Former Project M Devs Unveil Icons: Combat Arena; It Sure Looks Like Smash Bros

Jesus people need to give things a chance before going full idiot on things.

Also it seems like people are more upset that Project M was let go for this.

I mean, it looks like a Super Smash Bros. clone. Whether or not that's a good or bad thing depends on your perspective.

@teamshortcut Pretty much. But hey I'll keep my eye on this and see if its worth a purchase

To me it just looks... ehh, like, I just had a half confused, half disgusted look through the whole trailer. The character designs and the not very varied stages feel uncomfortable to me, even if I don't know why.

After all that time cutting their teeth on Smash maybe it was inevitable that all they learnt would result in a game, seemingly, this close to the original.
To me it doesnt look to excel past Smash in any area (character design, moves, stage design).
To me, it's value as a game is going to come either in the differences from N's originals or by its existing on a platform where Smash (technically) doesn't already occupy the space to give competition.
I know it's beta, but I hope differing stage designs are high on the list of priorities.

I think it's cool they are doing what they love. However, I won't be getting involved with this, I have Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo will very likely be bringing that over to Switch too. Best of luck to them though!

So this is what they meant when they said they needed to work on other things...

@liljmoore It's free to play, but probably will be filled with micro-transactions going by other F2P games. It looks very rough imo and definitely looks too much like Smash Bros. Would've been better if they tried something more innovative, because I don't think anyone will ever choose this above Smash.

My main gripe is the designs. None of them are good. From the characters to the stages. They aren't good. If they were good I would be more into it.

This is so cheap it could only be free.

In general, I think it's good for creators of fan games to move on to using their own IP, so they can make a profit and not live in fear of legal trouble. Freedom Planet is a good example. This, however, does appear at first glance to be aping Smash too closely for its own good. You do need to inject some degree of originality. I expect the Project M fans will just continue to play Project M.

It looks quality... but that's because it is straight up ripping Smash (a little more than inspired by). But hey, that's cool.

WHAT'S NEXT, A FEMALE DOCTOR?

@Fuz said it earlier here. The one great aspect of Smash is having all these iconic characters going at it.

Other part is the polish, the quality, the Nintendo touch that they have on almost every first party game.

This looks to have neither. But kudos on guys at least on not having a german electrician named Marcus as a character or something like that

@CargoSushiimira
This should be reply to every internet discussion for the next two weeks and it would still be relevant

My biggest problem with the game so far is the mostly awful colors and very twitchy/awkward looking animations. It certainly seems like a faithful melee clone, but the look of the game is not going to impress onlookers.

The characters look bland and they really need to stand out like in overwatch & arms. Without having the gaming icons in smash, this game might struggle.

We need more arena brawlers so I am completely fine with this. The F2P nature is a turn off but will still give it a try.

Folks need to stop acting so snotty towards independent developers pushing to make an honest game. I applaud these dudes, would love to see them make a game in the style of Power Stone one day.

Not a huge fan of the character designs but it's a free to play Melee style game so of course I'll try it out.

I also have mixed feelings… I mean, they have a few carbon copies in there of arenas and fighters, unless the characters have other differences not shown, looks a bit too close, as in, Nintendo takedown imminent too close. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise, since previously they were modding one game to be another previous iteration of the game, but they need a bit of courage to make it a bit more original. As it stands, it looks like Smash Bros with new art, which is especially worrying when they don't own Smash Bros.
But then again, it's free to play, so you get what you pay for…?

Super Smash Bros. based for sure, hope the big N spots this!

Debatable whether or not this will get through the legal side of things... they may have avoided the copyright issues with the characters, and have probably rebuilt the mechanics from the ground up while working on Project M, but given their history it would be pretty easy to argue that it was their intention to make it as a clone, rather than being their own take on the genre, which is where legal action could be taken.

As for how well it could potentially do... I think it'll be a niche title... it will have fans, but the lack of popular characters and the relatively unpolished look of the game will probably put a lot of people off... making it free-to-play will help when it's first released, but I expect it's popularity will dwindle fairly quickly.

