?In Marvel we play for money, but in Divekick we play for souls??
With the recent saturation of fighting games back on to consoles, it was inevitable that the ever growing fighting game community would find something irritating that spanned the majority of the more popular ones and create something that really exposed the creators of those games for their wrong doings. Team that saturation of fighting games with the fact that it?s never been easier for an indie team to publish a game due to Steam, Sony, and Kickstarter, and suddenly the 2D fighting game Divekick seems to have been a perfectly timed concept.
Divekick was first created as a kind of joke to point fun at the strength of Yun and Yang?s dive kick moves in Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition. Since then, and many tournaments later, Divekick has blown up from a two character in-joke for the fighting game community into a fully fledged 13 character fighting game while still maintaining the vast majority of it?s original jokes and quirks. The original Kickstarter for the project (though proving successful) was cancelled due to the assistance and take over in production by Iron Galaxy Games.
The premise of Divekick is simple; at the start of the round dive into the air with the dive button, then time your decent towards your opponent with the kick button. That?s basically it. The aim of the game is to hit your opponent during your descent with your foot, hence the name Divekick. Each dive kick does 1 billion damage, draining the entire health bar of the opponent instantly knocking them out and winning you the round. There is no conventional block button for any character nor are there movement buttons, there is only the dive button and kick button. The first person to win 5 rounds wins the match.
You may at this point wonder why this is even a game, but remember this is just the bare basics of Divekick. Much like other conventional 2D fighting games, Divekick is not absent of a special bar that builds up to activate character specific special moves. The Kick Meter, as it?s named in Divekick, builds for every kick you perform with your character. When a certain amount of the meter is filled your character can perform the now available special techniques. Each character gets a ground technique and an air technique and they vary greatly from character to character from simple things like a super fast downward kick to stalling the opponent out by showing off your bobble head.
If you don?t use any special moves and your Kick meter builds fully your character will enter Kick Factor. Kick factor is a play on Marvel vs. Capcom 3?s X Factor mechanic and gives your character heightened speed and higher jumps until the meter runs out.
The 13 characters of Divekick can offer a vastly different player experience. Choosing to play as Dive or Kick, the games flagship characters, will give you the bare simple idea of what Divekick is about, however the experience of the player will change exponentially when going to a character such as Stream or Jefailey. Stream requires you to dive twice before being able to kick and can steer his Divekick, whereas Jefailey has an extremely short dive kick that resembles Haggar?s drop kick from Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but can charge his kick and can completely get rid of his opponents Kick gauge.
By breaking down each character and looking at their personal traits and play styles, Divekick suddenly opens up from just a joke game filled to the brim with brilliant fighting game community references and jokes to a relevant and interesting 2D fighting game. Divekick really stands to make a player stop and wonder about fighting games now and just how over the top they are with added and secret mechanics. A player can dig deep into the inner workings of Street Fighter 4 and find brilliant plays like the Vortex and tick throws, but a lot of players still are able to dig deep into the virtually simple and comboless Street Fighter 2.
Divekick?s lack of combos and need for quick fingered arcade stick talent allows players to get straight into what a lot of top players feel define them as top players and what they feel contributes a lot to the outcome of a match; mind games. In case you weren?t aware, fighting games are as much psychological warfare as they are about combo execution. Divekick is no exception. If you get inside a players head and make them scared to attack then you?ll have a far easier time of closing out games than if they maintain the confidence to push you around.
The lack of mechanics also bites Divekick somewhat. Divekick is, as far as character strength goes, largely about matchups. Certain characters just seem to deal with other characters better and some characters of course seem to really struggle to have any kind of dominance over others. Because there is no blocking and one hit is the round over there isn?t a lot of options for hiding at the edge of the screen (although running is sometimes advised) so Divekick is a fairly aggressive game. The problem is, if your character is kicking at a certain trajectory that the opponent can easily get around with the tools his/her character has you?re more or less screwed. This might be where utilising special moves comes into play but for a lot of characters it doesn?t make a difference.
Overall. Divekick is a great game to play both for fun and as a different outlet for the pro gamer within. Whether you know that Mr. N is Marn or you know who Markman is or not doesn?t matter and shouldn?t take away from your enjoyment of Divekick. Is Divekick the one true game as the name of the founding group of the game would suggest? Maybe not. However Divekick is a definitive fighting game of the genre and balances technical with simple in ways that companies like Capcom have been trying to do for years, although largely failing and just cluttering their game in the process. Divekick is an easy game to jump into but offers the returning player the rightful advantages of character and matchup knowledge that can give him/her an advantage over a newer player. That isn?t to say new players will be blown up by veteran Divekickers, as the game itself is so simple in it?s foundation that anything could happen.
Divekick might well be the only good 2D fighting game on the market that players can enjoy without feeling the need to rage or without feeling like they were cheated in any way. The game is formed in such a way that you losing is always your fault, and that?s something that fighting games have tried to do for a long time. My real gripe is that there doesn?t seem to be enough stages to play on, a lot of duplicates on arcade mode.
Is it fun? Yes
Is online any good? Yes (even on Vita)
Looks: Vibrant and colourful, even the load screen is gifted with witty comments.
Sound: The music is decent and the characters and voiced excellently.
Game play: It?s 2 buttons, how can it go wrong?
6/10
Not a massive game, but for what it is it?s a great game. If 5 is average then sitting on a 6 is definitely an accolade the developers can wear with pride.
