Them's Fightin' Herds

Mane6.com

My Early History With This Game

I first tried this game sometime around 2022, and just couldn't get into it. I tried Arizona at first because she seemed like someone I'd like, but I couldn't get a good feel for her, so I switched to playing Velvet since I could get a better feel for her, but I wasn't having that much fun so I quickly dropped the game. Then a year or two later, I tried the game again, but this time I went Arizona, Paprika, then Velvet, and then dropped the game again.

Jump to mid 2024, I just watched My Little Pony Equestria Girls, and now as both a fighting game fan and My Little Pony fan, I'm interested in the My Little Pony inspired fighting game again. I didn't have a computer at the time though, so I just started watching tournament vods on YouTube. And then I finally started to "get it". Once I got a Steam Deck a few months later, I tried Arizona again again, and this time actually stuck with her and kept playing the game. And now it's one of my most played games on Steam.

Some Dude

There was this fellah, Grunkle Barlowe, who has had a huge influence on how I perceive and try to talk about fighting games. He doesn't have much of an online presence anymore (as Grunkle Barlowe), but I used to follow 'em on Twitter. His blog is one of the only 2 websites I have linked on my Cool Websites page at the moment.

 

There's not a whole lot too it, but I think has some great posts. In particular the Advantage State post is a great piece on how a lot of fighting game design doesn't necessarily fit into boxes of "good" and "bad", and while it's not universally applicable to the genre, I think the Stagger Pressure post one of the best fighting game related tutorials I've ever seen.

I could go on about how I liked his memey humor or something, but I what I really wanna get at is that I admired his ability to think about and discuss things. He reflected the attitude I try have with a lot of things. They're actually part of what inspired me to start this blog. After seeing his blog, I kept in the back of my mind for a little while, how I wanted to have my own site with video game ramblings on it.

To tie this back to TFH, he was also one of the reasons I'd been interested in playing Them's Fightin' Herds. I wanted to see what he sees in it, especially since he and some other people would say it shares gameplay similarities to BlazBlue, a series I already liked.

Is This The Wheel Of Fate?

Is this game like a "more grounded BlazBlue" like I've heard before? Yeah, I don't think that's an unreasonable way to describe it. In general, there are a lot of design elements with attacks in general mirror what I like about BlazBlue.

 

The range on attacks, relative to their pushback, lends to conversion ability being extremely comfortable as long as you aren't in counter-poke range (but even then you can oftentimes convert):

Cancel windows are pretty wide, so you don't have to rapid fire all of them. These may seem weirdly specific and kinda trivial to bring up, but at least from my perspective, these kinds of details massively impact the way attacks feel, and these details remind me of BlazBlue.

The most obvious comparison is to BlazBlue is probably the ABCD attack layout, ABC are light medium heavy respectively, with D being for very character specific attacks, but these are sorta where the big differences start to show up to me. In this game D normals don't quite feel like normals, because they're further on cancel chains than specials, and they all interact with character specific meters. They feel kinda like "special" special moves in a way if that makes sense (yes I know they were originally designed to substitute EX moves). Tying D attacks to character specific "Magic" meters is a very BlazBlue thing to do, but it stands out to me when that design is applied to every character.

Out of everything, the Magic system is probably this game's most defining gameplay element. I'm a little mixed on it since it doesn't do a ton of stuff depending on the character (I like it when recourses are kinda spammable levels of useful), but I think it's pretty cool how differently it works on a character to character basis.

I can't really think of much else this game has in terms of unique system mechanics, but I don't really mind that. The overall combination of mechanics does make the system as a whole feel unique.

The "more grounded" part of "more grounded BlazBlue" I assume comes from the much weaker movement. It's not standard for characters in TFH to have air-dashes, double jumps, super jumps, or even a forward run. Granted, it's pretty normal for characters to have at least some sort of movement option besides walking and jumping, so it's not much of a walk back and forth "footies game". I struggled with the movement back when I first played the game, but hey, I'm now Master Rank in Street Fighter 6, I don't (necessarily) crumble when I can't air-dash my fighting games. I still prefer more mobile games though. From all the fighting games I've played, this might be the best to ever do non-standardized movement. No one does anything super duper unique (for the genre) movement wise, but from what I can tell (I'm not an expert at all) no character is really crippled by a lack of movement options, and that's something a lot of fighting games seem to fail at.

