The fighting genre has been around since the glory days of the arcade, and while it may not be quite as popular today as it's always been, there's still quite a following for this rather technical type of game. Though fighting games may initially seem to be quite simple, they usually have a fairly deep combo system that requires absolute mastery of chaining attacks and counting frames. Steel Rivals does its best to offer its own take on the fighting template, but it unfortunately results in an uninspired and unpolished mess that even the most dedicated individual will struggle to extract any enjoyment from.
While the foundations of what could eventually become good gameplay are in place, the execution is bad enough that the game is a chore to play. It has a simple enough template; two opponents duke it out in hand-to-hand combat, with the typical mixture of blocks, attacks and counters making up the meat of each fight. Unfortunately, it's so mired in terrible framerates, a woefully unbalanced roster and many other faults that it boils down to an utterly frustrating mess that does little to reward your perseverance.
One of the things that's important to any fighting game's success is a steady framerate - otherwise, judging attacks and timing your combos is near-impossible. Sadly, Steel Rivals fails to achieve this goal, and seems to be barely capable of maintaining 30 FPS. As the two fighters are going at it, there are frequent bouts of chugging and sometimes animations are skipped altogether. Perhaps there's a significant amount of work being done in the background, but considering that environments are completely devoid of life and detail, there's really no reason for why the game should struggle as much as it does. It can be nearly impossible to properly chain a combo together simply because your window of opportunity is continuously changing along with the frame rate.
The combo system needs a massive overhaul, too, as the game makes no effort at teaching players its mechanics or how to play as any of the characters. There's no combo list to look at, and the 'Training Mode' is just a typical fight, but with unlimited health. This means that one must simply discover things through means of trial and error, but it's nearly impossible to do so with some characters due to the terribly balanced roster.
It's a given that there will always be some characters that have an edge over the others, but the gulf that exists in the Steel Rivals roster is almost comical. There's eighteen generic characters to pick from – all just as forgettable as their names – but the problem is that they all have extremely limited and easily exploited movesets that just make the whole thing a bore. Most fights usually just devolve to the faster character spamming the same combo ad infinitum until their rival drops; blocking or countering could solve this issue, but the inconsistent frame rate ensures that it's impossible to properly judge when to use these moves.
There's not a whole lot going on here presentation-wise either, but it's at least passable. There's no title screen to speak of; booting up the game just launches you directly to the mode select. Character models are fairly well detailed – one of the game's few pluses – but they aren't very diverse and are firmly centered in the "Uncanny Valley", stranded somewhere between photo-realism and looking like plastic action figures you might find in a bargain bin. Stages have some pretty good lighting effects, but tend to be monochromatic and drab, as if the developer simply saw them as a means to an end. The music is similar; it all sounds the same, and it generally doesn't seem to match the pace of combat. Of course, there's no Off-TV play either, the GamePad is simply an empty, black screen while the game is running.
In terms of replayability, there's a decent amount if you can stomach the broken gameplay. In addition to the training mode, there's a standard mode that pits you against an AI character (or a friend), a survival mode that pits you against progressively more difficult enemies, and a tournament mode. Beating tournament mode with any character unlocks an extra skin for them, which gives players some incentive to keep trying new characters.
Conclusion
Steel Rivals is a game that tries to fill the gap of fighting games in the Wii U library, but ultimately does very little to do so in a meaningful way. The bland characters, shoddy presentation, and awful gameplay make this one of the worst fighting games we've seen; it's barely playable, but the few positive things that can be said about it are drowned out by the crushing mediocrity of the package as a whole. We would absolutely recommend that you do not buy this game; especially considering the price, just go pick up a Street Fighter game off of the Virtual Console for your fighting game fix.
Comments 51
I was wondering who was gonna have to tackle this, so sorry it was you Mitch. All this ... "game" reminds me is how oh so very good GameCube's "Soul Calibur 2" is.
@Shiryu I was about to say the same thing
@Shiryu I was thinking same thing. Why can't wii u get that sc2 remake PS3 got...
@Donutman I am indeed disappointed with Namco's support on theWwii U, but at least they did give us "Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Wii U Edition" that even with "Pokkén Tournament" next week, I believe will remain the very best non-Smash Bros fighting game on the console.
This could have been the game the Wii U been looking. Too bad it was rushed.
This game was featured on the front page on the EU eShop. I have no idea why.
With SFV being exclusive I was expecting to see more indie fighting games... sadly this was expected, heres hoping these guys can regroup
By the screenshots it looks like it was trying to copy Soul Calibur II like Shiryo said but the result is something I don't even want to see.
So we have Street Fighter V on PS4, Killer Instinct 3 on Xbox One and... Steel Rivals on Wii U. LOL
"just go pick up a Fatal Fury or Samurai Shodown game off of the Virtual Console for your fighting game fix."
Fixed.
Seriously, though. The NEO GEO fighters are way better IMO espec since the SF games are only the SNES ports!
Best thing about this - makes $60 Pokken next week seem like a bargain.
1 week from today in case anybody is wondering.
But first, Disney Infinity Marvel Battlegrounds on Tuesday, 4 player fighter Powerstone style. Really looking forward to that one. I even bought Tinkerbell yesterday, and she isn't even in it.
If we're talking any fighter to play on the Wii U, Capcom vs Tatsunoko should forever be up for consideration.
For casual fight fans, Smash is ok, but even Tekken Tag 2 is better.
On PS4, I've got multiple saves going on Guilty Gear, Blazblue, Skullgirls and SFIV.
