Review: Divekick

Whether you’re a hardcore fighting game fan or someone who doesn’t even know what a Divekick is, you should probably play Divekick. The easy-to-pick-up controls and mechanics make it a fairly simple game that is fun for everybody. The in-game jokes and references also makes the game enjoyable for hardcore fighting game fans even when the actual mechanics are pretty straightforward.rnrn

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rnrnSo what exactly is Divekick? Divekick is a 2D fighting game where you only use two buttons. The two buttons you use coincidentally correspond to the moves dive and kick. Though because of the name of the game and the name of the move based around the game you dive up into the air instead of jumping. You don’t move your character by any other means other than diving and kicking around the stage. By combining the use of the buttons you perform the one main move in the game, the Divekick, and if you hit your opponent you will instantly kill them. Because of this one-hit-kill nature the game is usually super fast paced — as you jump and dive through the air dodging your opponents attack while also trying to hit them. What’s really great is that you can customize the control scheme so you can use any two buttons you want. Do you want dive to be L1 and have kick be R2? Go right ahead! Have dive and kick be whatever buttons you want. You even use the two buttons to navigate the menus which is pretty funny. The only other button you ever use is the pause button but that’s for obvious reasons. Because of the super simple control scheme compared to other fighting games Divekick is an incredibly easy game to pick up and play and it takes less time to get good at then other fighting games.rnrnEach of Divekick’s thirteen characters have two special moves. In any other fighting game pulling off the special move would require memorization and lots of practice until you could execute them with perfection. But because of Divekick’s two button control scheme pulling off the special moves is very easy. Each character has a special meter which they fill by diving and kicking and which they can spend on either their special air move or special ground move. To pull off the ground move just stand in place and hit both buttons and to pull off the air move hit both buttons while in the air. It’s super easy and makes getting good with each character a lot easier than it would be in any other fighting game. Because of the way the fighting mechanics work the playing field for new and experienced players is more even than any other fighting game. That right there is the most exciting part of the game and it’s an idea I hope other fighting games take and run with. Playing with actual humans is an absolute blast and when you got some cool people to play with Divekick becomes something really special. The back-and-forth nature of the fighting in Divekick is incredibly fun and can make for some real intense fights.rnrn

rnrnThe human drama that happens when playing fighting games makes playing Divekick awesome but the other reason you want to play against real people is because the single player AI isn’t very good. Even on the normal difficulty the AI is pretty dumb and will sometimes just stand in place and won’t move until you start diving and kicking. It can feel like the AI is diving and kicking without any rhyme or reason sometimes and their victories can feel cheap, especially during the end-game boss battles. The AI being bad isn’t that big of a deal since like any fighting game you are supposed to be playing real people.rnrnThe multiplayer mode consist of local mode and online mode. The online mode features ranked and unranked matches as well as the ability to set up lobbies. Your lobby can only ever have two people in them which is a bit of a bummer. The idea of having a bigger lobby or an endless battle mode would be pretty awesome.  The online mode is totally functional and I had a lot of fun playing against random people online.  If you don’t have local people to play against, then the online mode is a totally acceptable way for you to play against opponents who aren’t AI.rnrnrnrnThe single player portion of the game is its story mode which is structured similar to an Arcade mode in other fighting games. You get the characters setup through some comic book cutscenes and then playthrough a handful of matches while learning the characters story along the way. Eventually you face the boss and once you defeat them you get some more comic style cutscenes as you get the characters ending. The characters stories are pretty good and have some real funny writing to them. The characters themselves are well drawn and animated and are pretty funny in their own unique way. The characters go from silly yet subtle references to other fighting games all the way up to Seth Killian, former fighting game community manager at Capcom US being a playable character.rnrnrnrnThe clever writing doesn’t stop at the characters and stories however. There are tons of cheeky loading screen messages that reference everything from e-Sports to Deadly Premonition director Swery 65.  The game’s announcer is pretty stereotypical in that he is kind of annoying but it all fits with what Divekick is trying to do. The voice samples that the characters have while fighting are all pretty stupid and cheesy but again, it all makes sense considering what Divekick is all about. The game uses a gem system to give your characters a slight boost before the match which is a direct reference to Street Fighter X Tekken’s gem system. In one of the levels you can see Iron Galaxy CEO Dave Lang sitting there watching the fight. Divekicks’s sense of humour is extremely referential and because of that not all players will get the jokes. I didn’t personally understand all the jokes and references but I got most of them. Maybe I am just a dork that way…rnrn rnrnThe two button controls make Divekick  a unique game where almost anybody could pick up, play it and have fun. You’d have to absolutely hate fighting games to not have some sort of fun playing this. If you have considered getting into fighting games but could never find a title to start with, Divekick makes for a perfectly entry into the world of fighting games. For fighting game enthusiasts there are plenty of jokes and in-game references to give them something else to enjoy besides just fighting. Divekick is an awesome game no matter what you’re coming to it for and it is certainly one of the most fascinating games of the year.rnrn Official Game Sitern