Dynasty Feud

I had a chance to round up my TowerFall buddies last night and play Dynasty Feud in my living room using Steam Big Picture and a bunch of PS4 controllers. This game rocks. Dynasty Feud combines the sustained, tactical tension we love about TowerFall's one-hit-kill mechanic with the stage and character diversity of a Smash Bros. The "dynasty" mechanic--coming back to life as a new character with a different move set each time you die--is brilliant. It constantly shifts the feel of each match, and adds an almost Overwatch-like strategic layer to "hero selection" as you attempt to counter the other player's current fighter in real time. One of my friends is an illustrator, and he was blown away by Dynasty Feud's character design, to the point where he was wishing there was a single-player campaign. I myself could care less about story modes in brawlers, but it speaks to the strength of the characters that they make you naturally curious about their back stories. The art style and overall tone reminds me of Guacamelee!, another favorite.
We're looking forward to our next play session. We unlocked all of the clans except for the aliens! Right now I'd say we're in that fun discovery stage of a fighting game, learning each fighter's moves. Because the pace of the game is so fast (that's a good thing), you may initially experience some frustrating spawns, where you basically die right away before you figure out what's cool about your character. But when you do have that Eureka moment, like, "I can move around as this devastating tornado!,", "I can reflect projectiles with my stubby punches", or "I have a shield instead of a dodge!", it's very rewarding. At first we thought the supers were OP, but after some experimenting we realized you can dodge, and in some cases shield-block, the ultimate abilities. If the game is this fun now, I can only imagine what it will be like when we know what we're doing.

Dynasty Feud
Gameplay
Dynasty Feud is a 2-4 multiplayer focused platform brawler which boasts a huge roster of over 40 characters. It takes inspiration from games like Smash Bros. while also reminds me a little of recent similar releases like Brawlhalla both of which I have sunk a good number of hours into. I usually get tired of playing fighting games after a short while because regardless of the number of characters the game presents to you, the battles start to feel same after a while.
Dynasty Feud is a game that solely focuses on the multiplayer aspect and there are no bots or an offline story mode whatsoever for solo play. There is a very certain lack of content visible right from when you boot up the game and the game makes no real effort to try and hide it. You can either play Quick Play, Ranked Match, Private Match or train with dummies.
For a game which boasts of a massive roaster, it is important to get the tutorial right for the players to get comfortable with the different skills of the various characters. The training mode does no favours to the player in this regard as the dummies (not bots) stand at one place and fire lasers at you killing you in one hit.
Now the major problem with this is that since these dummies are not bots, they offer no actual challenge whatsoever while their constant respawing and shooting lasers do not exactly let you practice calmly. This training mode is one of the worst I have seen in a fighting game in a long time.
Let’s now see how the actual gameplay of Dynasty Feud fairs. The game starts off by asking you to pick one of the eight different dynasties, inspired by various pop cultures and references. Each of these dynasties contains five characters within themselves. The first one to kill the opposing dynasty wins the game.
Each character has a varied moveset with two special attacks of their own. To provide some lore to these dynasties you can read their backstories in the codex.
The problem with the gameplay is that the majority of the characters die in one hit, some taking two because of additional armour. This gives you little to no time to get familiar with the characters before they are killed.
Once you kill or get killed, the killed dynasty leader gets an annoy power which can summon flashes of electricity to giant balls. These annoyances make the game feel far less rewarding than it should be. There is no real sense of achievement and every kill you get just gives your opponent the opportunity to annoy you more and vice versa.
The abilities of each character being limited to only two makes it difficult to balance the game as some characters have overpowered abilities while others are just randomly given some trash powers. You cannot choose your own character line up for a dynasty aside from a local mode called “All-Star” making you play the characters you don’t like quite often.
Even though the visual designs of these characters are somewhat interesting, I never felt connected with them in any way. It makes one wonder if a smaller but more fleshed out roster would have been better for Dynasty Feud.
At the time of writing, the game also felt empty online. It took me over one and a half minute to find a match in Quick Play and that also was only 1v1. Going in to find 4 player online matches are very rare and the ranked matches are limited to 1v1 only which is an ongoing trend in many games of this genre. Playing locally is certainly more fun but that can be said about most of the other games.
Visuals
The visual design of Dynasty Feud is pretty average by today’s standards. While the characters are uniquely designed and there is a certain flair and charm in them, the backgrounds stand out like a sore thumb. From an artistic viewpoint, games like Brawlhalla has far more beautiful and charming aesthetic while a game like Brawlout has much more detail in its maps. Considering Dynasty Feud’s price and genre this comparison is bound to happen and I was never once enamoured by its visuals.
Sound
Credit where credit’s due, the sound design of Dynasty Feud is pretty good. Its main soundtrack is ambient and there is a certain level of ambiguity present in it which makes it sound really good to the ears. Certain sound effects like jumping, special moves and grunts are done really well and goes perfectly with the game. This is a sound design that is very good as an overall package.
Overall
I’d be wrong if I said if I didn’t enjoy myself for a few but fun moments while playing Dynasty Feud, but it is weighed down by the numerous problems plaguing the game. The fighting and mechanics never gelled together and the game never completely clicked for me.
It never fully capitalizes on its massive roster and instead makes a mess out of them with its dynasty feature. It also lacks in content at the moment and while the game has potential and does not do much wrong to deserve a negative recommendation, it is nothing more than an average platform brawler with a steep price tag.
Rating: 50/100
This review was brought to you by GamePhasis

