranno because characters are built around well defined central gimmicks instead of intricately complex movesets my brain can parse matchups much easier than in smash brothers

For smash players this game would probably take a bit of getting used to but this game is very fast and fluid, good balancing, very fun, would recommend to fans of platform fighters

Awesome game competitively and casually! Great combos, and great workshop!

The modding capabilities makes this game so fun, i was able to play steve without having to buy the DLC in smash :]

More difficult to learn than Smash, but rewarding once you get used to it. Workshop characters are a great addition. Overall a solid fighting game, would recommend.

the game literally can't get dry cause there's new mods coming out damn near daily this is actually an investment if u think abt it

the game does not function online, man. fun game when it works but that's not too often

Still worth even after RoA2 has released, have not played a single base game character on the Steam version, why would I when I can play as Bocchi, Sans Undertale or even Super Mario in a platform fighter.

this is exactly what you get when you say "what if smash bros had steam workshop mods, pixel art, and was an indie game?". a word of advice, DO NOT INSTALL RONALD MCDONALD

As a seasoned gamer who has been playing platform fighters for 23 years, 4 as semi pro and 4 as full professional, I could not recommend this game more to anyone who likes the genre, I place this game up there with Smash Bros Melee in terms of fun, mechanics, skill celling, balancing etc. It is so good yet so underrated, I'd even recommend playing this over RoA2 which deviated way too far from the standards that this one imposed.

loved the part where tenna deltarune started beating up yellow from animation vs animator

if you play vanilla this game is mid how ever it has a massive modding scene supported by the devs meaning it has the most content out of any fighting game, ever and you can do things like, "ronald mcdonald is over powered so ill just remove them from the game" i will warn you that by its nature as a game that wants hundreds of mods to be installed at once it WILL crash or you can play vanilla if you want the 334th knock off of melee

I understand that this game is a more competitive platform fighter but I really don't understand the appeal of this game when you could play the likes of Super Smash Bros. Smash is more casual than this game by a lot but I don't think that making a platform competitive is good. I just did not enjoy this game really and prefer a more casual platform fighter experience. 4/10

I played Rivals II first, but I get why this is the OG. Very fun to play even in 2025. Also, the Steam Workshop scene is amazing.

imma keep it 100 this game lowkey fucking blows its genuinely just a worse smash bros and thats saying something cuz i dont like smash bros in general i regret buying this with my own money i really shouldve pirated this first and see if i liked it before buying ts cuz this is hot fucking buns