Why exactly is the Rivals of Aether story so bad? Does this rewrite make it better? Has anyone even played the story mode since Steam Workshop support came out?! #rivalsofaether
What if you did a video about the DLC & guest characters having a story? We know Elliana & Sylvanos, but maybe you could finish Clairen's on how she saves the future. We don't know much about Ranno or how Ori & Shovel Knight portals functioned to cross over into Aether.
@@AdamCarra yea. I think it all would be pretty sick. One second I wanna say something to get more feedback here. HEY RU-vid THERE'S COMMENTS HERE PUT THIS VIDEO IN PEOPLE'S RECOMMENDED!
Seeing Stefan actively competent, paying attention, and even more so, understanding the story and context scares me. Has he been hiding his powerlevel? Stefan is your Loxodont.
tbf we usually only see him when he's being forced into using complex game systems for the first time while being ceaselessly ridiculed as a beautifully evil sort of hazing ritual
I don't badly mind the existing story mode, since fighting games traditionally suck at telling stories (though it doesn't have to be that way). I saw it as a way to just drop hints that there's some neat stuff going on in this world, to be expanded on in future, non-platform-fighting Rivals of Aether games. You're still right though, it should be better. Your proposition to narrow the scope of the story to focus almost entirely on Fors and Zetter is a good one, since the story mode is too short to be as ambitious as it is. It could still convey the idea that the other characters have stuff going on. For THIS game, though, focusing on getting one good story arc out of it is better; Dan had a lot of ideas, but this wasn't the place to drop them all. Hiring you as the story director would be a great idea for Dan. It wouldn't even be expensive, since you're a RU-vidr and not a real person
I already disagree, not all fighting games suck at telling stories, there aren’t a lot unfortunately but there are gems out there that can tell a good story
Would be nice if there was something for Ranno, Absa, Etalus, Sylvanos, and Eliana. Feel like Sylvanos should've been snapping after the rock wall was broken.
Hey Adam, another great video! You did a great job not only getting the story to make sense, but also visualizing it in the editing. Listening to this kind of content like a podcast would already be good, but the images you made were worth watching the video and distracting me from chores. You can say that what you’re doing is easy and basic storytelling all you want, but you’ve demonstrated quite a bit of experience and knowledge on the subject and I think you’d make a great writer for Daniel Fornaniel LLC. Dan, please hire Adam for his ability to find problems with things and provide great input on how to fix them. His dedication to the Rivals scene is proof enough.
Wow, pretty bold of you to advice dan to put in yiff art of all the characters in the story mode, however I'm not so sure if the inflation fetish sideplot would work
"Two grown men write a furry avengers/avatar fanfic." There, fixed your title. In all honesty, this was really good! I just hope we get more of the Loxodont plot in a spinoff or comic or something. Endless Emperor Loxodont would be a really cool boss fight in a sequel!
I have no other place to share my thoughts. Because I have thought about it. I feel like Sylvanos could be a good foil to Orcane. They are both feral (I think), but Orcane is domesticated(ish) and more in tune with civilization, whereas Sylvanos is more wild, and resents civilization. Sylvanos would need to overcome and heal from the scars inflicted on him in the past, and perhaps come to learn that peaceful coexistence while still keeping civilization in check, and Orcane would need to be able to confront the destructive past and acknowledge what was done, while endeavoring to become a role model for how civilization should be led, moving into the future. I know it's probably not 1 to 1 with both of their lore. But it was a neat idea that came to mind for me.
Imagine if they did something like this but for each nation. This one would be the Fire Nation story. Each one with as much of an arc as this one. That would be awesome! That's what the story mode should've been IMO (and it would keep the interconnected start from wherever thing). Also, I think for any of this to feel good the A.I. should be polished. I would feel super pulled off from the story by Orcane randomly killing himself. Either way, super good video dude! I wish they get help from a good artist to improve the story mode. Your version is way better than the original one btw.
Obviously the best approach is to add *every single* workshop character to the story, including all the Sandbert clones and especially George Costanza.
@@yonatanbeer3475 ....until it was revealed that it was actually part of Ronald's scheme in expanding his fast-food chain throughout Aether and murders Obama with a hambaga to the skull cavity after he is no longer of use to him.
Love the rewrite a lot and I'm just going to quietly replace the real one with it. My only issue is that Zetter is the deuteragonist and Forsburn the protagonist rather than the other way around, but I guess that's not an inherently bad thing.
