"Rivals Beyond" is a graphically pleasing game, draped in greens, pinks, and also in an unusual grey combination that evokes a certain mood, and has smooth lines like a Flash game, reminding me of such titles as "Fancy Pants Adventures" and "Fancy Pants Adventures: World 2". It's smooth and well-presented, and has lovely pacing to start.
You get plopped into a world where a dog with a moustache might just help you out, in a contest that you've found yourself a part of, to win your life back. Yes, win your life back.
Our voiceless protagonist finds themselves in a world snowing with Mint, where you win battles against winged creatures to gain points and progress to the Next Round. But before you progress, you will need to win a boss battle.
Battles are reffed by a squeaky little dude who counts you into duels with monsters that are resolved by selecting the right elemented attack. Indeed, many battles can just be won if you know what the opponent is weak to.
While it made sense to find the elemental weaknesses of each enemy, I struggled to find layers of strategy beyond that. Most times, I found myself experimenting with moves to find which one had the highest damage number, and then spam that one until the enemy died. If I got low on health, I'd use the highest HP heal - that was about it. Sometimes they'd kill me, but I'd come back and try again and, depending on RNG, I'd either lose or win.
Indeed, perhaps my biggest point of struggle I found with the game was that I felt much of the battle relied on RNG, whether I'd win or lose. There are a few moves that the enemy can make that seem to do nothing, and depending on whether they roll these attacks, would dictate usually whether I win or lose. So it seemed like the battles were largely reliant on RNG.
I feel like if the enemies' attacks were more consistently strong, or if there were more layers of strategy the player could use to counter these attacks, then it would have made for an overall more consistently entertaining battle experience for me.
However, despite the RNG, the battles were easy enough and spaced at a pace that was quick enough that I didn't get too frustrated. The enemies were cutely designed, and the environments are imaginative and easy to walk through.
As for the story, there is one! Although it took me a while to get the "central piece" to the story that made me feel things, the ending in particular is the moment that made me actually care about the protagonists, because the way that the scenario was constructed made me pity them, and pity can often be an entryway to relatability. However, it was a little late in the piece, so I felt like I wanted to get a story hook earlier in the story, rather than nearly at the end.
However, I overall actually liked this game, mostly because of its charming presentation, its smooth and well-polished graphics, its lovely, well-placed music and cute assembly of characters, which were well-employed to the point that it made me have an overall pleasant experience despite what I perceived to be its flaws.
Overall, its world, its audio, and its imagination are its strong points, along with the end of its story really tugging on the heart strings.
Thank you for making this game, Steve. I really enjoyed playing it and I appreciate that you made it for us. <3