I think it will have its fair share of dedicated fans. It's developers are likely well known in the community and it's appealing to a competitive scene. So it could do fine. Although, I'm not sure how F2P thing will work out.

Wow. lol

Honestly, why would anyone bother with this? It's a blatant rip off. Why not just get the real thing?

They should have just made something original. Good luck to the dev team.

The problem for me is how generic the characters look. The trailer has zero of the charm actual Smash has, with its mixture of character design styles. At least for me, having famous characters we love from different IPs beating each other up is half the reason Smash is so appealing.

@AlexOlney Icon-ronic? Iron-icon?

I do wish the devs good luck, but this looks like Smash with new clothes.

Ill stick with my Smash on my 3DS!

So I saw Fox, Ganondorf and Marth-inspired movesets in some of the characters. They're making their own game but copying a few key moves from those characters? Where is the logic? If you're making your own IP, at least make everything totally different. I can understand the stages being similar - that at least makes sense. There's only so much variety you can give to a 2D platform brawler. But... the movesets? Come on...

EDIT: After rewatching the vid, I recognized Captain Falcon's movements on one character that was dash-dancing.

Just give us Daisy in Smash Bros

@liljmoore It said it's free to play, so I have no issues checking it out. That said, it does basically look like Smash Bros, but with characters nobody cares about, so I don't see this going anywhere.

@ThatNyteDaez I do agree that it looks very similar to Smash, and the devs need to work to distinguish themselves from Smash, but at the same time, there's only so many variations of punching, kicking, and slashing you can make, so there are bound to be similarities.

@TheGreenMiner13 @ChessboardMan There's not really much Nintendo can do. Gameplay is similar, but unless they stole very specific designs/code, they should be in the clear. The characters/animations are all original. You can't prevent someone from making a game in the same genre as you, even if you pioneered it.

EDIT: @Tsurii That's my thoughts exactly. As someone who loves Smash to death, but gave up on any hopes and dreams of playing competitively back in the Melee days, I don't see me making the switch over to this. Local co-op with my friends and brothers in Smash Wii U is just about as good as it gets, for casual players, and the roster is pretty incredible.

I'll admit that the animations and artstyle do have rooms for improvements, but I do have faith in this being okay at the very least in the end.

Well, whether or not this game does fail or not, we can all agree that it would still be better than that Smash Bros fiasco that Sony tried to pull off, right?

@roadrunner343 I meant that the design looks too similar to Smash Bros.

Okay, I just wanna point something out for those less familiar with competitive Melee. That sword combo at 0:44 in the video? Classic Marth manoeuvre. They call it the Ken Combo. That character in particular is a very obvious clone.

Since Smash will never be on PC i think this is a good thing.

It looks and sounds like trash and is gameplay wise a bland copy of melee / project M.
At least change the moves....

You know it's bad when you can tell which characters are supposed to be Fox, Ganondorf and whatnot Marth with best identical movesets and combos. Come up with better ideas than this guys...

I honestly don't care if it's a Smash clone. This is why PC gaming is awesome.

Considering they were working on Project M, which for all intents and purposes was them trying to make a Melee Clone Falco in the beginning before broadening their scope into the whole she-bang? This doesn't surprise me at all.

I thought this was about something important (like actual Smash Bros) but sadly it’s about that forgettable team... sigh I wish they would just go away.

When people say stupid things like "The Project M developers could make a better Smash game than Sakurai" show them this and tell them there's so much more that goes into making a full game than making a mod.

People don't give Sakurai enough credit.

@Fuz Yeah, this feels pretty devoid of personality and soul. It looks like they threw some Overwatch characters and Smash characters into a blender and they're hoping ripping them both off will be enough for people to care. Couldn't be less interested personally, but more power to those who are.

In gameplay department it probably will be good, but if somebody has already Smash then there's no real reason to buy it. Hope I'm wrong.

I have zero interest in the title, but I hope it succeeds, mostly so the rabid Melee fanboys can go play something else and stop complaining about modern Smash Bros. not having broken mechanics and a completely unbalanced roster like it did back in 2001.

I just wonder what the purpose or niche for this is. Smash Melee and 4 still exist, so this is going to struggle.