Click here for Video Review
Written Review:
Dynasty Feud is a 2D multi player platform brawler title much in a similar vein to the likes of Super Smash Bros or Brawlhalla in which you are able to select one of 40 unique fighters to play as in combat.
What differentiates this from the likes of Smash or Brawlhalla however is the method of defeating your foes, in those games the goal is to effectively knock the other players out of the stage. Here things are a little more straightforward, simply hit the other player to win.
In fact the vast majority of the characters in this game will die in 1-hit with some exceptions here and there that takes 2, making this game a lot more tense than you would initially expect and creates a lot of room for strategy. Simply put learning the characters abilities and where you should position each character for an attack is key to succeeding in this title.
The game itself is easy enough to simply pick up and play however, but I personally feel this is one of those titles that’s easy to play but can be pretty hard to master as you will need to get a handle of controls before you will likely find yourself having a blast.
In fact my initial impressions of the game were a resounding….”meh”....And as I played more and more I started to get a handle on how the characters move and where I should position attacks resulting in my enjoyment increasing significantly.
Each of the 40 playable characters all belong to a specific faction, depending on which faction you are in, you will be able to access various abilities that can either help you or simply annoy the other players. These come in the forms of the Supers which charges as you fight allowing you to unleash a devastating attack that while can be dodged, will highly likely hit someone. As well as Annoy abilities.
Annoy abilities are designed specifically to….wel annoy the other players and can only be accessed while you are dead or waiting for a character to spawn, these will usually create visual effects to distort the battlefield making it harder for other players to hit each other or avoid stage hazards, or do simply but annoying things such as reversing controls for other players temporarily.
I myself am not too fond of these annoy abilities myself as they are….well annoying….but I like their addition nonetheless as it allows the defeated players to have something to do while waiting for a match to end.
If you are a Solo player however this game is not one for you as it is strictly an online only experience, with the exception of Training mode of course to get a handle on things.
Not only that but the game as it stands at the time of writing is pretty prone to a few bugs that happen pretty consistently which range from literally game breaking or a minor annoyance.
By far the most egregious bug so far is one i’ve found myself replicating surprisingly often, whenever I use the pirate faction of characters and activate the Super, I found that this around 70% of the time desyncs the game with the other players freezing the match in its entirety. Which truth be told is extremely frustrating, forcing me to load up a new game lobby before I am able to play again.
In fact desync issues can occur pretty randomly and I noticed this occur the most with 3 or more players in a single game, I am not sure if the player connections are to blame or if the netcode is a little buggy but it is an issue i’ve come across from time to time, usually things work out when I make a new lobby but it’s still an annoying issue that I hope gets patched soon.
Each of this games stages are well designed and offer a neat amount of variety, with even some stages offering minor destructible environments such as the bank in the wild west train stage and other hazards like the lava eyes in the skull island level.
I have to say as well that I love the overall Art Style of this title, especially in regards to some of the character designs. And the game soundtrack is pretty top as well, and while I don’t usually find myself humming a lot of the music excluding the pretty dope title screen theme, it’s all great to listen to.
Ultimately Dynasty Feud is a pretty fun game especially when playing with a group of friends, however I found the first hour or so when I was adjusting to the controls and gameplay style to be pretty mixed in regards to how I feel. But as I played it more I grew to really enjoy the title despite its bugs and quirks.