It amazes me how a game with such at times _stunningly_ creative gameplay has such piss-poor worldbuilding. The world of RoA is basically what happens when you give a 12 year old crayons.
I kinda feel like the story mode also suffered in the gameplay department. Mostly because bots are the antithesis of fighting games. These games are all about detecting habits in the other player and adapting to what they do. You can kind of detect patterns in bots, but a lot of it is RNG deciding if they parry or not. My suggestion: mix it up with minigames like 'break the targets' and 'race to the finish.' Things that have a clear goal and not an abstract bot that is trying to act like a human.
The idea of a story being split between different perspectives I think can work. Touhou fighting games tend to do that, but also, it's been a way longer stories have been done (ie Sonic Adventure). By now, the Definitive Edition has been revealed and I know they won't do this: give every character (except maybe the guest characters) a story. Clarien's for example is interesting, but doesn't look like will ever be complete unless a Rivals 2 will be made.
The existing story should be played counter clockwise starting from the treetop lodge, and the story generally has a good form but its too confusing in the sense that if you do go counter clockwise every character has a story where he/she is the main character and then the next one the same character becomes secondary and a new one comes, for example in the treetop lodge kragg is the primary and maypul secondary, in stone wall wrastor is primary and kragg secondary, in air armada orcane primary and wrastor secondary etc so if you do play the story in any order other than that it becomes a mess thats hard to track because the "pick your story" thing works if everything is happening simultaneously but its kinda not happening at the same time. For example, if you picked zetterburns story first and then continued clockwise it would become very confusing. The only thing i hated about the story is that most of the fights are fillers and unrelated to the story except the rival of the character you play as. The filler fights work even worse because story mode focuses on characters lore, so if it wants to focus lore effectively it has to make fights related to each other. Personally i actually dont like adams take on changing the story because it has a basic movie plot and the whole point of the original story mode is that there is no main character and everyone has a good/bad relationship with someone else unlike here where everyone gets along with everyone and there is no *rivalry* (its RIVALS of aether after all) except with zetterburn and forsburn. Original story mode was actually better as good because it tried to tell the story of each character individually instead of making it a jumbled mess of characters with a movie plot. What i would like to do is simply expand the existing story instead of rewriting it because then it would be clearer and all the lore would become a bit more relevant, including existing rivalries. How would i do that? Make more "slides" in between each battle, the battle maing at least some sense to why it happened. And the last problem i have with adams take on changing the story is that there would be too much story and too little action. There would be story, story, story and then a big fight. It should be story, fight, story, fight like it is in the original game. And story mode in my opinion should not have a plot that builds up, it should have a plot thats stays relatively tense until the climax-final boss fight. To conclude, the best way story mode can be changed is by simply upgrading the existing story, not rewrite it for the most part, and to make it so whichever story you pick first in all makes sense after you play them all.
I think there's one major problem but it's not really your fault. If Clairen comes from a future where Loxodont is still in charge, but the rewrite ends with Forsburn taking charge... See where I'm going with this? It's basically set up where Zetterburn and Forsburn can't have a happy ending. It has to end with neither of them really getting what they want, which is to rule the empire effectively, whichever brother it is.
I think I have an idea for how this ending can be kept while having Clairen’s world make sense. Essentially, Loxodont could have plotted a coup later on in the rule under Forsburn, overthrowing and maybe executing him. Then Zetterburn could be involved and try to stop the coup and avenge his brother, but he gets stopped by Loxodont. Loxodont rules the fire kingdom with an iron fist and enacts policies that end up benefitting him and the people in power at the cost of the citizen’s livelihood. Cue rebellion, Clairen backstory, yada yada, you get the idea.
@@Clownbelt-u2s That's kinda what I'm saying, it's hard to pretend Forsburn and Zetterburn can have a happy ending when we know something like what you said has to happen.
Yeah rivals could use a lot more solo content. I love the game but I can imagine it doesn't help bringing in new players if 90% of your content in multiplayer with a high learning curve
only thing that kinda ruins this for me is that Forsburn have his mask already, he has smoke stuffs. If he arrived at the smoke clan/tribe later, it would bring character inconsistency..... I would also like it if Absa and Etalus were included because I believe they are part of the original roster
genuinely the one thing I would complain much about with the story mode is it being locked while Workshop is enabled so I can't unlock two of the stages in the game without turning Workshop back off EDIT: I don't dislike the story mode as a whole, but it's not the best I've seen without also being the worst I've seen, so I don't complain about it much. I actually thought the multiple angles of the story are okay
Tielesiti i dont think that structure of story is inherently bad, it just doesn’t work super well in this format for a videogame story. Or maybe it’s just more difficult to write a cohesive story like that.