As always the cool thing is to bandwagon and talk down new releases. Not to mention all the current Smash Bros steam clones but it's okay, they're praised and in 2D so it's fine. Then a team that actually knows about how to design a good smash game makes a cool 3D inspired game and people hate it for being Smash Bros. Okay.

I think it would be better if they actually ripped off the characters as well.
They could just gender swap everyone, give them a new name and call it a day.

While the models look pretty good, the game's animations look a little clunky. This is just my opinion, but if you think about it, Smash is pretty fluid in animations for the most part and when you try comparing these games, then you'll see what I'm talking about.

The whole thing looks a bit greedy to me. Someone is taking Smash and slapping a "Free-to-play" sticker on it in hopes of squeezing more cash out of people than Smash. I can't support or play "Free-to-play" on any grounds; especially not on Nintendo where Iwata tried to protect us from it the most.

Looks well made, though the characters aren't that interesting. Steam already has the amazing Rivals of Aether for fans of Smash-style games, but this will be nice if for no other reason than it is free to play, so hopefully I can get friends to play.

Looks a bit clunky and the characters uninspired. The stages also look rather bland and boring. I'm well aware that this is an indie game but no thanks. I like Smash for its characters, not gameplay.

I really don't get the point of trying to create a 1:1 copy of an existing game but with really generic characters? They obviously have talented creators...why not make their own game that's unique that expands the genre rather than doing everything the could do to recreate another game in as minute detail as possible minus the copyrighted IP?

They lost me at pay 2 win, sorry I mean free 2 play, honest 🙄

@Timppis As a Marcus myself and having lived in Germany previously, I feel it'd be more likely for his name to be Markus; the former is Latin, and the latter is the Germanic variant 😉

I like the art style being used. Overwatch looking with Smash bros style fighting sounds like a winning combination to me. I will only play this if it is released on the Switch.

Also huge Steam user crowd vs diminishing Wii U crowd...Yeah. 3DS port sure but smash bros is basically on hiatus until a Switch release so this is definitely welcome in my book.

I am not impressed. Even less impressed considering it's early access and also "free", big ol' red flags these days. I will not be surprised if people find out they just re-used some of their Project M code.

Attack animations need work, especially on she hulk

@Broosh

I get the feeling you really suck at smash bros.

@Reignmaker This game is not why PC gaming is good.

@NEStalgia Cause te PM devs are literally obsessed with making the sequel to Melee that they wanted by any means possible.

@Broosh "Knows how to make a good smash game"

Correction only know how to make one kind of Smash game. Which by the way is dated as hell.

EDIT: -With broken mechanics, a roster so unbalanced that it takes such a monumental effort to play low-tier characters to any high degree that it's not worth it.

As a friend of mine once said , Melee as a tournament game is "solved", there's literally nothing more you can squeeze out of it mechanics-wise for characters, and certainly nothing that can change the meta-game after 16+ years.

The only reason Melee is still played is because those players can't move on from Melee and bemoan the new games just because they don't have the broken mechanics and heavily unbalanced roster that Melee had, or because it's not as weighty as Melee.

We'll see what happens this fall. Hard to make assumptions based on a single trailer.

Well, I hope they don't take the same 'balancing' philosophy they went with project M.

@Gridatttack I bet they will... The make the top tiers then build everyone else up to their level philosophy sucks.

Huh, I had no idea this community hated project M so much, calling it "unbalanced". I agree the characters look very uninspired, but some people actually play for gameplay too believe it or not. the melee mechanics are still fun to me because of the high learning curve and how good you could get at them with practice. They might even put new types of characters in there who knows? I still like the new Smash, but it doesn't have the same satisfaction that PM gives you if you win.

The PMDV can make unique movesets as seen by Lyn, Knuckles and Isaac - why not make them original in your own game?

@whitemaskedhero Project M is a extremely flawed game from many perspectives, including design, and more specifically, their balancing philosophy.

They were more concerned with preserving the top tiers from Melee as much as possible than they were actual balance, and that affected their balancing decisions, by trying to do a "build up the molehill" style of balancing to bring the other characters to the level of the Tops or as close as they felt comfortable doing.

