Developer: Iron Galaxy Studios
Publisher: Iron Galaxy Studios
Platform: PS3, PSVita, PC
Divekick – Review
Divekick is a new game from Iron Galaxy studios that started out as somewhat of a joke, but with some community support and some help from Kickstarter turned into a game that tries to do something fresh in the fighting game genre, while trying to be a tribute and comment of that same genre at the same time. If someone would describe the game to you, you’d probably think that person was either joking or crazy because the premise of the game sounds pretty crazy, namely a fighting game with only two buttons. Is the game really a joke? Or is there more to Divekick than meets the eye?
Story
With its story mode Divekick decided to go down the classic fighting game route. Each characters story is basically a combination of random fights, with a story woven through it here and there (you recognize these by the small bits of dialogue between the characters at the start of the fight). Add to that a little story bit at the start and the end (here done in a few comic book style panels) and that’s basically it. The dialogues can be quite funny at times, but it’s still somewhat disappointing. We see more and more fighting games try to move away from this and moving towards proper story modes like for example the last Mortal Kombat. This game is somewhat a tribute to fighting games, but tribute or not, it just feels outdated. Admittedly the story mode isn’t why you would or should buy this game, but if you’re not going to do it right, don’t bother doing it at all.
Graphics
When it comes to graphics the best way I can describe Divekicks style is that of a more obscure early 90’s cartoon. That might sound a bit vague or random, but those of you old enough to remember them will just have to take one look at the screenshots and you’ll understand. The game has a drawn 2D style that isn’t the most graphically advanced, but it’s intended that way. It reminds you of older and more obscure fighting games as well and it just totally fits with the theme of the game. It might not always work, but in this game it does. Don’t be misled, Divekick is by no means a bad looking game, just not the newest super high def. graphics are used.
Sound
Soundwise Divekick’s solid. The soundtracks are a bit limited but the available tracks are pretty good , catchy and really fit a fighting game. After an online session I caught myself humming one of the themes hours after I finished playing. The voice acting has a sort of homemade sound to it, but that’s not meant in a bad way. The lines are funny, and well delivered if somewhat cheesy and nonsensical at times ( something that can be said about pretty much the entire game to be honest.) It sounds like the guys at the studio just grabbed some microphone’s , went somewhere quiet and recorded all of it themselves, and if that’s so, it was a great idea.
Gameplay
Time to get down to it, the thing that really makes Divekick unique from any other fighting game ever made, its gameplay. Now when I said that Divekick only has two buttons, I don’t mean that you just have one punch and one kick button and you just fight with those doing combos and stuff. That would be way too normal for the guys at Iron Galaxy. The two buttons in Divekick are the Dive button and the Kick button, and those are literally the only two things you’ll be touching on your controller during the entire fight. No using the sticks or d-pad to move around, no combos or anything like that.
In Divekick you do one thing and one thing only, you do divekicks. You use the dive button to get up into the air, and then whenever you want during your jump you press the kick button to, well, kick. Either to hit your opponent, or move closer to him. You can also use your kick button while standing on the ground which will make your character kick the ground and hop backwards a little bit. On top of all this craziness, every hit is a KO and the winner is the one with the most wins of nine fights. That might sound like a lot but if they weren’t an average fight in Divekick would take less than a minute, even with that many rounds it’s a pretty fast paced game. You also have a super bar at the bottom with 2 special skills for each character that you can use depending on how much of the bar is filled. If you fill it all the way, all of your movements gets a speed boost. You activate these special abilities by pressing the dive and kick button at the same time.
There is something else that makes this game special. None of the characters in Divekick act the same, some don’t jump very high but can cross half a screen with one kick, other kick really fast but kick at a really sharp angle, and another doesn’t jump but teleports. Needless to say the characters and what they do are just as bonkers as the rest of the game and it’s a good thing because they give the game what it needs to not become super repetitive. The one downside is that the character roster feels pretty limited with only 13 characters. That might not sound like such a low number, but with the fast pace of the game you’ll work your way through all of them rather fast.
The question still lingers if the game is any fun with all this crazy things. And the answer is that it’s a blast to play either online or especially with a bunch of friends. The game just plays super smooth and it’s easy for anyone to pick up. A good player will still consistently beat a new player without a doubt. With the lack of combo’s the game boils down to a game of tactics and positioning and shows that for something that looks so simple on the surface, it actually has a surprising amount of depth to it.
Conclusion
So what sounds like a completely insane idea that has no reason why it should ever be good or work, turns out to be a really nice and fresh look on fighting games. I feel the best way to describe what the fine folks at Iron Galaxy did with Divekick is take fighting games, broke them down to their absolute essence, and turned that into a game that might not always be perfect, but it just works and is a bunch of fun in the end!
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