Did not know people could leave comments on a premiere and for a second I freaked out and thought that I accidentally uploaded this video at the wrong time lol
@drewskidewsk Sylvanos is feral and probably wouldn't get involved. Elliana is anti Air Armada but if it came to working with Wrastor or the end of the world as they know it? Well... That's exactly the intrigue isn't it? Bet: Loxodont sends for Elliana with "I know how to take down the Air Armada" and Elliana is a villain for the first part idk
Simply amazing, on another level, on another level, compared to whoat we have now For the next time, you could look into the storymode in Slap City Or a playthrough of any fun game would be great
I agree with the fanfic writer, except for the Sylvanos trailer thing. It does a good job setting him up as a "force of nature" villain... literally. Being the manifestation of the anger of the forest, and becoming a mythical angry doggo after the conflict ended. It also adds a point of interest in the forest being sentient, since it would otherwise just be primitive compared to the other tribes. It kinda makes you wonder if the forest is still angry, since Sylvanos never went away. That's what I think, at least.
This is an incredible improvement from the original story mode and I really love what you've done here! That being said, I feel like one aspect you didn't address too much was how gameplay would fit into this new story. There are a few good fights in there, but I think what Rivals story mode really needs is platforming levels like Subspace has. Not only is the movement in Rivals is extremely fun and satisfying, but it's a major part of the gameplay, and is something you need to learn if you want to be any good at the game. In both the original story mode and in your rewrite, the characters spend a lot of time travelling around the map. What if we actually got to do this travelling? The platforming sections could have abyss monsters that you need to fight, which get tougher and more common as the story mode progresses. You could have certain sections where you need to use specific abilities from each character. For example, you could have a part where you need to armor through a specific damaging obstacle using Kragg's side special, you could have a part where you need to use Zetter's downspecial to recover your midair jump or else you won't be able to traverse a gap. You could also have parts that force players to use general in-game mechanics. There could be a section where you need to jump to full height to get over an obstacle, but then fastfall to avoid an attack. You could have a part where the screen scrolls quickly, and will quickly get ahead of you unless you traverse the platforms using proper wavelanding. Finally, this would give Dan a chance to show off the world of Aether, since there are tons of cool aesthetics in the game, but we don't get to see too much of them. TLDR: I want a Rivals of Aether platformer
I think we could of probably had a cutaway to have Zetterburn come to terms with his behavior and actions. We get a hint of it when he runs off, but it doesn't quite cover it and his "big damn hero" moment feels a bit trope-y as a result
Theory time, so some workshop characters are just there with no lore and are from other games or meme characters, so how did they get in Aether? Answer is the Aetherial gates. They appeared from the aetherial gates, so that's how they got there. They don't just randomly appear.
This is a great story! I think maybe the only thing I could ask for is more characterization for Zetter? Maybe a big argument or moment of conflict between Zetter and Forsburn, so when he shows up at the end again, it feels like Zetterburn made a major choice; swallow his pride and help his brother, or let his brother, who maybe he now sees as a traitor, die at the hands of the abyss. Maybe this could be somehow integrated into the end of act two? Maybe some previously unknown information could be revealed by the smoke clan? Like Zetter runs into them at some point and explains more to him before the final moment? Something like that. BUT of course, the struggle here with these game stories is that it becomes pretty hard to make a compelling narrative when it comes to gameplay. So who knows if this could all work? But for real, I got some real chills listening to this alternate story.
i want to make super smash land Mario as a workshop character to bring Dan some memories, should i do it? if you don't understand, Dan made super smash land.
a fix could be that loxodont frames zetterburn and company as actually dead and the guys running around are actually abyss clones. That way the entire Fire Empire would just attack on sight and Loxodont keeps his power.
It's an intentional cliff hanger that was also in the original story. It's not too big of an issue imo, because my version focuses on the personal story of Fors and Zetter, since that gets resolved there's still closure and at the same time room for the future.