That's not good balance philosophy, you just make the game and the characters even more broken, bringing everyone closer to the middle tiers is what real balance in a fighting game is.

@MegaVel91
So you would rather bring every top teir down than make everyone just as good and fun to play? We already have that in Smash 4. I would rather be able to beat someone who's used to the way Falco or Marth or Falcon plays with any other character on the roster.

It's a re-skinned Smash Brothers...

@MegaVel91 lol I'm not a melee fanboy and I sure as hell cant wave dash but you can't say project m is a bad mod. Either way my main argument is this shouldn't be an argument, they're making a game they excel at and if it's not for you ignore the release.

@The_Gerudo_King I have an opinion so I suck at smash bros? XD Okay I suck at smash bros then and this game still looks cool.

The gameplay looks sharp. But a lot of Smash's appeal is the characters, and I'm not sure about the character design shown here. In fact, any game attempting the style has been smart enough to use a roster of well known fighters, so it'll be interesting to see how this goes.

I'm glad that Smash may be getting a competitor to keep it on its toes. It'll be interesting to see how Nintendo responds or even if they'll need to.

@liljmoore Can you blame them? Project M is the game Brawl should've been.

@Broosh

Maybe more amateurs will follow your example and leave the real smash Bros for the professionals. Too many whiny babies as it is.

This looks good. The hate seems unfounded.

All right, I won't touch on the art style or design choices, since I understand it's low budget (even if that's no excuse for poor design, but still). My issue is with the gameplay. It's OK to take inspiration from Smash. It's OK to take a lot of inspiration from Smash. But you need to do something original with it.

These characters look like exact clones of Smash fighters. One of those guys had the exact same animations as Fox, another one had the exact same animations as Marth, and another one moved extremely similair to Captain Falcon and Ganondorf. Again, similair characters isn't that bad in concept. Rivals of Aether's characters had some basic moves that looked very similair to Smash moves too. But you do need to do something original with it!

Don't get me wrong, I understand the game is still in early alpha and we don't know anything about its exact mechanics. However, if you release a trailer you need to make those unique mechanics clear. And judging from this gameplay I just don't see any originality. Again, it's OK to take inspiration from Smash, but you should do something original. Rivals of Aether pulled it off with a unique parry mechanic and incredibly innovative, new and interesting character abilities. Heck, even PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale tried to make things unique with its super-move based KO system. I get that you want to stay close to Smash, but you can't just straight-up clone the formula and its elements and claim it's your own thing.

Again, I don't know what the final mechanics will be like, and I won't judge until the full thing is out. But judging from this early footage I'm really doubting this game will be able to properly set itself apart from Smash. I'm sorry, but it just does not feel original to me. I'm hoping you guys can still surprise me, but you'd need to work on it.

Wow, the trailer looks rough, did not look read for prime time.

This doesen't look like it as an identity to differentiate itself from smash so far... was hoping for a new gameplay mechanics like a street fighter power par to unleash a a final smash-esque attack because pro tourneys blocking items in smash suck, or to get back on the stage easier/temporary buffs like a defense up or custom combo system like in the street fighter alpha games. And maybe have the stages inject a bit more personalty to em. I'm not saying exactly to go Orbital Gate assult but not to copy and paste smashville and call it a day.

Don't have high hopes for this.

Can't be any worse than the shady mess that is Indie Game Battle.

@The_Gerudo_King the real reason I stopped going to tournaments. Terms like "officials" and "elitists" ruin everything because their life revolves around being proficient in something that gets them nowhere. I'm glad to be a filthy casual at a game series that doesn't matter and was made to be a party game lol

I hate the characters for the same reason I don't care much for Overwatch's characters.

@sketchturner dude watch out if you support this game people will say you're a filthy casual and love melee xD

@Broosh

If that's how you feel, then why even go to tourneys in the first place? Especially if it "gets you nowhere". Nice try, but no one here believes you've ever been to a smash tourney in any capacity other than maybe a spectator.

