20 Platform Fighters That Aren't Smash Bros.

In 1999 Nintendo came out with a crossover that rocked the video game industry. Featuring 12 of Nintendo’s most popular characters, it introduced a brand new fighting mechanic that combined classic platforming and health-based knockback. After the success of Super Smash Bros and its multiple sequels, many companies have tried to copy their formula; some have done well, but most fall short. For a long while games in this genre have been deemed “Smash Clones,” but over the last year or two, there has been a push for more competitive made “Platform Fighters.” We’ll discuss an overview of the genre, and a few of the slight differences that make these platform fighters unique.

The first type of Platform Fighter that will be talked about is the “Smash Clone” category. Most of these games came out in the mid/late-2000’s, and in all honesty, aren’t very good. Now, that is not to say that these games aren’t fun or enjoyable, but from a competitive stand point, most of these games come off as rushed or unpolished. The average score for the games on this list was only a 66.33.

Digimon Rumble Arena (2001) /Digimon Rumble Arena 2 (2004)

The first Digimon Rumble Arena was exclusively for the PS1 and seen as a response to the original Super Smash Bros for the Nintendo 64. The first game featured a surprisingly large cast of 24 different Digimon from the first across the two season of the anime. The second game cut the number of playable characters down by a significant margin, but introduced the idea of digievolution instead.

Jump Ultimate Stars/Battle Stadium D.O.N.

This is a whole series of smash clones featuring characters from your favorite shonen manga. The first anime crossover was a Japanese exclusive for the Nintendo GameCube and featured characters from Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece. It has since expanded into a massive 39 character, 24 series manga free for all.

Dream Mix TV World Fighters

Another Japanese exclusive, this game might be the most eccentric one on the list. Featuring fighters from the Konami and Hudson video game universe, and the Takara toy universe, this game pits Bomberman, Simon Belmont, Solid Snake, and Optimus Prime against one another. This game is just as silly as you would expect it to be.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up

This game in particular had an interesting development team. It was made by Game Arts, a developer that helped with Super Smash Bros. Brawl during the beginning stages. It also had former members of Team Ninja help with the game, who worked on the Dead or Alive series, so there was a good amount fighting game veterans behind Smash Up. Even with all talent behind this game, it was still a lackluster release.

Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL 2011

By far my favorite of the smash clones, but also the worst game on this list. Punch Time has an average rating of only 58. This game is so bad it’s good. The mechanics are wonky, graphics are awful (especially on the Wii version), I literally can’t beat the single player campaign because every time I try it I run into a game breaking glitch. All that aside, its dumb fun. Combos you can’t escape, Blossom’s freezing infinite, Captain Falcon Planet’s unlimited recovery. If you ever find yourself on a rainy Sunday with nothing to do, try this game.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

Sony’s direct response to the success of Smash Bros. this game combined some of Sony’s most memorable characters into one game. With Big Daddy, Heihachi, Nathan Drake, Kratos, and Sly Cooper, Sony was bound to have a hit on its hands. However, they ruined the mechanics of the game and made a boring knockoff instead. The only way to kill your opponent was to get enough energy to release your Super Move, which made the game seem tedious.

Kung Fu Panda: Showdown of Legendary Legends

They didn’t even get Jack Black. I feel like that’s a big draw of the Kung Fu Panda series, but they got the secondary TV voice actor, which is totally understandable. I don’t even know if Jack Black could’ve made this game much better. Similar to the Ninja Turtle game, Showdown of Legendary Legends isn't good, but it’s not bad either, it just is. It’s a game, nothing special about it. It’s available of 7 different platforms, making it easily accessible to anyone who wants to give it a try.

The next sub-genre of platform fighter is something I like to call “Party Fighters.” These are multiplayer platform games that have some basic combat element involved. Most times these games are quite simplistic graphics wise, but have a very well developed combat system. Unlike traditional platform fighters, players won’t lose a life when being knocked off screen; instead, the screen wraps around and they simply pop around the other side similar to the original Pac-Man games.

Towerfall: Ascension

Towerfall originally released for the Ouya in 2013.  After the failure of the Ouya it was ported to a wide variety of systems under the name Towerfall: Ascension. In this game the 4 combatants compete to be the first to 10 kills. Everyone comes equipped with a bow and 3 arrows and only a single jump. After shooting an arrow, any player can come collect it from the ground to add it to their ammunition. There are also items spawn that will give the players an edge over their opponents.  Out of all the Party Fighters discussed in this article Towerfall has the largest following and most developed competitive scene.

Samurai Gunn

A fast paced multiplayer game, Samurai Gunn is great if you only have a few minutes to pick and play. Armed with a sword and only 3 bullets, the gameplay is similar to Towerfall, in that it is the first player to 10 kills. However, the combat of this game is much more aggressive compared to other titles on this list. There are no items in this game, but some stages have hazards adding a new element of strategy to the slaughter.

