If I'm gonna be completely honest, I'm... not that excited for Rivals of Aether 2. Like, nearly everything I've heard about it so far makes me less and less interested. The switch to 3D makes the game look... not exactly worse. But I would've much preferred a higher resolution pixel art aesthetic similar to the ones seen in Fraymakers or Dungeons of Aether. or even ditch the pixel art and make a regular 2D animated game. And I don't know why, but the way the characters and camera move makes me think of Brawlout for some reason.
Nonetheless, I do think they did the best that they could've in the visual side. And it does look really good. However, my main gripe comes with adding back shields, grabs, and ledges. Especially ledges. The walljumping is part of the core gameplay of Rivals and I am very wary of what they'll do to make it unique without them. We're entering an age of platform fighters where "It's like Smash Bros but it's not a Smash Bros game" is becoming less and less of a selling point. And the ledge and getup specials, while unique ideas, I feel they're too situational to really be a big deal. I'll probably stick to the original game for now. Though we've only seen a few barebones showcases and this is very obviously an early alpha. So there could still be some new stuff to get me excited.
But that's enough of me whining about a game series I love getting more installments, love, and polish.