Maybe when this new smash clone comes out you'll have another reason to get excited over something that will "get you nowhere".

Having seen the trailer, it looks like a cross between Smash Bros and Guardians of the Galaxy...I get the feeling that was intentional.

@Broosh First of all, in spite of the Wii U, Smash 4 has had a great turnout...heck, the only reason participation numbers at EVO 2017 may have been reduced this year (I didn't look at the exact numbers but I heard they were) was due to serious issues with the venue last year that deterred people from returning. So I wouldn't say that the Smash-specific Wii U crowd is diminishing, at least from a competitive standpoint.

Second of all...correct me if I'm wrong, but don't steam players have Rivals of Aether? It certainly has shown up in a fair few tournament settings lately. I'm just not sure there's a real desire/market for a new third party game based off Smash Bros currently. If I'm wrong and there is, then great...more power to them.

Well, the guys have surely earned their right to "start their own".
However, this looks bland and uninspired compared to fellow Smashlike title Rivals Of Aether. The latter, at least, had an 8-bit-esque gimmick going for it.

@Jayronauron Yeah you have a point I know the competitive scene is still strong and that's not going to change til there's a Switch port for Smash. I guess I mean more system decline since it's discontinued. And yeah rivals of aether is good and all I just think it's odd it got way less flack and it's a smash clone too just in 2D. I just appreciate this team made a game in the style they excel in.

I'm glad the devs are making their own game but like many others have said I'm not feeling the visuals, character designs, movesets, and sound effects. Some of my favorite parts of the smash bros games are the sound design, visual effects, character designs, and stage designs. All of those look pretty weak based on the trailer. Also like others have said, dont just straight up rip movesets from smash bros. It feels like a like of creativity when I see the ken combo in a marth style character in this game. I wish them the best of luck

I will say, this does seem rather pointless to make. It's clearly just the "elite" Smash Bros chaacters with a new coat of paint. Why play as these when you can play as the genuine Captain Falcon, Fox, and Marth in a Smash Bros. game?

Lol I thought 'Project M' was a Metroid game published by Nintendo. 😆

That video was awful though. Not only is it a blatant copy of Smash Bros., the artstyle also looks really ugly (at least for my taste).

Yeah..... This just proves that the coolest trailer at Evo was the one about Geese coming to Tekken 7.

I honestly can't see myself playing this over Smash Bros.

Why would I want the fighting game with the off-brand Marth when I can play as the real deal in Smash?

Taking the Smash formula and building a game around it is not a bad idea. Numerous 2D fighters and 3D fighters took the basic gameplay of Street Fighter II and Virtua Fighter and made games with awesome twists that made their mark on the fighting game genre.

Even PSBR for all of its flaws at least tried to switch up the gameplay by making combos more of a focus, and changing the KOs from knocking people off the stage to charging a super meter. PSBR was a pretty fun game and a pretty good counterpart to Smash because it was not trying to ape Smash's gameplay. Was it as good as Smash? No, but I enjoyed it for a while after Brawl's online was shut down.

But this? It looks like the development team decided that "Well, we can't use Nintendo characters, but they can't copyright movesets and stages! Let's make a woman with a sword who fights like Marth! How about a goat man with Fox's upsmash! "

I'm stunned honestly.... Dragon Ball Fighter Z has taken the team-based fighting game that the VS series created and gave it such a kick in the pants, even the newest Marvel vs Capcom is being overshadowed.

I understand this game might not be able to do that without Nintendo characters, but they could have made an impact.

I hope this can recover, but a poor showing either way.

@Markiemania95

True. It just felt wrong to type Markus when it is also the same that we have here in Finland.

But you are absolutely correct.

Markus, the fireball launching, raccoon-clothed deutsche electrician.

@whitemaskedhero Since you didn't understand. Let me clarify and explain:

What I am suggesting is a better philosophy is not the polar opposite of what Project M did, what I am suggesting as a better philosophy is between the two.

-if you make everyone as broken as the top tiers, then it's basically Brawl Minus Lite, where every character is broken, and outside of what makes them broken, they still suck just as bad as before without the brokeness, and they only have a few viable moves or combos.

