Rivals is interesting to me, I first tried to play it a year ago, but for some reason it just couldn't click with me. The movement, hitstun, none of it clicked with me. I wasn't fond of any of the base roster, though I did like Ori and Shovel Knight, So I dropped it, I had been filtered, so to say.

But then I saw the Gigachad workshop mod character get announced, and realized, yeah, nah, I HAVE to come back, at least to try this. So I booted the game up with a friend, and against all odds, everything started to click with me. The movement finally started to make sense, and feel fluid and fun, the hit stun started to click and I was able to pull off combos more effectively, I noticed the music on the pre-set stages was really good, and everything finally started to fall in place.

Then I started messing with the workshop, and started finding inspired movesets for characters I loved. Multiple Sonic movesets better than what I got in Smash, an improved Kirby, the rest of the Sonic cast, several Touhou characters I really enjoyed using, cool movesets for other characters I liked, well made stages, and all the funny meme characters in the world.

If anything, this game is my sanctuary by now. I've been consistently burnt by Smash after the initial honeymoon of its release, but I've found just about everything I could want in this game, and its been a blast playing with my friends. This is genuinely the most fun I've had with a platform fighter ever, I think.