Developer: One True Game Studios/Iron Galaxy Studios
Publisher: Iron Galaxy Studios
Genre: Fighting
Platforms: Microsoft Windows/PlayStation 3/PlayStation Vita
Released: August 20, 2013
Website: www.divekick.com

Ratings

Design: 8.7/10
Gameplay: 8.7/10
Presentation: 8.1/10
Overall score: 8.4/10

Fighting games provide an environment for people to beat each other up in the digital world, and have a very tightly-knit community of hardcore enthusiasts, professional players and event organisers. One of the major issues that have plagued fighting games, however, is the complex control scheme and the hours of practice required to master your character of choice, which puts off most people.

Fortunately, the good people at Iron Galaxy Studios have come up with an ingenious solution to this ordeal.

Enter Divekick, a hilariously goofy yet surprisingly deep fighting game that works on only two buttons. The game’s major drawing factor is its simplicity; players control their character using two buttons only – aptly named ‘dive’ and ‘kick’– in the standard fighting game style of 1v1. There are no directional inputs or special commands, which makes things really simple, yet learning to master the precise timing of your attacks is where the game shows its brilliance.

The first person to land the attack in a round wins; hence each round can be won with one carefully-placed hit. The fact that the players have a life-bar when only a single attack is needed to win is obviously just some tongue-in-cheek humour. There’s also a special meter called Kickfactor, that fills up the more you kick, making your dives and kicks a lot faster. Special gems can be equipped before matches to provide you with stat bonuses.

Players can also take each other down using headshots, which causes slowed movement and Kickfactor depletion in the next round. While the premise is simple, there’s a lot of depth to the game in terms of the character moves and properties, their dive/kick speed and the various mind games you can play with your opponents in order to best them in a match. The game touts a story mode along with options for local and online versus play. Matchmaking is near-lag free, and works wonderfully on the GGPO net code. Divekick has plenty of humorous in-jokes if you’re familiar with the fighting game genre, though some particular references will be entirely lost on players who are not hardcore fanatics of the genre.

As a budget title, Divekick certainly is its money’s worth in terms of fun gameplay and humorous content. It’s an endearing love-letter to all fighting game fans and there’s some real passion to the entire thing. If you can find a friend to play with, then Divekick should be able to give you plenty of hours of enjoyable fun. Whether it’s the silly humour, the sheer simplicity, smart depth or the curiosity of just how the game works, consider giving this one a shot.