The End of the Smash Killer Era 

A “smash killer” is purely theoretical because I haven’t seen a game come even close to becoming one

I think the biggest issue with these platform fighters is definitely the lack of casual appeal. Most don’t even have items, or just have them tacked on, even though the vast majority of Smash players love playing with items. The competitive segment of Smash fans is such a tiny fraction of the player base. Most people didn’t get into it because they wanted a competitive game. They are little kids who like the characters or people who want something to screw around with at a gathering with friends. Some of those people will go on to become competitive, but you’re never going to grow a competitive community if you don’t first have a casual one for people to grow in.

Rivals 2 looks sick, Combo Devils looks sick, we're about to see big moves from the plat fighter space

I don't think Smash was ever really meant to be a serious competitive game. People are just amazing at breaking games

Brawlhalla was genuinely a fun game, I still play it, as well as smash.

I want a story mode as fun as subspace emissary. It was like a massive platformer with all the characters and coop.

Ive been a diehard Smash fan since the 64. That said, im genuinely excited for Rivals 2.

I'm happy to see all this talk from multiple devs, including Brawlhalla, since so many people think less of it with how different it is

It's really great to hear all the devs are so forward thinking, 2024 will be huge

I need to finish this later but this video impresses me on many levels I'm always iffy when esports centric youtube channels do platfighter related content after the disaster(s) that was akshon esports multiple videos on the genre, and this video from the gate not only respects it but also actually talks to devs of games in the genre I will say I'm not the biggest fan of the title and thumbnail but the content has so far impressed me

Probably going to be a big gap before the next smash game. Now's a great time for another platform fighter to break into the mainstream or at least take over the competitive scene.

This is an extremely well put together video. Good job man.

dude rivals is so fire man I love that game

Kung Fu Panda 3 tie in game is the truest Smash Killer

The smash community would gain so much from playing other platform fighters and it would definitely create that same cohesion that the fgc has

Fantastic video and comments from all the devs involved. I've been a fan of the genre since Brawl, and while I love Smash for what it is, I'm so glad people are taking its core gameplay and spinning it in fresh new directions. Be it by focusing on the competitive niche Nintendo neglects, experimenting with the core mechanics to attract new players, or creating new kinds of casual content like the addition of rogue-like mechanics, each of these games bring something interesting to this genre I love and I couldn't be happier. I also wanna shoutout games like Wavedash and Spiritfall, showing that the core mechanics of PlatFighters don't have to be tied to a single type of game, allowing for even more experimentation and ideas that wouldn't be possible otherwise!

Fantastic piece with a really cool voice over, hope to see more of this for sure

The phrase “[X] is gunna topple [Y]” is quite tired tbh, it ages the game that’s allegedly doing the toppling instantly when it fails

Awesome video! I really enjoyed every part of the video. Great job! Platform fighters are some of my favorite games to play.✌️

Absolutely amazing stuff. Loved every time I got to see a tiny rectangle with Bio in the bottom right during the interviews

One of the biggest issues with player retention some of the newer platform fighters go through is they try VERY hard to get the Melee audience involved with mechanics that are basically straight from Melee. The issue is Melee players generally speaking love their game more than life itself and will compliment your game for trging to be like Melee but never replace Melee for your game because once again to them its the perfect untouchable game. They try to appeal to this niche but dedicated fandom that will never choose them over Melee and are left with no one left when the initial hype dies.

Great video! I love seeing more videos highlighting such an awesome genre.

brawlhalla is different and still somewhat has players

not watching the video but I just came to say that calling other platform fighters "smash killers" seems like an inaccurate and somewhat dishonest way to represent them. I've never been under the impression that any of them intended or even wanted to "kill smash". I also have tremendous respect for rivals of aether and with rivals 2 set to release calling games like it part of an era that's over is also inaccurate. Basically I just came here to criticize the title lol.

Brawlhalla has the most thriving community out of all of these other options tbh, you should've looked at flash party if you want a smash killer or clone type.

Love smash bros and I have recently got myself Rivals of Aether. I love the platform fighter genre.

“I did the Fierce Deity’s Sword” Shows the Great Fairy’s Sword instead…

I grew up with smash brawl The smash bros is really burned into ma soul While smash will forever remain uncontested it's awesome to have all these platform fighters building off the inspiration becoming their own things, in any way shape or form Enjoy videogames Let em cook with rivals 2

Brawlhalla is rising now

Nice coverage, great interviews!

