A different take on the "platform fighter" genre. For most games in the platform fighter genre, they aim to do what Super Smash Bros. does but in varying but ultimately minimal degree. The dodge, respawn, or ledge mechanics may change, but they all still abide by the laws of the main smash games with combo, tilts, smash attacks, specials, and aerials. Indie Pogo is built in a different way. The main goal of Indie Pogo was an idea of your character constantly jumping, which sounds terrible in a traditional platform fighting which has walking, running, short hops, and full hops, but Indie Pogo simplifies in some areas but complexes some other areas to make a potential annoying mechanic rather fluid and fun. This is done by the game's 5 main buttons: attacks, specials, parkour, dodging, and specials. Attacks are just like in Smash where they are the fastest and most general moves in the game and are utilized for continuing combos but the main difference is that they are only 3 aerial attacks: neutral, down, and up aerials. These moves were added with the Heavy Metal update in early 2019 and made the combo game much more varied and fluid. Specials are longer and more, well, specialized than standard attacks just like in smash, but the main different is that your neutral, forward, up, and down specials can only be preformed in the air while the newly introduced grounded special can only be preformed on the ground. These specials add a lot to each character by how each character can use various specials to interact with other ones (much like in Rivals of Aether) and how the grounded special are used primarily to setup your character's other moves. For example, Penelope from The Next Penelope has a move called "vampire mines" for her neutral special which takes 1 of your health but if you hit the opponent you get 3 health back, but she can alter its placement by the up special's windbox and the down special's grappling hook and she can use her grounded special's lasers to power up her vampire mine to take even more health. This interconnected special system makes your specials much more important and dyanmic in the game. Parkour is the most important movement mechanic in the game. this button allows you to stay in place, roll in a certain direction, rolljump (if you press the attack button) which is a combo starter, wall slide, wall jump, grabbing, and teching. For so many different uses in a single button, Indie Pogo excels in making every time you use it result in exactly what you want. Throwing within the Parkour button is done by holding the button in midair and releasing it while pointing in the direction of your opponent. Once you grab your opponent, you can charge the throw and pick any angle to throw your opponent. This far differentiation to how throws work in other platform fighters just adds to this game's momentum and combo game. Dodging feels the most simplistic of the mechanics as it works exactly like in Super Smash Bros Melee in which after you use it, you must go into a wall slide or land to regain your moves. It feels kind of broken as invulnerability starts on frame 1 of the move and it can make you escape most combos, but this is confirmed to be addressed in the next big patch. I hope a parry mechanic is introduced to make a faster way to change the tides of battle but who knows how that would look. Specials are earned through getting "pogos" which are extending a combo until you land on the floor and are designed to either throw out a bit hitbox or change your character's form. They require smart play to get as you need to grow these combos AND land, and they all have some sort of counterplay to them. Damage in the game is done by a mix of Super Smash Bros' percentage and stamina systems as you have 50 health per stock, but the lower your health, the farther you can get launched. This mix of mechanics is due to the constant jumping mechanic making it pretty unlikely for you to consistently launch an opponent into the blast zones, but the 50 health makes stocks still tight and hard to get. Stages in this game are rather wall-heavy which in normal platform fighters sounds annoying with untechables, getting trapped next to walls through certain attacks, etc. but since you must constantly move in Indie Pogo and they aren't any untechables, walls actually add a sense of strategy to the game. Should I throw my opponent into a wall to continue a combo? Would my opponent tech it and if so, where do I want to be to follow up on that tech? These are questions I only ask offstage in other platform fighters but in Indie Pogo becomes a much more central mechanic. Lastly, this game is a celebration of Indies and also does that in a rather interesting way. They are the widely known Indie characters like Shovel Knight and Commander Video, midly known ones like Diogenes from Getting Over It, Bullet Kin, Lilac, Orcane from Rivals of Aether and some barely known ones like Zorbie, Stardrop, Jack, and Blockman. These barely know characters have so much flavor and character in their moves that you can tell the devs personally found these indies and wanted to give them some love. This game also shows the indie flavor in its stages, trophies, and menus with a variety of lesser known and somewhat known indies. The really cool thing about the trophies is that the more you get the more will appear in the character select menu and will appear on the screen when you get a really big pogo combo. Overall this game is easily the most unique platform fighter since the genre started and asks me to rethink how to play one of my favorite genres of all time. I highly recommend this to anyone willing to experience a different taste from the traditional platform fighter formula.
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