As a very casual player, I ran into hitfalling on my own without really even realizing it was a thing exclusive to this game. In smash I did fastfall aerials all the time, but after playing rivals it never clearly occurred to me that something was changed, it just felt so good and intuitive to do. Guess if I ever play smash again it might feel a little bit wrong now that I know it doesn't have this

Had no idea it was unintentional - but as soon as you mentioned how it came about it makes perfect sense. Having grown up on Melee (and being a Peach main at that, resulting in an already kinda skewed relationship with LCancelling) Hitfalling feels so much more intuitive than LCancelling. There are even situations where you don't want to do it - whereas LCancelling is just, an extra hoop you literally *must* be able to jump through if you don't want your skull immediately caved in on Slippi.

I play rivals casually, and I hitfall constantly. I didn't even realize it was a "tech" or something, it just felt like a natural part of the game. Goes to show just how intuitive it is as a mechanic

A mechanic so good they named a major tournament after it 🤯

Fun fact: the mere idea of combos themselves in fighting games originated in the same way. An unintended mechanic they found during testing and decided to keep in, while thinking it's inconsequential

Huh... You know, this mechanic actually makes a lot of sense when you think about. Like design-wise, it's basically the platform fighter equivalent of canceling a move in a traditional fighting game to combo into another one. Rather than being able to cancel the animation upon landing a hit, you cancel your upward momentum to quickly get back to the ground, which then allows you to keep the combo going more effectively. In the air you'd be forced to keep following that trajectory, but on the ground you have way more options to move and jump again, and now you're able to get back to that position in those vital frames where your opponent is still in hitstun.

7:00 this has to be the rawest rivals clip I’ve ever seen.

Hit falling is lawful good and nasb1 air dodging after an attack is chaotic evil

6:35 im really glad they didnt call it gravity cancel, considering it actually makes gravity work overtime

Underrated channel. I love accidental tech.

Good video fellow content brother! Love being in the Rivals community and recognizing most of the tags in the clips, also shoutouts to me for the sick combo at 4:25, Pity did it at a local on one of my setups lmao

I'm on the periphery of fighting games and platform fighters and this video made me want to pick up Rivals. Love the way you explained the mechanic's history, impact and legacy. Looking forward to 2 now!

I learned about (and realized I was already doing) hitfalling while I was watching Fullstream's Clairen tutorial. I was already spamming nair and bair to combo, and knowing it was actual tech I could work towards making consistent made it instantly feel more rewarding

This is such a cool mechanic! Really goes to show how happy little accidents can happen like that. I’m definitely going to try to implement it into my fighting game if I ever attempt to work on one

this one is hitting the algo I can feel it

oooh, HDR's incineroar has similar mechanic. I loved it in HDR and looks like I'll love it in Rivals 2! also, another example of an unintended mechanic that the devs fully embraced I can think of would be Tekken's Korean back dash.

i love the way you made this and talked about that mechanic i also never knew what it was til you talked about it and realized thats how i was hitting clips years ago when i played rivals. its crazy to see how we have things that we just dont have the terminology for yet thank you sir

Oh so its like a dash cancel like a game with gatlings would have, but just downward. Neat!

Another series on the opposite side of the genre spectrum that had something like this (as far as I know, I don't actually know if it was unintended the first time, but it's very believable if that was the case but was kept until much later entries) is Disgaea with diagonal throwing. In Disgaea you can have your units throw each other and you are intended to only be able to throw orthogonally until Disgaea D2 (where they changed how throw targeting worked), but if you switch between two directions when aiming your throws, the cursor is still active while it's moving to the other position allowing you to cheat out throwing along diagonals with a very lenient bit of timing. This was in the game for four entries and all their rereleases, so they had more than enough time to find it and get rid of it if they desired, but they kept it as a fun little secret that does help a lot but doesn't break the game.

It's such a natural feeling mechanic. I used it all the time without even realizing it was special.

Let's gooo I've been waiting for this since you talked about it on your Rivals 2 stream! Can't wait to see more stuff like this from you with everything awesome that's happening now for the genre!

Great clips to show it off and make it visible- I had no idea what it was before you showed the demonstrations. Really is impossible to not see after it’s pointed out. Nice video!!

had no idea this was an accident but its such a big part of why Rivals feels so good to play

I was 100% expecting another video on wavedashing. Great video!

Hitfalling is so fucking good man, I find it harder to play any other platfighter because my gameplan is so built around it no matter who or what i'm playing ;-;

crazy part is that Ive definitely used this before and just wasnt aware, like it flows so well into the game that I just never thought about it,

Nice video! I learned pretty early on in Rivals about hitfall when Etalus came out because my Smash habits led me to fastfall during aerials, so whenever I thought I was buffering a fastfall during his dair (which stalls you in midair on hit), I was cancelling it after the first hit constantly. After playing around and realizing it was just a thing in the game, I ended up just basing combos around it and was surprised when a lot of people in my scene didn't know it was a thing.