Something I don't quite know how to describe is this game kinda also feels like Skullgirls. It's developed with the same engine, and I can point to a lot random of comparable elements to Skullgirls (the relatively zoomed in camera, the vertical movement not going very high beyond the camera's normal position, the 2D non-pixel-art artstyle, the presence of grounded launchers and aerial knockdowns on every character, the presence of a green meter below health bars that causes your combos to end), but I can't point to what I would consider major gameplay elements. Perhaps it is just the combination of those smaller elements that makes it feel similar, I dunno.

Other Gameplay Spewing

There's surprisingly few uses of combination inputs (instances with inputs like A+B and B+C), which I find pretty nice. I've never seen a fighting game with such an absurd amount of buttons that you couldn't play with a standard (modern) console controller, but I have seen plenty that have so many combination inputs that even with macros, it's difficult to find a comfortable control scheme. Them's Fightin' Herds though only has 2 macro buttons though, and it seems barely even worth using both of them. I do use both of them, but I could totally get by with 1 or none (I'd be annoyed if there were literally none though, I like having a grab macro).

Once I actually started watching and playing matches against real people, something I noticed is that the defensive mechanics in this game are pretty strong. That's something I hear a lot of people say about the games they play (most people don't wanna sell games they like as having uninteractive defense), so to clarify what I mean, it's difficult to cover a lot of options while running offense, but (as far as I know) there aren't options that you can't cover. I like how strong the defensive mechanics are, they keep me on my toes during offense. Also woohoo, this game has instant block (I'm a big fan of instant block), you don't build a ton of super meter from it like you would in BlazBlue through. You don't get a ton of super meter in this game in general, you're not guaranteed to get 3 bars in a game, even if you hoard your meter.

Characters

I think it makes the most sense to start this section off with Arizona. I think she's cool, and I tend to be drawn towards well-rounded rushdown characters, and she struck me as that so that's why I tried multiple times to play her. I'm not entirely sure about this but, I think the main issue had the first 2 times I tried her was how she interacts with Magic. She has to go out of her way to get it, and when she does, the moves she spends Magic on (while solid) aren't that crazy, so it's not immediately rewarding to interact with her Magic. This led me to not being very sure on how to incorporate her Magic into a gameplan, which led to me not being very confident in coming up with a gameplan. After watching people play her in tournaments though, hitting the lab, and playing more of her, not only do I have a better grasp on her Magic, I now have a gameplan that doesn't really rely on Magic.

Shout-out to 6A, this move rocks!

As for the character I fell tried twice when I wasn't feelin' anyone else, Velvet never really hooked me. She'd seemed neat, and I found her intuitive, but I didn't feel drawn to her. Perhaps she could've grown (or still could grow) on me if I had given her more time, but it's up in the air if I ever bother to play her again. Fighting against her, she exemplifies a kinda unique design trait of this game, overheads are quite obnoxious. Her's is massive, deals a hefty chunk of damage, and retracts her hurtbox which lets it beat out a lot of other attacks.

 

While I think it's obnoxious, I don't think it's unreasonable, it's reactable and very punishable on block. This sort of design is all over the game though, so it can be pretty frustrating to be inexperienced.

As mentioned before, I also tried out Paprika. She's probably the charge character I've put the second most amount of effort into (1st is Ash Crimson in KOF13), and so I just don't feel comfortable playing charge characters. I also dropped her due to just finding her moveset kinda boring.

I'ma lump these next 4 characters together, Oleander, Tianhuo, Pom, and Shanty are all characters I'm interested in trying out in the future. Oleander especially is seeming cooler and cooler the more I think about her (She's edgy <3).

 

Texas and Stronghoof strike me as a little odd, because they're both big, daddy characters, and were released back to back. They stand out so much from the other characters, yet in the same way, but oh well. Not so well though, Stronghoof my least favorite character to fight because he tanks my framerate:

 

I don't have much to say about Nidra, and I think Baihe is both funny and sad. If you don't know, the development of this game went down the gutter, and Baihe was turbo busted on release (and from my understanding she's been nerfed but is still banned):

 

This stuff'll come up again later :(

Looking And Sounding Like Ducks

This game looks like an american cartoon, and I like that. While I'm a huge fan of pixel-art, I think it's nice to see more 2D animation styles within the fighting game genre.

The character portrait animation is a nice touch. Ever since I saw Mega Man Battle & Chase do this sort of thing, I've been wishing to see more games with it.

 

I guess this is the best place to mention this, I like how all the character colors are named. It makes each one feel more fun and special. They're also super all over the place in terms of variety, probably in large part due to the kickstarter backers got to come up with a ton of them.

