Looking at this game used to give me a warm smile every time I saw it on my shelf or even decided to give another run of Chapter 1 or mess around with the offline arcade/vs stuff. Now, it just makes me sad. Why? Well, while the news is just about two months old by now, it had just recently come to my attention that any active development for this game will be halted indefinitely after the completion of Season 1, with major developers already have been fired (with little public announcement outside of a single paragraph on the Steam page). This includes future prospective fighters, and any further chapters in the Story mode, with the in-development Chapter 2 being cannibalized and having whatever completed assets (lobby items, backgrounds, etc) being repurposed for the release of the final two Season 1 characters.

What makes this all the more heartbreaking is the fact that this game is one made with passion and care of the highest quality, and the game itself is actually quite good. Great even! The combat had a good depth, but still had a nice "pick up and play" sort of feel to it, making it smooth for noobs such as myself to enjoy what it has to offer. The cast of characters is just charming, and the realm of Fœnum is equally as such on top of being quite fascinating. It had quite the unique story mode that I felt was a good way to give it an adventure game type feel that makes it more interactable than just be a series of fights. It had the chops to be an incredibly fun and unique fighter that even I, a non-fighting game fan, greatly enjoyed and would recommend endlessly to my friends.

Now, however, I'm just picking up the pieces that chipped off of my soul from the news and revelation, and no longer have the heart to want to recommend this game... Actually, no, I still recommend getting this game, but don't you dare get a new copy! The publisher MODUS does not deserve a cent going forward, especially since they're going to just keep the IP and let it rot on the shelf, rather than either giving it up to the fans, or passing it back to the original creators. If you have the Deluxe Edition already, great, you can get the rest of the content they'll toss out, whenever that will be. Everyone else? I'm not saying you should fly a particular black and white flag, buuuuuuuuuuut...

Yeah, I'm bitter, but that's what happens when a great idea just gets snuffed quietly, having fans twist in the wind and the creators get hung out to dry with no explanation or heads up. Why is transparency so hard to do when it comes to publishers? Why wasn't anything done to salvage this project? Why does the publisher feel it necessary to keep an IP they CLEARLY don't care about? There are just too many upsetting questions...

I'm probably going to just gonna try to platinum the game in any way I can and at least TRY to jump into a Salt Mines game. Jeez, what another good idea that's just ultimately wasted with this nonsense...

I salute to you, MANE6. You tried to keep a dream alive, despite such incredible hardships (including the Hasbro C&D), and you had what it took to go the distance. It just a major shame that you were bitten by such a venomous snake, and are probably under a bloody NDA so you can't even talk about it.

This is not a -bad- fighting game. it just varies kind of wildly in its qualities. It looks good, but some of the details are a little limited, like creatures in the background, there's only a few characters, only 1 segment of what seems to be a considerably longer story mode that is fun, but has some truly dogshit segments with nigh broken controls and doesn't know if it wants to touch on the vibe of the show or some of the fan transformations, it doesn't play nice with my fight stick or even controllers sometimes, arcade mode ends abruptly without any fanfare, etc. etc. etc.

But I'm not a hard core fighting game player. They likely won't care about most of that, and from what I hear it does a great job of catering to that market. Which seems... odd. I would think since it's based on its previous life as a MLP fan game that it would be a little more accessible and not super difficult? and that paradoxically it would turn off a lot of people in the FGC from it due to its overall aesthetic and concept. or maybe like so much of the phenomenon around MLP it wrestled with toxic masculinity at odds with enjoying things not traditionally for one's demographic with plenty of voices pulling it in several directions. So I guess it kind of makes sense for a project born from that.

The creatures are very cute though and it's pretty fun to hit the buttons and have a sheep throw a herd of dogs at an alpaca who jumps off the arena into the foreground.

Especially with some details like content that's "coming soon" it feels weird that it's not technically still in Early Access, even though it feels like something that still is in many ways.

