Tag: Rivals of Aether

SDCC 2017: Playing Games With Catnip Bravo At Symbiote Studios

by Natalie Kipper

Being a plush lover, visiting Symbiote Studios‘ booth was high on my list of priorities for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. The company had four con-exclusive plushes (amongst other goodies) and I wanted to make sure to snag some of them.

Symbiote Studios’ mascot, Catnip Bravo, got a makeover this year and dang, does he look adorable! As part of their “Catnip Cuties” line, they introduced two exclusive plushes: a Smile version and a Frown version. These 12-inch tall plushes are super-duper soft, with embroidered paw prints and removeable masks (that reveal his teeny-little eyes). Each plush version was limited to 400 pieces.

There were other Catnip Bravo goodies to be had at the booth, like the mousepad that has the feline mascot drawn in the style of the characters from Move or Die. Another notable addition were Catnip Bravo keychains that actually weren’t for sale but could be won from a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors against a Catnip Bravo costumed character, which appeared at a certain time each day.

Catnip Bravo fans could also find apparel that featured the kitty, one in white and another in black. The shirts were limited to 100 pieces of each size in each variation.

One thing you might not know about Symbiote Studios is that the partner up with other companies to make merchandise for their characters. They had previously made two open edition, 15-inch plushes from Rivals of Aether: Orcane (seen on the right in the picture above) and Etalus. For SDCC, they created a special Golden Etalus (seen on the left in the picture above), limited to 100 pieces. Like the other Rivals of Aether plushes, Golden Etalus came with a themed DLC for the game (you still need to purchase the game, which is available for Steam and Xbox One).

The last of the plushes was 12-inch Peely from the Steam game, Move or Die. Unlike the Rivals of Aether ones whose included code were for skin DLC, Peely’s granted you the full Move or Die game. This plush was limited to 400 pieces.

Also on display at their booth was limited edition Rhino Collector’s Statue from Warhammer. This item is actually for sale through Warframe’s online store. It comes with three in-game items, which you can read about here.

You can snag some of the remaining con-exclusives (while supplies last, of course) over at Symbiote Studios’ online store.

SDCC 2017: Smashing Through ‘Rivals Of Aether’!

by The_acz

Out of all the games shown at Comic-Con this year, it wasn’t Super Mario Odyssey, Sonic Mania, or Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite that captured my attention, but Rivals of Aether that did.

Located at The Behemoth booth and Made by a group of 9 people, Rivals of Aether is Smash Bros if the entire roster was filled with killer animals, and it’s just as amazing as it sounds. There are currently 8 playable characters with 2 guest characters scheduled for release. One of them has already been announced as Ori and Sein from the Xbox One hit Ori and the Blind Forest, and the other to be announced at Super Smash Con, which runs from August 10th-13th. 

 

Going back to gameplay, it plays exactly how you’d expect a Smash Bros. like game to play. All characters have their own A and B moves that differ depending on where you tilt the left stick when you attack. You can charge up attacks by using the C stick and even dodge roll. The game doesn’t seem to have any sort of Ultimate or Smash Ball move, but that’s not a problem as all the characters are incredibly fun to play. Each character has a different feel and weight to them so no one feels like just a re-skin of another character. My favorite character had to be Ori, and while he isn’t officially out, this was his first public playable appearance. 

One area that I think Rivals of Aether excels at better than Smash Bros, is in the diverse and fun stages. Of course the stages in Smash are fun and diverse, but all too often a lot of them are created with annoying hazards that end up ruining the entire stage *COUGH Magicant COUGH*. Aether finds a great middle ground where all the stages can be enjoyed from both a competitive and casual perspective. It’s nice being able to play through a wide variety of stages knowing that a lot of these are still viable if you decide to pick up the game competitively.

Overall, Rivals of Aether is a highly addicting fighting game that both casual and competitive fans of the genre enjoy. The game is fully available on Steam for $15, and can also be purchase on Xbox One game preview for the same price. If you’re a fan of the Smash series and are looking for something new, this is defintley a game to RIVAL that.