The music in this game is pretty solid, but what really impresses me is just how much of it there is. As I expect from fighting games, there's a song for each character, but then there's a ton of variations of those songs. There's different versions of songs depending on the matchup you're playing, whether or not you're on the final round of a game, and a few other factors which cause the number of battle themes to skyrocket well over 100. Granted, they're variations, and the devs stopped making so many of them during the Season pass, so there's not wholely unique tracks for every conceivable scenario. Still though, there's a lot of variety to the music. I'm not a fan of not being able to select songs though.

Training And Tutorials

Training mode is solid in this game, but it carries over the 1 button system that Skullgirls has, that I think makes things just a bit clunky. Frankly a bigger issue I had is that for years I didn't know that you can delete savestates and recordings by holding the function button.

The combo trials are also alright. Because it has such a small roster, this is one of the only games in which I've completed all of the combo trials. There are 3 bizzare ones I wanna shout out though, starting off with Pom Master 1 which includes a gimmicky reset:

 

From my experience fighting her, Pom has some way scarier resets than this.

And then there's Nidra Master 2 and 4, which are are some of the most glaring signs that this game isn't finished. They're literally built to just drop:

 

The most absurd part to me is that Master 4 actually does combo if you just time some of the inputs differently, but the game doesn't count it:

 

I'm not sure I could design a more comical combo trial if I tried.

I guess it's also worth mentioning the combo record feature. I've never actually bothered to use it, but I think it's a cool addition. You can find combos on the Mizuumi wiki. The tutorial is also something I don't have much to say about, because I played it years ago, barely remember it, and don't wanna bother playing it again when I'm pretty sure I already know the mechanics at this point. People say it's pretty good. It's nice that it lets you choose your character, and it'll be tailored towards your character choice.

Story

The Story Mode is probably one of the most acclaimed parts of this game, and it's actually not because of the story. It's praised for gamifying basic fighting game teachings in a more fun way than traditional tutorials. While I do think it has some notably well executed ideas, I felt it stretched things too thin and got repetitive.

The enemies are relatively very well designed for the genre. Good player character design and non-player character design are not one in the same, and I think that's somewhere most fighting games faulter. Enemies in this game though aren't really designed to make you guess. Take the first enemy for example, Fluffers, they walk slowly, have a stubby low, a stubby grab, and an extremely telegraphed overhead that's easy to anti-air. They have no good approach options, and no good pokes. Fluffers is a fundementally flawed character, but that's a good thing, they're the enemy, those flaws are how you can consistently win against them.

 

For the "repetitive" aspect I mentioned, there's only 4 non-boss enemies, and they get quite old, even when they're being mixed and matched. This, plus the dungeon crawling which I just found boring, left me feeling sour over the gameplay by the end.

There's some pretty solid boss fights. I take issue with the Velvet one though, because it has this weird aspect where Velvet is just invulnerable unless you reach a certain proximity trigger while she's not doing anything. It was just an extra step to attacking her that I thought was clunky and annoying to figure out.

 

There also some platforming segments, which actually work alright. I doubt I'd want this game to focus any more on platforming, it's a little clunky, but it's short and simple enough that it's just a neat little thing that's in the game.

The mode was actually hard on the "Hardcore", and I was surprised by that. I wish I picked an easier difficulty because some parts got frustrating. I wouldn't say it's a bad difficulty, it's just that I was punching above my weight class, and I payed the price for it.

As for the actual story of this story mode, I was interested and entertained. I liked the characters, and there were quite a few funny moments. I wouldn't say I was overall satisfied with it though, because unfortunately it took the biggest hit from development cuts; the story is simply unfinished. It doesn't even feel like it got that far in the first place, so I struggle to even imagine what the rest of it would've been like. Tianhuo, and some of the DLC characters, don't even get to show up if I recall correctly.

 

Of all the parts of the 1 Chapter, my favorite is probably the second. Initially going through it I felt it was weirdly lacking in fights, but I think that aspect of it would actually make it the best for me to go back to. It gets to focus the most on showing off the game's quirky characters and dialogue.

Online

This game doesn't have a very large community, so from a glance it might look like the online is entirely dead, but it actually isn't depending on the time and day. The quickplay might actually be dead though, I'm not entirely sure because I've only spent a couple of hours trying to use quickplay, but I've only ever found matches through lobbies.