I’ve been in the competitive scene for Smash (mainly melee, but I actually started on PM!) for just over 10 years now, and I think the more the merrier as long as they focus on making it fun and technical enough to hit you in the dopamine when you execute well. I played a bit of Rivals when it first came out, but never quite got the hang of it. I put in about 150-200 hours in Brawlhalla when I picked it up back in 2022, and really enjoyed it. I’ve put it down in favor of Melee of course, but any fighter that can pull me out of my main game and get me thinking in their system and feeling like a badass when I get it right, I will play. Anyway, melee for life but I’m also 1000% looking forward to Rivals 2

IMHO "smash killer" became a joke because of hungrybox. He was calling every platform fighter getting announced a smash killer

Brawlhalla lit

I don't think any of these games were supposed to be Smash killers? Who the hell comes up with these terms? They just shared similar gimmicks in the 2D platform fighting genre.

Loved this vid, fantastic work

*cries in Slap City*

Brawlhalla💪💪💪

Just let the Games coexist for Pete's Sake,we need variety after all

I never got to compete in Rivals 1, even though I played the absolute mess out of it. But I'm looking forward to Rivals 2 and potentially getting back into competitive spaces with it. Participating in Smash competition doesn't inspire me the way it used to, but Rivals especially scratches my exact itch for gameplay.

I feel like indie devs are starting to become the main source of quality in games these past few years. Not only in plat fighters, but also just about everything else. The big difference is that I feel plat fighter indie devs are starting to have all the right pieces click together and are about to make something amazing. Here’s to hoping that’s true in 2024.

Rivals 2 == smash Killer

Smash Bros Won’t Die Like Street Fighter, But It Will Have Its Competition

wow very good research, actually knowledgeable about the topic

Rushdown Revolt not mentioned 💯💯

great video, love plat fighters:)))

What would also help is any big dev not abandoning their game after a year

I really hope rivals 2 at least maintains the same amount of players as ssbu, I love nasb2 but on pc it peaks at like 60 players most nights. I just want a good platform fighter (ssbu) with a good netcode and ranked system (rivals 1). Rivals 2 is exactly what I want but I hope others like it too

Smash is never going away in the sense that it has cemented its legacy. Even if Nintendo were to stop making it the ground break that smash did for the genre is unlike anything else. There were 5 iterations of smash before any serious competitor rose up to the task, and even now we lack any sort of real competitor to smash.

RIP Project M. Great times 🥲

i don't know mush about platform fighter but this video is well made

I swear i head the music used in the beginning somewhere else before

The best smash like game that isn't smash is the Onimusha one on ps2. I will not be taking any questions.

Any time I see a game get called "x killer" I just assumed it's gonna die in a week or year at this point Overwatch was called the TF2 killer and it's pretty much dead

I clicked cuz I saw rivals of aether in the thumbnail

The Nickelodeon guy's room is anarchy.

8:44 Well said

I said this in a comment to the Rivals 2 development update and I’ll say it again here: If a game doesn’t focus on creating a long-term engagement plan for the youth, the game will not make big profits. Focusing on the competitive scene automatically pegs you into a niche. It’s a great idea to support your competitive team but if you really want your game to grow you have to be willing to partner with other companies to bring their characters to life and offer a more casual experience for those who don’t play online or don’t play competitively. This is why Smash Bros is such a success. They have bankable characters and easy to learn gameplay that feels good right away. For many, Smash Ultimate probably sits on the shelf collecting dust nowadays but that’s ok because it was purchased and enjoyed. That’s the hallmark of a long-lasting brand (though I personally still play regularly). I think Rivals has the most potential to take off with the sequel, I just hope they fulfill their promises to have an engaging single-player and plenty of DLC going into the future. 🙏

this video uses music from BE Witches, a breast expansion fetish game

I feel like we’re about to see a big wave of platform fighters coming soon. Like over the course of the next few years. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was just too big to be ignored. It sold over 32 million copies in lest than five years. It’s one of the biggest retail selling games of all time. It’s nearest competition in sales is MK11 and that sold 15 million. And after that you’ve got Tekken and Dragon Ball FighterZ with 10 millions. Ultimate sold more than double its closest competition, and more than three times as much the stuff after that. That’s all to say, there’s no way the big fighting game publishers aren’t doing their own platform fighters after Ultimate, which oddly they’ve never made a serious go after. I kind of figured NetherRealm Studios would just do the next Mortal Kombat as a platform fighter, one based more around health instead of ring outs, but a platform fighter all the same. Was a little surprised to see WB Games had someone else do a platform fighter for them instead. Bandai Namco seems like the studio that’d most likely be the first of the big Japanese studios to get one out, they are after all the studio that made Ultimate, (and the 3DS and WiiU) and they do have a deal with Shueisha to make games using series from the Jump manga line.

The first thing to remember is that it's an exclusive and Nintendo fight game fans are always there

Rivals 2 is the only one that may actually make a single smash player leave lol

Melee was a beautiful accident. The true “smash killer” will also be an unintended beautiful accident.

