 What's up everybody I'm the Mangoos, you were awesome and it's time once again to explain the differences between all these games that are using the same damn assets. I'll also throw ethereal in here since people seem to think it's another pair of zombie when that game is its own thing. Today I'll cover who's making the game, plans in progress for console release, current accessibility, how they're funded, what the objective differences are, and my subjective opinions about each one. The games in question are predecessor, overprime, fault, and ethereal. Some line up front so as not to waste anyone's time, predecessor is the most like the original paragon, overprime has made massive changes that will appeal to players who want something a little faster paced, fault lies somewhere in the middle with some interesting additions to the paragon formula, but no real wild deviations. Ethereal is completely different, uses their own assets, and is in no way affiliated with paragon, whether that's good or bad is up to you. Let's start with predecessor since they still retain the largest community. Predecessor is set to be a prequel to Paragon and is in development by Omeda Studios. They do have plans for an eventual console release, but haven't really shown progress towards that goal. There have been a few weekend long tests of the game, and the most recent was in August which I wasn't able to play hence the older footage here. The game is not currently playable. Omeda is funding the development of Predecessor via outside investments, the first round of which brought in around $2 million dollars. They were also awarded an epic grant. Some notable members of the Omeda team include popular Paragon content creator RGSA, and the godfather of Paragon himself, Steve Superville in an advisory role. While all of these various projects aim to make improvements to the Paragon base, Predecessor has stayed the closest to the original. Omeda has made changes to the item shop map and hero kits, but nothing quite as significant as the other games. Out of all the Paragon successors, Predecessor has been my personal favorite to play. Not saying it'll be the best for you, but it was the best for me. Cueing into a match of Predecessor just felt like coming home. They've done the most to match everything from projectile and movement speed to field of view and you can immediately tell that when playing. My biggest concerns with Omeda Studios is the recent lack of communication with the community, as well as them possibly having to answer to those outside investors when making decisions about the future of the game. Next up is Overprime. Overprime exists completely outside the world of Agora with their own lore and hero names, however they do use the Paragon assets. Overprime is being produced by Team Soul Leaf. Soul Leaf plans to have Overprime on consoles sometime this year and have shown progress with the PS5 dev kit. While older versions of Overprime were available via server matchmaking or peer to peer networking, the most current version of the game has only been accessible via a recent closed beta test. The game is not currently playable on a regular basis. Soul Leaf was acquired by Netmarble who is paying for the production of Overprime. One of the more notable members of Soul Leaf is Rocket Mania, who single-handedly created his own playable version of Paragon mere months after the assets were released and it was called Overthrow. Overprime has deviated the most from the Paragon formula by making major changes to hero kits, removing a tower from the map and implementing a variety of mechanics with the goal of making the game faster and more exciting. I didn't know how I was going to feel about a faster version of Paragon, but the recent closed beta test was fun as all hell. Soul Leaf has shown that with the backing of Netmarble, they can release heroes faster, create incredible new skins, and they even have a completely original hero plan. The changes took some getting used to and there are improvements that could be made, but the overall experience was fantastic. My biggest concern with Overprime is the Netmarble backing. Netmarble is the largest mobile gaming company in South Korea, and we've already seen from the closed beta that there will be loot boxes in the game. I know loot boxes aren't always bad, but I can't help but feel uneasy seeing them. As long as it's all cosmetics, I'll be cool with it, but I swear to God, if items are locked behind loot boxes, I'll lose my shit. And then we have Fault being developed by Strange Matter Studios. I believe this is meant to be a sequel to Paragon. Strange Matter does have plans to release the game on console eventually, but we haven't seen any progress so far. Fault is the only one of these games that is currently playable and early access can be purchased via Steam. Strange Matter is currently crowdfunded through the community and sustained through purchases of early access, premium currency, and Fault Original Skins. Fault's most notable figure is probably Sylphon, a popular Paragon creator known for his deep dives into the math and statistics of Agora. While Fault hasn't gone as wild as Over Prime, they've still changed or added more to the game than predecessor has with kit changes, hero passives, items, and most notably, aspects that you pick as the match starts. While people will often shit on Fault, the game is actually pretty good. It has the most established gameplay loop and balanced roster out of all of these successors. Most of the time when you see someone saying the game is horrible, it's someone who played the weekend the game released, and it really was terrible back then. While the game is pretty solid now, Strange Matter has shot themselves in the foot repeatedly by only marketing it when it's at its lowest, which has resulted in low player count, which has spiraled into a variety of other problems with matchmaking and player toxicity. While you can theoretically play it 24-7, in practice, you need to wait for prime hours to queue into a PvP match or just play versus AI. My biggest warning with Fault, though, is to be careful of whose opinions you listen to. I don't trust someone's rating of a game if they only have a few hours played a year and a half ago. Last but not least, we have Aetherial, Clash of Souls, in development by Undying Games. They too have console plans, however, we haven't seen any progress yet, nor do we know which console they'll shoot for first. Aetherial recently started having pre-Affatest weekends, and there's been about one a month ever since November. The game is not currently playable. Aetherial is being crowdsourced via Patreon, and they also capitalized on their character designs to take advantage of the NFT market. Aetherial was never meant to be a Paragon successor, and they don't have any of the Paragon heroes. Everything they have is of their own intellectual property, and the entire game is very different from Paragon with 6v6 gameplay and lanes that exist on separate planes of verticality. I make it no secret that I'm really rooting for Aetherial. The game is just cool as all hell with destructible environments, flying heroes, climbing heroes, and all kinds of new mechanics to play around with. I've had a ton of fun in the pre-Affatest weekends with this game. It does need many improvements before it's alpha-ready like the addition of new myths, some better animations, and effects through the overall graphics, but they nailed the fun factor. My biggest concern with Aetherial is the barrier of entry. Even for experienced mobile players, Aetherial can be a little daunting to learn. We saw with Paragon that many content creators shied away from the game simply because they couldn't understand the card system, and content creators are how you market nowadays. They'll need to come up with one hell of a tutorial if they want this game to succeed. So there you have it folks. While three of these games are dipping from the same asset pool, I've only scratched the surface of what makes them all different. Yes, it would be cool if they would all work together on one project to make something better or faster, but it would also be cool if I could teleport and piss Whiskey. Just because it would be nice doesn't mean it's going to happen, so we'll be forced to choose between these games. I think it's possible one or two of them will go on to great success, but the mobile market is already dwindling and with three of these games using the same heroes, not all of them will survive. I can't tell you which one you'll like best. The only thing I could do is give each one an honest try with an open mind and keep you up to date on the facts as well as offering my opinions to anyone who cares. Like the video if you enjoyed it, sub for more 3rd person mobile content, but for now this is the man goose signing off. You guys, have a good one. Man Goose!