The lobbies seem to have a lot of care put into them. Similarly to a ton of ArcSys games, you have a bunch of hats and other cosmetics to customize your avatar with:

 

There's even cosmetics based on ArcSys games.

 

The main way to unlock cosmetics is a little strange though. You have to either play the Salt Mines mode (which is located in the lobbies), or wait in the lobbies for random chests to fall from the sky to obtain Salt for the shop. While the game does make you butt heads if multiple people are farming for chests or playing the Salt Mines mode, playing normal matches doesn't get you any Salt at all, so you might have to go out of your way for it. It's also a little weird that most of the cosmetics are only obtainable through the lobbies, when they can also be used in the story mode.

What really stands out as a positive to me about this game's lobbies though are the maps. There isn't just a big symmetrical map of copy and pasted battle-stations, there's a couple of maps, and they're designed after actual places in the game's world. There are so many spots on the that don't serve any function but to just be neat little spots to hangout at. There's even secret areas:

 

One weirdly big problem I have with the lobbies though is that people seemingly just won't approach me for matches when I'm idling, unless I idle on the battle-stations. I don't always wanna play on the battle-stations though because those have a rotation system, and oftentimes I'd rather just play against one person for a bit. I don't know what about me idling makes me unapproachable, I've even tried queuing up for quickplay matches in the hopes that it'd signify that I do wanna play matches, but people just seem to be way more likely to play against me if I'm moving around.

 

The Salt Mines mode is pretty neat. It's mostly just a retooling of the single player dungeon crawling gameplay for multiplayer, but that's enough for this mode to be decent. I like that you can play as Huggles, although I wish I had the option to play as them in some other modes as well. My main issue with it is just that I think the 15 minute timer is too long. For some reason, the entrance to the Salt Mines is hidden in each of the lobbies; I don't think it's that hard to find, but I could definitely see that causing confusion for some people. Unfortunately it seems like not very people play the mode, but at least you can play by yourself and get some Salt out of it.

As for the overall netcode, it's great as far as I can tell. It's got rollback and cross-play across all major systems, even Nintendo Switch (I think the only other fighting to have both on Switch is Brawlhalla). I don't even play this game on Switch (I got the Steam version instead), but as someone who's played a lot of fighting games on Switch, I think it's awesome that the Switch port of this game isn't just stuck in its own micro-ecosystem.

One issue I have with the rollback though is how you can only set your rollback frames at the start of a set. Being able to change them in-between games would be a pretty big convenience, because with how it is in its current state sometimes I'll set my rollback frames too low, then I have to back out of the set to change them, but then when I back out of the set my opponent thinks I don't wanna play anymore so they start walking away.

Fighting Is Magic

If you don't know about Fighting Is Magic, here's a video I think is worth watching:

 

To summarize part of it since that video is 40 minutes, Them's Fightin' Herds is essentially a remake of a My Little Pony fangame, "Fighting Is Magic". I figured it'd be interesting to check it out and see just how far TFH has come from its roots.

And well, it sure does feel like less developed version of TFH, on a horribly outdated engine. This might be harsh but, I think Them's Fightin' Herds is such a drastic improvement. This is not a game I could see myself playing for more than a few hours beyond what I already have. The Fighter Maker 2 (the game's engine) input system leaves a lot to be desired.

There's charm in the game though. The devs captured the characters' personalities really well. Pinkie Pie's animations are one of the biggest highlights of this game in my eyes.

 

It is as I hoped interesting to see the similarities and differences in games. Seeing a fighting game copy over the moveset of a character from a different game isn't that unusual, but there's something bizarre about seeing a game copy another game's full roster.

I should note also, I didn't play the final official build, I played a some far more recent, unofficial build that was developed by a different team, Fighting Is Magic Aurora. There's some extra characters (like The Great And Powerful Trixie) in this version which is neat. I guess this version is wrapped up in some controversy, I haven't actually bothered to looking into it, but I figured it's worth letting y'all know for your own discretion.

Conclusion

I quite like Them's Fightin' Herds. I don't think I'd quite consider it "one of my favorite fighting games", but it's one I see myself playing plenty more. If you buy it, I'd recommend the physical deluxe edition, especially from a second hand source, so you don't directly support Modus Games (the publisher that killed this games development). I don't have it myself, but according to this GameFAQ's thread it comes with the DLC already unlocked on disc/cartridge, so you can buy a used copy and still get the DLC.

2024 Media Page

<- Sonic Boom (TV Show) | Fist's Elimination Tower ->