As someone familiar with how this game was originally supposed to be a MLP fighting game, but was struck down and not allowed to use the license, I thought it was an interesting game to start with back then. It's interesting to see how they pulled and edited assets to make a game where if you cross your eyes you can still see the old influence, but in a lot of ways it seems vastly different.

The story so far is actually pretty interestingly written, as of typing this only 1 out of the 6 story chapters exist, but it's actually well written and was fun to go through, I honestly didn't expect the shift it did.

The graphics are pretty neat, it has a unique style to it and runs at a fast pace, each character is vastly different from the other to the point there's no clones at all in any kind of form.

The controls actually work pretty well, I'm not even close to being a fighting game expert in fact it's one of the few games I actually don't enjoy much outside of story mode and being done with it, but even with my low experience it's easy to pick up and difficult to master.

The music is actually amazing, I love each stage and area along with character music, fits the bill perfectly.

Aside from the game not being done, it's actually a very well made game, hopefully when it finishes it'll be greater, but for what it had to go through, it came out swinging.

On the most recent development update, it was announced in a tiny paragraph after showing off the new characters, that development of this game is due to be ceased indefinitely. The story mode, which was advertised in the Indiegogo campaign and was part of a stretch goal is now scrapped after years of being told it was coming and that development was being done. What a joke.
With the recent clearance and closure of Mane6's merch store, the lengthy wait for the second half of the season pass and lack of updates after the change of publisher, it was pretty obvious something was going on behind the scenes, and it shows. Most likely, this wasn't the fault of the developers, at least I'd like to imagine so, but possibly on the new publisher, Modus, and if so, I wish them the best with their future projects, however as it stands I don't believe I can recommend Them's Fightin' Herds any longer. Due to the development being halted and no doubt that the already small playerbase is going to drastically shrink in the coming months and years, I don't see the game's servers lasting long either.
This is an incredibly disappointing turn of events, as I feel this game had so much potential, so many interesting and fresh ideas for a fighting game, such an interesting cast of characters and world, and in the end it all got cut short before it could reach its true potential.

YOU WANNA LEARN HOW TO DO A FUCKIN INFNITE TEACH YOU EASIEST SHIT IN THE MOTHERFUCKING FIGHTING IS MA- THEM'S FIGHTING HERDS ALRIGHT YOU WANNA-
SIEGE CANNON
6A
SIEGE CANNON
236C
KEEP THE RHYTHM UP IF YOU FUCK UP THE RHYTHM THE MOTHERFU- COMBO WILL DROP

While a big chunk of the FGC wouldn't play a game if the character designs is not full with belts and anime bs, i kind of enjoy the brony artstyle, i watched mlp when i was doing baby sitting and i got attached to the series somewhat.
Outside from the artstyle, not so outstanding FG with a great training mode, frame data tools, trials and cpu options, is the kind of game that you don't keep playing 'cus its good or it has unique mechanics, the quality and polish are directed for the QOL things, labbing this game is fun as fuck.
GGPO is a bless.

almost impossible to recommend but easily one of my fav fighting games. small cast of characters but they all feel super idealized and fleshed out, they're all really fun and the combat is sick. love the meter mechanics. it isn't all out yet but the story mode is cute as hell and surprisingly ambitious with dungeons, towns, platforming-esque challenges and boss fights + fun writing. the music whoops ass and the art style, while obviously not everyone's thing, is really well executed. the designs are adorable and they animate pretty well. it sucks that people pass up on it because they're fucking cowards and can't handle it but that's whatever ig

An incredibly well-made indie fighting game. Cute characters with fun personalites, an expressive combo system, and seamless GGPO rollback netcode. The development story of how this was originally a MLP fangame, got taken down by Hasbro, and then rose from the rubble to gain its own identity through the hard work of its developers and contributions of the fanbase is honestly inspiring. The game's excellent tutorial also make it a great first fighting game for anyone looking to get into the genre.

My only complaints are the limited roster of 7 characters (so far), the story mode only having one chapter finished, and the small player base. Hopefully the developers keep supporting the game so that it eventually feels more like a complete package because the core of what's there is pretty fun so far.