---------------------------------------------------------------
This used to be were I put my reviews, don't know whether I will keep using this tumblr but yeah.
http://grindfantasyiii.tumblr.com/
With the recent saturation of fighting games back on to consoles, it was inevitable that the ever growing fighting game community would find something irritating that spanned the majority of the more popular ones and create something that really exposed the creators of those games for their wrong doings. Team that saturation of fighting games with the fact that it?s never been easier for an indie team to publish a game due to Steam, Sony, and Kickstarter, and suddenly the 2D fighting game Divekick seems to have been a perfectly timed concept.
Divekick was first created as a kind of joke to point fun at the strength of Yun and Yang?s dive kick moves in Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition. Since then, and many tournaments later, Divekick has blown up from a two character in-joke for the fighting game community into a fully fledged 13 character fighting game while still maintaining the vast majority of it?s original jokes and quirks. The original Kickstarter for the project (though proving successful) was cancelled due to the assistance and take over in production by Iron Galaxy Games.
The premise of Divekick is simple; at the start of the round dive into the air with the dive button, then time your decent towards your opponent with the kick button. That?s basically it. The aim of the game is to hit your opponent during your descent with your foot, hence the name Divekick. Each dive kick does 1 billion damage, draining the entire health bar of the opponent instantly knocking them out and winning you the round. There is no conventional block button for any character nor are there movement buttons, there is only the dive button and kick button. The first person to win 5 rounds wins the match.
You may at this point wonder why this is even a game, but remember this is just the bare basics of Divekick. Much like other conventional 2D fighting games, Divekick is not absent of a special bar that builds up to activate character specific special moves. The Kick Meter, as it?s named in Divekick, builds for every kick you perform with your character. When a certain amount of the meter is filled your character can perform the now available special techniques. Each character gets a ground technique and an air technique and they vary greatly from character to character from simple things like a super fast downward kick to stalling the opponent out by showing off your bobble head.
If you don?t use any special moves and your Kick meter builds fully your character will enter Kick Factor. Kick factor is a play on Marvel vs. Capcom 3?s X Factor mechanic and gives your character heightened speed and higher jumps until the meter runs out.
The 13 characters of Divekick can offer a vastly different player experience. Choosing to play as Dive or Kick, the games flagship characters, will give you the bare simple idea of what Divekick is about, however the experience of the player will change exponentially when going to a character such as Stream or Jefailey. Stream requires you to dive twice before being able to kick and can steer his Divekick, whereas Jefailey has an extremely short dive kick that resembles Haggar?s drop kick from Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but can charge his kick and can completely get rid of his opponents Kick gauge.
By breaking down each character and looking at their personal traits and play styles, Divekick suddenly opens up from just a joke game filled to the brim with brilliant fighting game community references and jokes to a relevant and interesting 2D fighting game. Divekick really stands to make a player stop and wonder about fighting games now and just how over the top they are with added and secret mechanics. A player can dig deep into the inner workings of Street Fighter 4 and find brilliant plays like the Vortex and tick throws, but a lot of players still are able to dig deep into the virtually simple and comboless Street Fighter 2.
Divekick?s lack of combos and need for quick fingered arcade stick talent allows players to get straight into what a lot of top players feel define them as top players and what they feel contributes a lot to the outcome of a match; mind games. In case you weren?t aware, fighting games are as much psychological warfare as they are about combo execution. Divekick is no exception. If you get inside a players head and make them scared to attack then you?ll have a far easier time of closing out games than if they maintain the confidence to push you around.
The lack of mechanics also bites Divekick somewhat. Divekick is, as far as character strength goes, largely about matchups. Certain characters just seem to deal with other characters better and some characters of course seem to really struggle to have any kind of dominance over others. Because there is no blocking and one hit is the round over there isn?t a lot of options for hiding at the edge of the screen (although running is sometimes advised) so Divekick is a fairly aggressive game. The problem is, if your character is kicking at a certain trajectory that the opponent can easily get around with the tools his/her character has you?re more or less screwed. This might be where utilising special moves comes into play but for a lot of characters it doesn?t make a difference.
Overall. Divekick is a great game to play both for fun and as a different outlet for the pro gamer within. Whether you know that Mr. N is Marn or you know who Markman is or not doesn?t matter and shouldn?t take away from your enjoyment of Divekick. Is Divekick the one true game as the name of the founding group of the game would suggest? Maybe not. However Divekick is a definitive fighting game of the genre and balances technical with simple in ways that companies like Capcom have been trying to do for years, although largely failing and just cluttering their game in the process. Divekick is an easy game to jump into but offers the returning player the rightful advantages of character and matchup knowledge that can give him/her an advantage over a newer player. That isn?t to say new players will be blown up by veteran Divekickers, as the game itself is so simple in it?s foundation that anything could happen.
Divekick might well be the only good 2D fighting game on the market that players can enjoy without feeling the need to rage or without feeling like they were cheated in any way. The game is formed in such a way that you losing is always your fault, and that?s something that fighting games have tried to do for a long time. My real gripe is that there doesn?t seem to be enough stages to play on, a lot of duplicates on arcade mode.
Is it fun? Yes
Is online any good? Yes (even on Vita)
Looks: Vibrant and colourful, even the load screen is gifted with witty comments.
Sound: The music is decent and the characters and voiced excellently.
Game play: It?s 2 buttons, how can it go wrong?
6/10
Not a massive game, but for what it is it?s a great game. If 5 is average then sitting on a 6 is definitely an accolade the developers can wear with pride.
---------------------------------------------------------------
This used to be were I put my reviews, don't know whether I will keep using this tumblr but yeah.
http://grindfantasyiii.tumblr.com/