To put an analogy to this, you had a super strong guy and a bunch of weaker guys, but instead of addressing the issue with what made the super strong guy have overwhelming advantage over the others, you put the good points of the weaker fighters on steroids while leaving their other aspects terrible.

What makes this philosophy bad is simple: Instead of fixing the issue by reducing the effectiveness of what was broken (rather than outright eliminating it which would've been bad) you decided instead to break everyone else, due to favoritism in Project M's case, so that the only reason it becomes a non-issue is because everyone is broken.

TL;DR You didn't balance the game, you just broke it beyond repair so that every match is a curb-stomp fest.

The reason why the opposite extreme is bad is even simpler: the lower tiers stuff makes them pretty bad fighters, and making everyone just as bad just makes for a clunky and garbage roster. Nobody wants a game where every character sucks.

My philosophy is the middle road: Bringing everyone down / up to the level of the Middle-Tiers. By doing this, the top tiers can keep what makes them good, but have their effectiveness reduced so those features of their design aren't so dominating over the others, and the bottom tiers have themselves buffed so they can compete with everyone else.

This philosophy makes the game less about who you picked, and more about how, and how well you play making the difference. Everyone still has advantages over each other, but they're less pronounced to the point they don't overwhelm the rest of the cast.

@Broosh Got that backwards. They will call them elitists.

@mikegamer Wrong, Project M at the end of the game is a poorly balanced mess like Melee was.

Anyone who thinks this game will compete with smash Bros is just fooling themselves.

And finally I start seeing Melee hate here. And laugh at it because it won't work and Melee stays popular.

@MegaVel91
Actually, Project M is the most balanced Smash game to date.

@Luffymcduck Based on what metric? The fact most characters have factually broken gimmicks, and that's mainly what makes them good at all in most competitive play? The fact that the characters can curb stomp each other at any given moment?

Yeah, no, that's not balance, that's a game with broken characters. Refer to my previous post at whitemaskedhero.

@MegaVel91
If everyone is broken, then no one is broken. It's completely up to matchups, play style, and skill. There's still tiers in PM. But it's because of character specific traits that make them unique that put them higher and have an advantage over others.

So, tell me how I'm wrong by forcing your crap opinions down everyone's throat, Mr. know-it-all.

Never cared for Project M to begin with. Brawl had a lot of problems; simply making it into Melee 2 is about the lamest way to try and deal with those problems.

@KO-Cub Pot meet, kettle. You just did so yourself.

Also, broken is broken. Brawl Minus as a mod proved this in spades. It's fun, but it's still broken at it's core/

@liljmoore The trailer says it's free to play.

I can see this working if the community can make mods easily.

Oh sure, this is a clone like the 10 Ike's in smash bros. If there aren't so many swords nor tiny levels I may try it

Anytime I need a good laugh I just watch this pathetic trailer. It's so funny to me that people actually released this garbage thinking a significant amount of people would choose it over smash Bros.

And then for a bigger laugh I read the comments from people who actually think this game looks good. Delusional people just make me laugh. This game is garbage and now the project m devs have sullied their already lackluster reputation. Hopefully for good.

@MegaVel91
I did before posting my answer. Now if we were to continue this discussion I want to know what you consider a balanced fighting game roster, be it from Tekken, Street Fighter, Smash Bros etc.

@The_Gerudo_King
Maybe it's not about choosing this over Smash Bros. but just having a new fighting game with Melee mechanics, something a lot of people want.

They basically just stole everything from Smash Bros, stage layout, characters animation and the movesets. It's not inspired by Smash, it's trying to be it, it's no different to The original Great Giana Sisters copying SMB.

It's kind of hard to believe project M was actually made due to love for the series when ultimately they've gone and done something like this.

So, Art of Fighting is just a dumb Street Fighter II clone, Chrono Trigger is just a Final Fantasy clone... I mean, it's obviously an homage to Smash. Hopefully it's good.

Yeah, no thanks. I'm not interested in this fourth-rate Melee wannabe. They could've done something like Rivals Of Aether where it draws clear inspiration from Smash but applies said inspiration in an original way and with its own sense of identity, but instead it looks like Wavedash decided to go "LOL let's copy/paste movesets from Smash and reskin them with our sh***y Overwatch OC's!!!"