Hitfalling is so fucking fun, and as someone who has made a few custom characters in Rivals workshop, its one of my favorite combo tools to utilize

God. I remembered coming to rivals from smash ultimate. Making it my main game. Grinding for over 500 hours, and then just thinking about how hitfalling is a rivals exclusive mechanic that isn't in other platform fighters. Once you get used to it its second freaking nature, i have no idea how i used to play a platform fighter that didnt have it

I would play rivals 2 I just hope they put my girl Elli and return missiles hit stun to its former glory

I've never played rivals before, so thanks for telling me about this and what it is, the moment I figured it out I kind of just instantly recognized the extreme potential and fundamentalness of it, nice.

4:51 look mom I made it!

dude hitfalling is such a gem of a tech, really fun

I was under the impression it was intentional. It FEELS intentional. Man I love Rivals.

Halfway through the video I realized you were the guy I saw on Twitter asking for clips of hitfalling lol. Great video!

So surprised how many rivals players havent played the tutorial and learned about fastfalling during hitpause

Was not aware that hitfalling was unintended! One of my favorite unintended "bugs that became features" the Rivals devs kept in the game was the special effect Ranno gets when he taunts in the middle of a wavedash. It's just an aesthetic thing, and it goes away when you get hit, but still a neat little thing lol

worth noting that devs on melee knew about wavedashing before melee was released, but left it in. after melee, the team took a hard turn toward accessibility and lowering the skill ceiling, so wavedashing/l-canceling and other techs were removed and tripping was added (unfortunately)

Great video! I'm so stoked for 2024

Damn I never knew that this was a bug. It’s one of my favorite aspects of Rivals combos and really lets you go crazy where you can’t in other platform fighters

I love the "beauty of hitfalling" line lol

way better quality than most other youtubers. you deseirve the world. on other note i failed my math test today and i think ill probably fail the class the way things are going

It's cool watching a video on this mechanic. I had no idea it was an unintentional mechanic when I did Shovel Knight nair loops over and over. Oh, and in Idol Showdown, a character named Ollie is able to do a fast fall that works exactly like this, and gives her special juggle combos.

I recently started playing ‘Brawl+’ with a friend & now I can't help but wonder what it'd be like with this mechanic

there is a good chance I've been dong this all along with various base and workshop characters and never knew this was an unintentionally intentional mechanic, it just feels so natural to do.

Yo lets GOO Wisley rivals content is peak as always. Love the vid, hitfalling is the greatest accident (unless master oogway is right then there are no accidents...), keep it up man! 4:58 Maypul jab 1 -> jab 2 -> jab 1 -> jab 2 -> repeat till rage quit

I loved playing casual rivals with my dad and we both always did this without even realizing it.

The moment he mentioned that you can fastfall as soon as you hit the apex of the jump, I immediately knew why it would be bugged

i remember accidentally discovering hitfalling with mollo's up air in rivals 1 right after he got put in the official roster and since then playing platform fighters without it just feels weird

No way. Wave dashing still holds that title. It's literally emulated in almost every platform fighter. It's the essence of sick platform movement in a platform fighter.

This video is GREAT, definitely earned my sub!

i found out about hitfalling bc i naturally move around in a funky swideways S pattern and typically just pressed down when i aerial attacked

This feature combines with several other features to make rivals very freeform on offense, and i love it

i love how so many of the clips are just "horrible thungs happen to etalus

As a casual I found rivals very fun to practise long aerial combos with and didn’t realise this was prob the reason

as a rivals player, the first minute of this video where you don't say what it is, i was like "YES" i haven't even watched past like a minute and I'm so pumped for this video, i love hitfall so much, it's such a great mechanic, i had no idea it wasn't intentional though

The funny part about this is I didn't even realize it was in the game and then I saw this video and I was like "wait I do that all of the time"

Wait this was a thing. I never knew I was doing this. It just feels natural to use.

I'm very curious how the bug came to exist, because iirc (from doing workshop stuff) Rivals has different variables for your hsp and vsp during hitpause (old_hsp and old_vsp "remember" your pre-hitpause velocity, while hsp and vsp are set to 0). Maybe hitfalling was introduced before these different vars, and once they were added they added a special case for hitfall 🤔

Amazing. This explains so much as a casual player. Not even minutes in and I was thinking, "Wait, I've done this! I thought I was just fast falling!!" So to hear others saying the same thing is really neat.

I included Hitfalling in my More Mechanics mod for Melee it’s so so fun in melee too

I didn't notice that I was doing this already since I started playing the game. That's so cool that it wasn't intentional in the game.

Nice overview on hitfalling! Had no idea it was an oversight at first, and I appreciate the explanation on how it happened, haha! :P Also, I now feel inspired to boot up Rivals and hitfall like crazy ;u;

2:08 NEAT

It feels so natural in the rivals engine that i never even realized it was a tech. Upair hitfalling is core to like at least half the cast and you really dont even think about it

Oh yeah, I do this on purpose all the time and it didn't even occur to me that it was tech. It fits the Rivals flow so well, I didn't even think twice about it 'til this video.

yeah design wise drive rush cancel (not the neutral one) in sf6 looks like a similar thing where you cancel a move on hit to add extra confirm frames and open new combo routes. The fact it doesnt cost any resource is maybe overtuned but maybe balanced with the fact that it isnt a cancel you make on every combo

Great video, Ive fallen abit off of melee but Im actually thinking about picking up Rivals 2! Can I use the Boxx for it?

