Fighting Games Friday: How ‘Bout Them’s Fightin’ Herds
Evo’s organizers didn’t have many choices with the games picked for open tournaments at this year’s Evo Online event, the virtual replacement for the main Evo tournament that can’t happen thanks to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. The games chosen are Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath, Killer Instinct (2013), Skullgirls, and Them’s Fightin’ Herds. Noticeably, none of those were previously scheduled for the main tournaments this year, which have all been relegated to special exhibition matches between select players (outside Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which will be excluded completely). The titles for online tournaments all have good rollback online play, a solution so superior that even Twitch endorsed it in a video posted on Twitter this week.
Of the main four games chosen, Them’s Fightin Herds is the most interesting, thanks to how niche it is among the fighting game community compared to the others. When I saw the name, I figured I had an idea of what it was: A title from an indie developer based on the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series. I didn’t realize how woefully inaccurate and ignorant that thought was; it’s what happens when you don’t read up on a project after a certain point of time.
The project did start as an adaptation of MLP titled My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic, until Hasbro stepped in and put a stop to that. This was despite developer Mane6 having no intention of making money from the game, and how Hasbro has been lenient with other fan projects — though many of the others were admittedly smaller efforts. It had to be a blow for the development team given just how long the game had been in development at the time. But this, in a twist of fate, worked out to its benefit.
Mane6 took the simple-but-worthwhile path of creating a game inspired by the recent MLP work, following a road similar to one select 90s fighters traveled down. (Darkstalkers was planned to be a Universal monster game at one point, while Star Gladiator was planned as a Star Wars fighting game.) Better yet, they were free to ask for money by using funding raised through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. And losing the MLP license didn’t mean they had to lose involvement from Friendship Is Magic creator Lauren Faust, who still provided the story concept and character designs. The title “Them’s Fightin’ Herds” was also suggested by Craig McCracken. Input from bigtime creators was the best kind the developers and the fanbase could ask for, which is why the MLP community remained on board.
The core Them’s Fightin’ Herds game takes inspiration from several 2D fighting games. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was initially the main inspiration, but it also borrowed elements from Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, and Blazblue titles, along with plenty of other anime fighters as development progressed. (Street Fighter is pretty anime, yes.) One look at gameplay footage is enough to see how similar its match flow is compared to other anime fighters; characters can lock opponents in combos for a good while in game time, and the hit count is high. The big difference, of course, is how all the characters are four-legged ponies hoofed creatures, but this doesn’t make that much of a difference compared to other fighting games in practice.
The biggest difference with this game compared to other anime fighters is how it’s actually worth playing online. Mane6 heard the community’s desires to implement rollback netplay instead of woeful delay-based online, the former of which has long been the preferred option for classic fighting game and indie circles. It helps that the online play wasn’t as difficult to insert as it could have been thanks to using the same engine that powered Skullgirls. An additional monetary contribution from that game’s developer, Lab Zero Games, didn’t hurt.
The early access version of Them’s Fightin’ Herds arrived on February 22, 2018, but the final game just released on April 30, early enough to qualify for a spot in this alternative Evo. In a way, though, this marks a return to Evo. IT was demonstrated when it was still an MLP title at Evo in 2012, and again after Hasbro’s cease and desist letter in 2013. This clearly isn’t the way anyone imagined it would return to Evo, but you can bet that Mane6 isn’t complaining about the newfound exposure it’s receiving after being selected, and the further attention it will receive during and after the tournament this summer.
Them’s Fightin’ Herds is now available on Steam, with Mac and Linux versions due for a release eventually. If the game’s popularity takes off enough at Evo Online and its sales increase, it could receive console ports shortly afterward. But before we get to that point, let’s just hope it puts on an entertaining show for the social distancing crowd.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
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They’re NOT ponies.
Edited, but this gave me a good laugh.