Duck Game

Perhaps the slowest of the Party Fighters, this game focuses on collecting weapons to fight your opponents. Players spawn as a duck with no weapons or armor, but across the stage are a plethora of equipable items to help with the mayhem. This objective of this game is also to be the first person to 10 points, but points are awarded for winning the round and not the number of kills you have. This means in a 4 way match, you might have to go to round 37 to decide the winner as compared to a one round game.

Super Mario War

A fan game that can be found online and on most homebrew consoles, this game is essentially a multiplayer Mario mod. Players select from dozens of 8 bit characters to duke it out in Mario themed worlds. All of the stages are made from Mario sprites, so the levels have a familiar feel to them. And just like in Mario, players can jump under an box to release some sort of item, like a red shell or the fire flower. While SMW does not come with online play, the developers are working on an update/pseudo-sequel that will have online play for the PC version.

Jump N Bump

The original party fighter, this game requires player to jump on top of one another to attack opponents. Originally for MS-DOS, this game can be played on a wide variety of systems because of how easy it is to port. A very simple game, it’s comparable to Super Mario War and helped lay the foundation for platform fighting games.

Indie Pogo

Putting a unique spin on the party fighter genre, this game does most of it’s fighting in the air. Players can chose one of dozens of indie characters to fight in a constant bouncing arena. Players can move around the screen, but spend very little time actually on the ground in this crossover.

The last sub-genre we’ll discuss is the “Competitive Platform Fighter.” I know that any game can be played at a competitive level if players want, but these games are specifically made with the competitive scene in mind. Competitive platform fighters set out be technical and fast paced which often times leads to a large skill gap between entry level players and the active players.

Rivals of Aether

Arguably the most popular of the competitive platform fighters, Rivals of Aether perfectly balances smash mechanics and their own unique qualities. Wave dashing and l-canceling are borrowed from Melee, but this game doesn’t utilize the same ledge and grab mechanics. There is no ledge grabbing, but to even it out, every character can wall jump from the stage and use their recovery a second time. Rivals also have a new counter system instead of using shields. A player can counter an attack in the same way that power shielding works, but instead of reflecting the attack back, the opponent is frozen for a few frames allowing for a punish. Rivals has a solid roster of original characters, and 2 planned guest characters, the first being Ori from Ori and the Blind Forest. The developers run monthly online events as part of the Rivals Circuit Series, a large Rivals of Aether competitive league.

Brawlhalla

Brawlhalla has one of the largest competitive scenes of any game on this list. In addition to being one of the first competitive platform fighters, it’s also free to play, which helped it grow its fan base. Combat is based around collecting items that spawn on the screen to knock your opponent off stage. The developers also support the competitive scene by hosting the Brawlhalla Circuit, which culminates in the Brawlhalla World Championship at the end of the year.

Brawlout

Brawlout was first revealed at Evo 2016 and has since come out to mediocre reviews. While the graphics are fun and colorful, the game ran very poorly on the Nintendo Switch. The game currently has 18 playable characters, but 11 of them are clone characters. In this game you don’t unlock brand new characters; you unlock reimaginings of their starting characters. They’re not so much clones like Mario and Dr. Mario, but more along the lines of Fox, Falco, and Wolf.

Earth Romancer

Earth Romancer hasn’t been released yet, it’s still in its Kickstarter stage, but there’s a free demo you can download and try out. This game tries to combine classic platform fighter mechanics with that of anime fighting games like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. When the game was first announced a lot of the internet’s reaction was “bleh, this is a game for furries!” Don’t be confused by the two lead characters, there are other more humanoid fighters. This game isn’t exactly my cup of tea, as I’m not a big fan of the anime fighting games, but if Dragon Ball FighterZ and Melee are your jam then this is the game for you.

Melee Masters

I’m going to go ahead and include Melee Masters on this list, even though I don’t know if it’s still being worked on, but on the chance that it is I don’t want to forget about it. Melee Masters wears its Smash influence very proudly. From having the word “Melee” in their title to this being the first thing on their website “At its core, Melee Masters is highly based off of Super Smash Bros. Melee, and features many of its mechanics from wavedashing to shielding.” Like Earth Romancer, this game has a downloadable demo for fans to try out. The most recent version of the demo is very clunky and unpolished, and Melee Masters hasn’t updated anything since November 2017, so I can’t say for sure if this game is still being made.

Icons: Combat Arena

Perhaps the competitive platform fighter with the most potential, Icons has a lot going for it. Icons is being made by former members of Project M Dev Team. For those of you that don’t know, Project M is a well-received mod for Super Smash Bros. Brawl that made the gameplay faster and more aggressive to make the gameplay closer to Melee’s. On top of that, they recently received 6 million dollars in funding from a group of venture capitalists. Despite all of these things going for it, it faced many criticisms of being “just another smash clone.” Since their initial reveal they have fine-tuned their sound effects and fixed up a lot of their animations, but will this be enough to separate itself from the other platform fighters on this list?