So rude of joshman to beat up on a guy with shingles like that

would be kinda nice now to understand "why" it is perceived as such a great tech/movement option by the vast amount of players if u can distill it down to its fundamental values that it provides, it could be a starting point for further general techs the devs could consider adding that tickle a similar itch in players

damn this one popped off, lets go wisely

8:15 I agree with that point there is majesty in that

4:52 Shoutout to Dugs. I haven't seen or heard from him in quite a while.

iirc hewdraw remix also has hitfalling but only for incineroar for some reason

yeah melee is hard. because its so old and so the controls are clunky. But you dont need wave dash to be at the bottom of competition. you can win a tournament match without any wave dash. the probleme with new melee players is just that the game itself make you fall faster all the time. require L cancel to be smooth. dash back is stupid. run shield is stupid. etc etc

honestly after hearing it was found super early I'm kinda surprised that it wasn't implemented into something you can do in any direction that isn't towards the point of contact/direction of travel of attack, possibly at the cost of some of the damage dealt: it is functionally a mechanic for choosing to use the contact to maneuver vs trying to make a clean delivery of energy for damage and that is both an _excellent_ way to make interaction way more involved while making it _more_ intuitive rather than less to the point where it'd be one of those background mechanics that runs so smooth you don't really notice it's there untill you actually look for it and a good bit of realism since doing that is a *MASSIVE* part of fighting in real life: everything you do moves you just as much as your opponent and SO much of your movement is simply shifting what parts of your body are where without actually changing the location of your center of mass much. those two things are nearly everything in the actual physical mechanics of a fight and neither of those things are something you see represented in games. edit: yeesh, autocorrect turned that into something that looked like it came out of chatGPT not something a human wrote, hopefully I've got enough words turned back into what they should be to make this readable.

Man, that guy that waved at the camera was hot as hell. He seems super cool, and I bet he's friends with rockstars who used to fill up arenas

i never played rivals, however hitfalling was in NASB and i personally thought it was arguably as bad for the game as the netcode. it resulted in top level gameplay boiling down to auto comboing the same aerial out of hitfall until it becomes a poor version of brawlhalla edgeguard simulator. anyways at face value your video gives me hope that this wont ruin the game like i initially thought

I haven't watched the full vid, I was guessing hit falling and I was right lol ever since Ranno did the up air

may or may have not implemented this in the fighting game im working on

Hitfalling so cool we made a tourney for it

『 personally, I think Slime Meter is my favorite Platform Fighting mechanic. Hit Fall is cool too ig 』

Lol I actually already knew what this video was about from the beginning. ❤

I love this game I mostly play with mods and use this tech by accident and I need to learn to use it without dying

Awesome video brother 👍

hitfalling is really fun casually too

Am I mistaken, or did Multiversus (which post-dates Rivals 1) also implement something sort-of similar with its dash cancels on hit? I’m a longtime traditional fg player but a complete platform fighter scrub, so I’m genuinely asking if anyone can clarify here…

Here from Melee Moments. Cool vid!

Watching this video and my brain instantly goes "someone should implement/integrate this mechanic to a traditional fighter tbh"

So basically how I've played Sheik since forever...

6:06 it sounds really cool can the tutorial please emphasize more not only what it is but that it's the most important part of competitive rivals please

Just as you said, I would never guess it was a tech, it's just a second nature thing

It's funny how people found it intuitively by playing

BRAWLHALLA MENTIONED 🎉🎉🎉 but seriously good video man! Its very nice to see discussion and content abt platform fighters that arent smash. I'll be looking forward to whatever you make! (Especially if its about brawlhalla, my main plat fighter)

Nice video. Cheers

we gave ranno's hitfall upair reset (the first clip) a special name in my circle, actually ok, in smash, sheik has this setup called "raindrop", which is dragdown upair into upsmash it requires dropping through a platform, thus "rain + drop" since ranno's looks similar but doesn't use platforms (instead using hitfall), we call it "rainfall"

I love it when devs choose not to fix certain bugs because they enhance the gameplay. Favorite story of it is HOIKing in Terraria. A technique where if you angle a series of blocks in the right way it causes physics to bug out and phase things rapidly through to the other side of them... Thing is Terraria devs ended up having to delay the console release of the game by an extra month because a new engine they were using had accidentally patched it out and they wanted to find a way to reprogram it back in.

yo brother, what's that song that plays in between the 1.46 time slot and the 2.36 ish time slot? Its smooth

to anyone who's played rivals 2 follow the spirit of rivals 1 or is it more like a standard platform competitive fighter? also what's up with shields? lastly do you like the game?

i used hitfalling to combo my brother with ori for like 30 seconds and i didnt know that it was a tech