Man still want a playstation allstars battle royale 2

Just wait till rivals2 gets here

I don't care about platform fighters, I'm just ehre for Bio. Bio, is that u? Good job :)

Rivals 2 looks AMAZING, to the point that I think it could rival Ultimate. Especially with the dwindling Ultimate meta.

I rather a game be fun on its own merits than try so hard to be a “killer” any day

I have no sympathy for the competitive scene when they get shut down by Nintendo, you have these developers trying to cater to them but I've seen first hand how overly critical or hard headed they are about trying anything new.

It's crazy cause none of these official games are even close to being as good as PM/P+. Once brawlback is finished and brawl (and by extension brawl mods) gets rollback I wont have any need to play any other platform fighter.

Rivals 2 is going to be the best competitive platform fighter of all time, if you know you know, and if you don’t know…your just missing out

Thanks

The biggest thing that makes Smash so big is the characters and their movesets. The characters being pulled from franchises we all know and seeing a non fighting game character translated unto a fighting game character with references to the franchise are the biggest appeal. Smash Bros cornering the market on it being a celebration of video games really kills any other attempt at doing it. And games All Star Brawl or Multiversus or PSABR are neat concepts, but they're limited to a specific company. There is a limited pool of characters to be hyped for. If a company one day decided to say hey, were making a platform fighter based on ALL of comic books. Or cartoons. Or anime. Or a big medium that they can pull 1000s of characters to speculate on, that draws alot of the audience. The hype train and the speculation definitely helps. Another thing is alot the games don't have really good art styles. Playstation All Stars doesn't do a good job mashing up the characters. Most of the indy games are pixel styled games. Which looks cool to me but doesn't have a casual appeal. Brawlhalla looks like a mobile game. Smash doesn't get enough credit for how well it mashes all the characters and games etc together. Other games look really fucking weird because they don't develop their artstyle and make it original. It is AWESOME these devs understand what makes the games fun. But there is no casual appeal of OG characters or random guest characters with no rhyme or reason. I swear, if a platform fighter that had a universal art style that decided a comic book universe where Marvel, DC, The Boys, etc were all viable and they had good single player content, it'd be successful.

damn what is going on with that guy's house? 5:22

Honestly multiversus was pretty fun and considering i dont wanna buy a switch. Im prayinh it comes back

Smash Crusade on screen 🛐

I'd love a platform fighter that doesn't try to be an eSport. So few focus on fun

The title of this video ages like milk, multiverses is back lol

_"Smash Killer"_ this _"Pokemon Killer"_ that Western gamers have to treat their nostalgic game genres like a cult meanwhile the Japanese whom invented these games never had any problem playing other games of the same genre.

Vita + all stars. But noooo....Sony doesn't like making what we want

🍿🥤

I find "Smash-clone" so annoying. Same as "Doom-clone" it just shows you're closed minded

Playstation allstars 2 with a knockout mechanic would go hard. Especially since they have so many more IPs since then. Sad we wont get crash and spyro though brcause of Microsoft purchase.

The future is looking good for platform fighters as a whole. I hope to one day make my own.

Super Smash Brothers Crusade was awesome, by the way.

You can’t kill who started it

one thing that made brawlhalla stand out that it feels unique and fresh on its own . unlike most other fighters who tries too hard to be smash bros .

Yo is this bio?

I’d say brawlhala is the closest one to smash (still not really close)

Yeah man it really doesn't look great when you stretch the old 4:3 games out like that

NASB 2 IS LIT IDGAF WHAT YALL GOTTA SAY IN THE COMMENTS, WE GONNA PLAY FOREVER ❤

Nothing will kill smash.

There can’t be a smash killer, it kills itself

The only game thats gotten close to smash is rivals. This is because the game actually works and its why im very optimistic for rivals 2. Look at nasb. The first one just really looked like shit and it just waant fun to look at. I was excited for nasb 2 because it was very promissing but the game just doesnt work man. Its filled with unbearable bugs to this day.

I had such high hopes for nick brawl 2. Its a good game but its just still not as polished or as fun as smash bros. So far nothing comes close to smash bros

NASB 2 is fun.

Mugen has been killed it

8:44 Casual content is so easy though. Arcade mode, unlockable fighters, practice, and a mini game

Sucks that Thaddeus got laid off by the time this released

nothing will ever kill smash we can only make games good enough to stand on its own beside it. even if you make a game good enough to kill the newest smash game. nothing will ever kill melee.

U know why smash did well cuz all the cared about was BEING FUN thebplayer yook it upon themselves to make the game competive and even now u have character in the game like steve that are fun af but competivly not viable because too powerfull or too much fun lol