Variety is the spice of life for the fighting game genre, and it’s only become easier to find something that can pique specific interests in terms of gameplay and/or presentation. Every once in a while though, something comes along that looks far more different than anything else. One of the best examples of this is Them’s Fightin’ Herds, which had once started as a fan-made My Little Pony title and then developed into having its own roster of ungulate characters. If playing as a cute pacifist lamb and beating up an American southern-sounding cow named Arizona is your idea of fun, you can’t go wrong playing this.

It’s possible you’ve heard about this game before or maybe even seen it played. It was originally released in Early Access back in 2018 and then had a full release on PC platforms starting in 2020. It was only earlier this year that console ports were announced for the Nintendo Switch as well as for the current and previous generations of Xbox and PlayStation consoles. While there are some caveats about playing it on Nintendo’s portable console, the experience is still plenty of fun.

Visuals are a big reason that makes it so distinct. A fighting game consisting of four-legged hooved animals is a unique trait in itself, and that is only accentuated by both the cartoony designs and wonderful sprite work. You don’t need to be a fan of its influences to appreciate how great everything looks. There’s no way I couldn’t also mention how fun all the different character color palettes are, especially with their numerous and varied references.

Stages can leave a little to be desired, but many of them have multiple variants to change the way they look, whether it’s a time of day change or weather-related. Toggling background characters from the gameplay options menu also helps spruce them up a little bit. Unfortunately, a noticeable drawback is that this port doesn’t look as crisp as it does on PC or other consoles. The art style mostly mitigates that problem though, and the end product is still a great-looking one.

Going hand in hand with the visuals is the overall presentation. Each stage is brought to life by appropriate BGM and a delightful dynamic music system that overlays character-specific versions. The characters themselves are all charming enough thanks to their incredible voice actors.

What fills them to the brim with personality are their animations. All of Velvet’s attacks relay how narcissistic she is. Pom looks reluctant throughout all of her attacks and some are even accidental. The cinematic level 3 supers that were added earlier this year cement even further how the characters’ personalities are as diverse as their gameplay.

Speaking of, the gameplay is the next vital part. All seven character offer their own style, and all of the different mechanics lead to a fighting game with a high skill ceiling. Even though it’s packed with a lot to learn, it can’t be understated how accommodating and educational it can be for players new to the genre. Although Skullgirls has long been known for being ahead of the curve in terms of teaching the fundamentals for the fighting game genre, developer Mane6 didn’t slouch in providing great tools and fun knowledge checks for the players.

Most obvious here are the tutorial and training modes. The former thoroughly breaks down everything that’s necessary to know. A lot of basic fighting game mechanics are covered here from converting ground-to-air combos to explaining blockstun and hitstun. Each character also has personalized sections covering all of their moves, advanced combos, and even proper links and resets. It’s all taught well enough that it feels comprehensive without being an information overload.

Training mode is packed with many options to lab a character and learn how they measure against others. I was particularly impressed that along with the always-appreciated hitbox and collision box displays, additional options included displaying sprite points and center lines to distinguish the center of a character. Extra points that better show grab ranges are an option as well. Multiple recordings can also be made to set up a variety of wakeup, block recovery, and hitstun recovery responses.

If the small taste of combos in the tutorial wasn’t enough, the trials available under the combo training tab are sure to satisfy. Each character has its own set of combo trials ranging from beginner to master. They’re a great challenge to take on after learning the ins and outs of a character from their specialized tutorials.

On top of the arcade and versus CPU modes, the other notable single-player method of play is the story mode. It starts you off on a large world map that’s seen from a top-down perspective, which is already very different from most fighting game story modes/campaigns. There are certainly some old-school RPG vibes with branching dialogue choices, side quests, items (hats) to equip your character with, and a cute pixel style. Only one chapter of it is finished right now, with more expected to release in the future.

Where it begins to feel more familiar is with enemy encounters and trial stones. Playing against enemies is mainly a CPU battle, but some have more unique boss-like abilities. Trial stones meanwhile mix traditional fighting with platforming. Both provide fun interactable methods of making movements, such as jumps and dashes, more digestible for new players.

Online play will be most important for people and I’m happy to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is admittedly supported by a small community, however, full cross-platform play balances that out and ensures you can always connect with someone.

Even when the ping was on the higher side, every online match I had ran well thanks to the rollback netcode. Although there are casual ranks, it’s important to point out that there is no proper ranked mode, and it’s not in the works either. This is due to the size of the community, and I can understand the logic behind the decision.

I was admittedly surprised to be such a big fan of the pixel lobbies. Using the same style as the story mode is a nice touch and all of the many customization items are a great way to stand out. More items can be purchased with the salt currency, which can be found from randomly spawning chests or mining it from the salt mines.

Of course, those just looking for pure gameplay can create/search for a classic lobby. Another option is to make use of the casual match search option from the main menu or while in a pixel lobby. Training mode can also be accessed in the meantime too. The pixel lobbies being an option go a long way in making it easier to enjoy.

That does bring me to what I don’t like about playing it, specifically on the Nintendo Switch. First is that many looking to play this seriously are going to require a Pro Controller or another equivalent. Neither the analog stick nor the directional buttons of the Joy-Con controllers are well suited for some of the motions required to perform some moves. Seasoned players will already expect this so I only mention this for any new players and because it conversely is pretty fun to play on the go in handheld mode.

The other issue I have is with the loading. While gameplay performance is totally fine, and I didn’t notice any discrepancies between my time playing it docked and handheld, loading is consistently slow. No matter how I played or whether it was an offline or online mode, I would sometimes be stuck staring at a blank screen for eight to fourteen seconds as I waited to play a new fight. Those who have played it on PC or other consoles will definitely notice this. Any new players are likely to notice it as well with back-to-back fights in arcade mode and story mode.

Them’s Fightin’ Herds is an enjoyable fighting game to play on the Nintendo Switch, even with some restrictions. It is similar to the other console versions in that it has fewer features than the PC version and uniquely it has noticeably long loading times that anyone can recognize. On the other hand, unless you have a Steam Deck, no other platform can offer the fun of playing it portably. Crossplay is also a huge advantage since fighting games without it commonly have just a tiny fraction of their overall community playing on the Nintendo console.

Past all the platform differences is the same lovingly crafted work that has long been supported by a loyal community. With this recent push onto more platforms and a season pass of four new characters being added in the future, now is a wonderful time to jump in and horse around with a fun community.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Them’s Fightin’ Herds was provided by Modus Games for this review.

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Them's Fightin' Herds

$19.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Charming Visuals and Characters
• Easy to Pick Up, Hard to Master
• Offers Great Ways to Learn
• Cross-play and Rollback Netcode
• Dynamic Music System

Cons

• Loading Times
• Not as Fun with Joy-Cons
• Offers Less Features Than PC Version