“Predictable epilogue“, you might say. In 2012, the Mane6 team came together to create the derivative My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, where the characters from the children’s series kick each other in the lower abdomen. Gameplay with little onions, licked graphics for a fangame, a very lively community at the time: all the stars aligned before the Hasbro meteor, holder of the rights, fell on them with a formal notice in 2013. Never mind. Lauren Faust, creator of the series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (and veteran of Powerpuff Girls, sorry), joins the team to create new characters that the community will like. The project reappears under the name Them’s Fightin’ Herds in 2015 with a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. With $586,000 raised, it’s a success.
The horse was so awesome
Them’s Fightin’ Herds planned ambitious single-player content, with a colossal Story mode in the vein of BlazBlue and other Guilty Gear. If the first chapter was published in April 2020, the second part was long overdue. The arrival of Modus as publisher in 2022 gave renewed hope to fans who saw the months tick by without progress. Alas. With around forty players per day on Steam, Them’s Fightin’ Herds patina in the guacamole. Mane6’s official blog post doesn’t give any specific reason, but money seems the obvious cause behind their removal.
This is not a quality problem: despite its furry-adjacent aesthetic repulsive to ordinary mortals, the gameplay of Them’s Fightin’ Herds has an excellent reputation, with very honorable graphic design for a small team. It relies on the Z-Engine, which proved its worth with the excellent Skullgirls.
What future for this niche project? Mane6 commits to completing the Season Pass with two additional characters. The Nidra tapir, inspired by bakus dream eaters of Japanese folklore, will be able to alternate fluidly between three different postures to put pressure on their opponent. Conversely, the large quadrupedal lizard Baihe will bring up the rear with gameplay of zone described as a real fortress. Three additional arenas will be included in the coming months. Finally, Mane6 announces that certain rewards from the Indiegogo campaign will have to be truncated. More information is coming soon.
Ironically, the original project was unearthed by three fans in 2018 under the name MLP: Fighting is Magic Aurora. This version continues to receive balance updates without Hasbro worrying about them.