best pc version of smash bros,I like it very much cause the characters is unlock by playing.
the dlc is also worth the money since all the characters are unique especially the zombie
very recommended for people that want a simple non combo wombo fighting game

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A Lets Play of Dynasty Feud was featured on my youtube channel
and now onto the review
TL;DR Review
Dynasty Feud is a local AND ONLINE multiplayer one hit KO, fast paced, team based platform fighter game.
-Gameplay-
1-4 players with ONLINE support. I emphazise this because most games I've played and reviewed are local only. There are over 40 characters to choose from each with unique abilities, a great way to familiarizing yourself with the gameplay is through bot matches with different factions.
-Graphics, Sound & Artstyle-
While it doesnt exactly have memorable graphics or sound, the character design along with the level design for this game are clear stand outs in this, and the Dynasty Feud universe becomes immersive because you'll enjoy the characters
-Price-
The retail price is 14.99 USD
-How many hours estimated?-
ONLINE PLAY gives this game so much more life and the fact that people actually play this game online is a welcome surprise to me. It's hard but fun online but it shines obviously with it's local multiplayer giving you in my estimation well over 15 hours of fun gameplay!
-Buy it Now? Wait for Sale? Don't Buy?-
While the game doesn't have a story, the lore of the game is just as good. 40 characters and 8 DYNASTIES, and also the ability to create your own dynasty in ALL STAR MODE, picking your favorite characters (in a balanced matter) to take on other Dynasties. Matches can vary anywhere between 1 min and 10 mins, giving each gameplay a unique feel. Everyone I showed this game to wanted to play more of it, even myself and i was not very good at the game! Dynasty Feud is what indie games should strive to be, fun, fast paced and the ability to go online with friends! The only real downside to this game apart from a few quidbits here and there like some characters feel clunky, levels often get repeated way too much on random, the lack of bots to fill in a online multiplayer match, is that the game costs 15$USD. While it does offer a ton of content and replayability the most I would shell out for Dynasty Feud is 10$USD. Other than that, like I said, the game is great and Kaia Studios should be very proud of their game.
Wait for sale

A really interesting surprise. I expected a fun experience, but it turned out to be deeper than that. The variety that the 40 characters offer and the nuances each of them have can make the combat more complex that it might seem at first.
It is the kind of game I like to play with my friends, fun for beginners and deep for more harcore fighting players. Only having one life gives dynamism to the battles, because as soon as you lose a character you need to think about who will be the next one. The movements and attacks of each character are simple to execute, but timing and deciding which one to use can be crucial (this is where the hardcore gamers shine).
This is the game that perfectly meets the "easy to get, hard to master". It might seem overwhelming at the beginning with the amount of characters you need to learn about (and maybe there is some of that), but for me the initial learning process was really smooth.
The main flaw the game has is the lack of a single player mode. I did not miss it much, but I think it needs to be pointed out.
To sum up I really recommend this game for those who like to beat their friends!