SFV plays better and the balance is spot on, but it's so barebones. I'm putting off buying it until the fall.
Plus it gives me a chance to save for the next Guilty Gear
Remind me those mediocre 3D fighting games from Midway during the late 90's. Mortal Kombat, Biofreaks, Mace, Wargods. Can't believe Mortal Kombat is now the best selling fighting franchise while Capcom and SNK are basically dead. Something went really wrong in that genre.
Heh, EVERYTHING Mitch said in this review was true....except that I think that this game also drops your IQ. I'm all for indie titles....I'm even all for fighting games...but in this day and age, I don't think it's too difficult to develop a DECENT fighting game considering the vast amount of FGs out there to slightly model itself...I mean, I'm a fighting game buff and have been playing them since Lord knows when, but even some of the most generic, standard fighters havr more playability and fun than this....Ha, I definitely fell into the trap of "oooooohhhhh FIGHTING GAME ON WII"
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on Wii U is very good, and Injustice: Gods Among Us isn't bad either. Both are quite cheap.
Backwards compatibility with Wii gives the ability to play Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, The King of Fighters Collection, Samurai Shodown Anthology, and the extremely cool Tatsunoko vs Capcom.
Virtual Console puts Street Fighter at your finger tips, along with some classic Neo Geo fighters.
All of those games are much better choices than Steel Rivals.
@NodesforNoids Capcom vs Tatsunoko: I second that, great game.
welp time to invest in pokken i guess
Those screenshots upset my stomach.
Once this goes on sale, I will totally buy it!
@Shiryu Nintendo paid for Pokken Tournament so I wouldn't call that support. Nintendo have given Namco Bandai a lot of business and they've given us sweet f all in return.
And good God this game looks awful.
Ever since I saw the game's title and its review's thumbnail, I immediately thought of what @Shiryu pointed out.
@Sligeach I wonder if Namco has any clue how much I would pay to have "Ace Combat 7" on Wii U. I can't beleive they did the perfect 3DS game with correct use of the lower screen and they did not upgrade the whole concept for Wii U. What a terrible missed opportunity...
How much is it? I can't seem to see any game info anywhere :/
What are some examples (any platform) of a Indie fighter?
Anyone?
Just the screen grab for the article looked horrible. Shocked to find out it plays even worse.
That's ashame was hoping this would have been decent but at least we got Pokken coming soon.
You know....the clothes they are wearing...looks kind of like the free start up clothes from Daz3D (A 3D modeling program) I think I can literally go to their store and pick out all the clothes and weapons from their catalog.
There's beginning to be a worrying trend of the eShop selling really shoddy games that will at best score 2/10.. There's this one and then there's Chasing Dead (I can't wait to read the review of this one).
Shovelware at its finest.
The"Big N" needs be in front of these games. This convinces me they are not screening whats coming through.
@Laxebobby Chasing Dead is a AAA indie FPS horror game (it looks more like a hack n slash FPS).
I know I usually buy every fighting game I can get my hands on...but I think I'll make an exception for this one.
Agreed about Tekken Tag Tournament 2, actually much better than the Tekken 3DS game.
Those Steel Rivals life bars are like that because it only takes one hit to die or what?
Looks like a Unity asset flip to me. Who wants to find the first one?
@don_solo I don't quite get what your telling me. There is nothing AAA about Chasing Dead other than the price tag. The game is unplayable due to frame rate. The graphics are poor. No details on controller layout and the list goes on. Just read the community page on Miiverse to see people demanding refunds.
I believe one review on meta critic gave it 2/10.
So like I said in my first post there's a worrying trend of shoddy games appearing eShop.
Those characters, they just scream "steel", don't they?
@laxeybobby Oh I see. The videos made it look better than it was. It should have been delayed a couple of months; same with Steel rivals. Nintendo quality control is too low and should be tightened, ; then maybe there would be less half finished games released!
I'll stick to Killer Instinct on the Xbone.
It looks like a Xboner or PS4 game in the sense it only uses 4 colors. Developer should know its audience, need some color in that game. ...well and the list of other grievances the developer pointed out to save us all some money.
Just as Bad as the PC versions? k.
lol dafuq?
@msvt Well, there's "Rage of the Gladiator" on WiiWare and the 3DS e-shop, although it plays like "Punch-out!!," so it may not be what you're looking for. There's also another gem on WiiWare called "Overturn," although that's more of a one-on-one arena fighter than a traditional fighting game.
@msvt Skullgirls is a good one; I played it on PS3.
Thanks for the indie fighting game suggestions! Wish we got Soul Calibur II HS on Wii U!! Still play the GC version often. Also really like Capcom vs Tatsunuko in short bursts.
Graphically this game looks on par with Soul Calibur which is what it reminds me of. Too bad gameplay can make or break any game, and apparently this game broke.
Looks like a poop.
Goth gurlz.
@XCWarrior Street Fighter V for example is quite colourful.
Games like these show how the Wii U game selection is a complete joke.
I've seen some footage of this game. It says a lot when FATAL/FAKE, a PC freeware fanmade fighting game adaptation of the Fate/Stay Night franchise, is more polished than this, even down to the menus... and F/F is more than ten years old!
Maybe this game needs some months of work to give it a chance. It look liked similar to Soul Calibur and maybe I could give it a chance. I will continue playing Last Blade, King of Fighters and Street Fighter in Virtual Console.
Just saw a clip of an indie fighter "Combat Core". Anyone know if we are getting this game on Wii U? ....it looks awesome!!
steel enemies
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