Also, Broosh is a delusional idiot.

@NImH Those are both such laughably bad examples of the point that you're trying to prove, because:
1. Art Of Fighting IS just a dumb clone of Street Fighter II, very blatantly so I might add. (you would've been better off using its sibling series Fatal Fury as an example)
2. Chrono Trigger is not only published by the same company as Final Fantasy, but also had some of the same notable development team members, like Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, so it's not really comparable to something like Icons here.

Talk about cringey clones...

Well, I can appreciate these folks for creating their own IP rather than just use Nintendo's characters and assets.

@MegaVel91 At least it didn't have that stupid half-arsed tripping.

@Luffymcduck

I seriously doubt a significant amount of people will choose this clone garbage over melee.

@The_Gerudo_King
It doesn't have to be choosing one over the other, I would be fine with just having a Melee style fighting game with more tournament viable characters. Sure we have Project-M but I want to give this game a chance too since there's a possibility it'll be tweaked even further than Project M before development ended at version 6.1.

@Luffymcduck
But aren't you then choosing this "melee style fighter" over melee? Which doesn't make sense because melee exists. Why get something that's clearly inferior?

@The_Gerudo_King
Why can't I play both or at least try this and after that say if it's really inferior?

@Luffymcduck

You could do that but that's just a lesson in futility. I know it's still in development but they obviously thought it was good enough to show off now and I'm pretty sure the mixed reactions they got weren't what they were hoping for. The game just looks bad and extremely rushed.

@Seanmyster6 reasons, reasons.
Someone like you is going to hate this game solely based upon the fact that your fanboy butt is hurt by it's existence.
Aaaand you'll prove it by exerting great efforts in stabbing holes in anyone else's opinion with reasons.
Wanna know how I know?
Because you could have just said "Fatal Fury would be a better example in this case because..."

Question: How high & awesome did you feel about your eloquent rebuttal of my optimistic opinion?

@NImH Icons has a character who is like Marth, with the exact same animations and the exact same moveset in fact she's so similar to Melee Marth that the video shows the same combos he can do. Heck her backstory parrallels Marth's:

"Zhurong is an expert swordwoman and ruler of an ancient empire After being forced to battle her brother over their competing claims to the throne, Zhurong is merciless when it comes to consolidating her power."

Which is analogous to Marth who becomes ruler of Archanea after being forced to end up battling his closest ally Hardin who was the emperor of Archanea. The only difference is that Zhurong is apparently merciless(which kind of contrasts with her gameplay considering she's got Marth's graceful combat style as a result of the copying).

Icons would be like if Chrono Trigger was an RPG about 4 Warriors with 4 crystals who need to save the world from 4 elemental fiends who are slowly draining the worlds life and have a party who comprise of any 4 of a Fighter, a Monk, a White Mage, Black Mage, Thief or Red Mage. With a Turnbased battle system instead of real time. Except all the names are different and the characters look different, but work in the exact same way.

I stand by that Icons isn't simply inspired by Smash Bros. It's just trying to be it and nothing else.

@teamshortcut How different are most fighting games to Streetfighter II? How different are most MOBAs from DOTA? There was a time when we called all first person shooters "doom clones".

@mikegamer You got me there.

Team steals 90%+ of assets and programing from Nintedo: Everything's fine.

Team decides to make an orginal game with their own programming and assets merely inspired by a Nintendo game: Everyone loses their minds!!!!!!

I thought we're into this? Games like Stardew Valley, Undertale, Fez, etc. are all games inspired by other popular games by mainstreams devs and everyone licks their ballz. Why is this different all of a sudden?

Edit: LOL, rewatched the trailer. Maybe they still stole some of Nintendo's programming with this one. I DEFINITELY saw Ganondorfs spike, Fox's Up Smash, Marth's F and D airs, and Shiek's F-air. Like, frame for frame.

@R_Champ "merely inspired"
lol

A poor man's Smash bros...with a awful name!