Being a part of the Super Smash Bros. competitive scene for many years, I have always been aware of Rivals of Aether and its similarities to Smash. The 8-bit art style is very appealing to me but I never tried it because there was no convenient way for me. At that point the game was only available through PC and Xbox. Flash forward a few years and I heard the news that the game would be coming to the Nintendo Switch in Summer 2020. When quarantine officially got underway at the end of Spring, I was spending a lot of time at a friend’s house. He had a PC so I convinced him to get Rivals of Aether. Now I could try out the fighters and get a jump start in learning the mechanics before what I thought was an imminent summer release. Over the several months of waiting my expectations have cooled but I am nonetheless excited for the release next week.
I fell in love with the art style, music, and the simple but diverse character movesets. A lot of the catharsis from playing these platform fighter games comes from pushing (a lot) of buttons very quickly and Rivals delivers this in spades. So I am quite excited to release some of the stresses from this fall semester with some good ‘ol button mashing and maybe get the skills to compete in some Rivals tournaments when this pandemic is over.
Rivals of Aether: Definitive Edition comes to Nintendo Switch on September 24.
Zachary Holloway 