Royalty Free-for-All Screenshot
Image: AAAA Games, LLC

Half of the appeal of Nintendo's legendary Smash Bros series is seeing a bunch of familiar characters from across videogame history beating seven shades of polygons out of each other. Coming from ambitiously named indie studio AAAA Games, Royalty Free-for-All argues that we can do just as well with public domain, copyright-free characters from throughout media history. Mother Goose vs Sir Lancelot? Nessie throwing down with The Quick Brown Fox? Given the game's Kickstarter success, they might just be onto something here.

Credit where due, Royalty Free-for-All got where it did with a little bit more imagination than 'let's just use public domain characters'. Specifically, each character here is a retro cartoon reimagining, often far detached from their expected roots. Sweeney Todd is a living, murderous barber-pole. Dorothy has been transmuted into a dog to better get along with Toto. Piglet is based on the original toy that in turn inspired Winnie the Pooh's author. And yes, that is Lilith, from biblical apocrypha.

While not the largest of character lineups, it's a diverse and interesting fourteen-character launch lineup (13 regular, one secret), with the standard competitive and single-player modes that you'd expect. Interestingly, this is one of the few platform fighters to do away with directional inputs in favor of Light, Heavy, and Special attack buttons. And, of course, it boasts full rollback netcode for stable online play, because sometimes you can't get three pals crammed around your TV.

One final release hurdle the game has hit is that only the United States gets the full experience here. Due to licensing and copyright shenanigans internationally, the rest of the world gets some weird cuts, with the Hundred-Acre Wood being replaced with Sherwood Forest and some pieces of music getting nixed among other changes. The store page has a breakdown of everything that was sacrificed in the name of legality, along with an apology, stating "We're a small team and the copyright stuff took all our localization ability. We're really sorry!".

The big question is whether this scrappy new upstart can challenge the big dogs already on Steam, with competitors like Fraymakers (featuring an assortment of indie characters) and the Rivals of Aether series (featuring extreme modding potential for custom characters and arenas) already well established. Plus, the quiet supremacy of Ubisoft juggernaut Brawlhalla. Royalty Free-for-All has a tough fight ahead of it, but if there's anything playing Smash has taught me, it's that you don't overlook the underdog - even a Bowser player has his day.

Royalty Free-For-All is out now on Steam for £10.75/$12, with a significant 33% launch discount until August 25th, with a demo available for those wanting to try before they buy.