Recent reviews by Tribow

I've been playing Rivals of Aether 2 and noticed the Steam reviews have become mixed. Curious, I checked why that might be the case.

It mostly just seems to be a coincidence that it became mixed. A good amount of people left a negative review around the same time. Some of it is because the game deviated from Rivals 1 gameplay, but like....the first game isn't going anywhere. You can still buy it/play it without any issue. Do you know how many fighting games would love to have that luxury?

A good number of the RoA1 crowd think RoA2 plays like Melee/Smash4/Ultimate now, but....no. Melee's gameplay is way more precise with way less emphasis on defense, Smash4 plays way slower, lacks movement options, and punishes unsafe aggression, and Ultimate feels like fencing....so aggression without the approach (if that makes sense). RoA2, to me, is a game that heavily revolves around counterplay. I never felt like I was in a situation where there was absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent a loss, albeit, that's because I'm actually aware of the game mechanics.

A large amount of review also complained about how the game feels to beginners and this is a criticism I couldn't counter if I tried. As of right now, the game severely lacks tutorials and singleplayer modes to help you get better. This is being addressed, but it's gonna be a while. Right now there's some very basic tutorials and an arcade mode, but nothin too helpful. This wouldn't feel as bad if there were casual multiplayer things to do...but there isn't. People rarely play free-for-alls and that's the closest thing to a casual multiplayer mode the game has. Unless you have friends who have the game, you're outta luck.

There also seems to be server issues. I haven't had problems myself, but depending on where you live, you might have problems. RoA2 uses server-based rollback with no peer-to-peer options as of now, so if you're super far from the servers they have, you might experience the lag problems I've seen other reviews complain about. It's something the devs are aware of and will likely address, but solving networking issues is a slow process and it might not be as important as finishing new characters on schedule.

Speaking of that schedule, RoA2 is a live service game, probably one of the best. There's no slimey predatory practices here. No FOMO, no P2W, no money-hungry nonsense. All future characters will be free, the singleplayer modes will be free, and stages will be free. Which is great, but it also reveals that this game isn't necessarily "Feature Complete". Like I said earlier, there's barely any singleplayer modes/tutorials. However, RoA1 released in a very similar fashion. I'd argue it was even more scuffed than RoA2, so I'm not surprised. Yet, some reviews are very surprised.

I'd blame communication for this one. I think some people expected the game to be completely done, but the team has a ton of work to do. It's work that they need money to get done while financially supporting their effort. It's why there's a live service model to begin with. Without support from the community this game's fate could end up like Rushdown Revolt (cool game btw).

This is what baffles me about many of the reviews. They need the community's support. They can't address a lot of issues without that support. Why not encourage people to give it a try anyway? Their support would go towards improving the game anyway. Most of the negative reviews aren't complaining about the game heading in a bad direction. It's just not currently in a state that they would call very good, but they believe it will be very good as long as the devs keep working on it.

???

Isn't that positive? I don't get it.

Look, if you believe in the game, give it support.
If you like how the game plays and just need more features, give it support.
If you never played the game and are new to the genre, I'd buy the first game unless you don't mind playing a game that's in active development.

Give it support, or don't. Buy it if you believe they can deliver.

I don't even know where to start. If you're into arcade racing games you are sleeping on a gold mine. This game is a unique approach to arcade racing where the car has the ability to jump, fly, and rotate. The freedom of movement is incredible and is easily the most satisfying gameplay to learn that I have ever experienced.
Every song in this game is a certified banger and the visual atmosphere in this game is just a beautiful composition of sci-fi/cyberpunk/synthwave/Outrun aesthetic. Incredible.
Distance offers an immense amount of content as well, the game doesn't end just because the campaigns are over. The Arcade has a massive amount of levels to play and the workshop has 3000+ levels on there. Not to mention the level editor is easily the best level editor I've ever seen in a video game. The amount of stuff you can do with it is actually insane, this should be illegal.
The multiplayer experience is probably the only area this game lacks in, but it's still not bad.

That's pretty much my review, but I see a lot of misconceptions about this game so I'll just list them all here:

-"This game is short it needs more content"
No it is not, please actually go through the menus in a game. The arcade exists it has so much content in there. Even if you do all of the achievements you barely scratch the surface in content and with getting better at the game.

- "Distance is too hard, the gameplay is too difficult"
Okay, this game is unique, not "hard". This isn't some NFS or Forza game and shouldn't be approached with that mindset. The only game that is mechanically similar to Distance is Rocket League and even then there's many physics/mechanical differences between the two games. It might be a little difficult to get used to the air control, but the 1st campaign does a very good job at showing how this game works. You're not going to be exceptional the moment you pick up a game, especially not this one. If you have absolutely no patience, then Distance might frustrate you, but as aforementioned, the mechanics are super satisfying to learn and master.

- "Controller bindings don't work"
Distance is compatible with nearly any controller (seriously people have played this with the guitar hero controller), It's rarely the game's fault that it can't detect your controller properly. Either way, ask around! The Distance discord is fairly quick in helping solve controller issues and there's several community posts offering potential fixes. Issues can be solved if you just ask.

- "Game is too dark I cant see"
The game offers graphics settings in case you're having difficulty seeing. Just look in the options menu there's quite a lot you can adjust for your visibility needs. (nothing for color-blindness though)

The only people I wouldn't recommend this too is if you dislike arcade racers/parkour-style games, (in which case why are you here), if you have motion sickness problems, or if you are very casual and are looking for a calm experience as this game can get pretty intense.

Buy the game.
Do it now.