Brawlout

My honest first reaction to Brawlout was that someone built a competent sparring dummy for people waiting on a real Smash release. That instinct is not entirely wrong, but it undersells what works here. Angry Mob Games made a deliberate design choice: strip the platform fighter formula back to its offensive core. No blocking, no grabs, pure combo pressure and footwork. If you live in the "Final Destination, no items" school of thought, that philosophy will click immediately. Everyone else may find the missing defensive options disorienting at first. Mechanically, the game runs on a standard two-button layout (basic attacks and specials, modified by directional input) plus a dodge with an invincibility window to compensate for the absent shield. The Rage Meter is the one genuine addition to the genre template. It charges as you deal and absorb damage, giving you two options: burn half of it on a Rage Burst to push opponents back and break a combo string, or let it fill completely and activate Rage Mode for boosted knockback output. In a 4-player free-for-all that meter management actually matters, and the Rage Burst in particular is a smart tool for escaping ganks near the blast zone. Wavedashing and airdodging are both present, so veterans who want movement tech have something to work with. The roster sits at 25 fighters once you count all the Variants, which are alternate versions of base characters with tweaked stats and a few different moves rather than fully distinct kits. Guest characters like the Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter, Juan from Guacamelee, Yooka-Laylee, and the Dead Cells hero give the lineup some indie-scene personality. The problem is that a significant chunk of the cast are those Variants, which dilutes first impressions. Knockback values on some moves feel inconsistent rather than purposeful, and character weight seems to shift by individual move rather than by fighter archetype. That muddiness makes high-level reads harder than they should be. Online is where this gets complicated in 2025. The player count on Steam is in single digits on any given day. Ranked is functionally dead unless you are plugged into the Discord tournament community, which, to the game's credit, ran community balance patches as recently as late 2024. The 2.5 community balance update is real effort from real players keeping the thing on life support. If you can wrangle three humans for local couch play, the game delivers solid chaotic fun. If your plan is queuing into strangers for ranked matches, the lobby wait times will break you before the opponent does. As a solo experience, Arcade Towers and the Trials mode provide structured challenges, but nothing that holds attention past an evening. The single-player content was criticized at launch and the years since have not transformed it into a reason to buy. This is, fundamentally, a couch game that also has ranked queues, not the other way around. Fred, Scout Team