Game Details Developer: One True Game Studios

Publisher: Iron Galaxy Studios

Platform: PS3/Vita cross-buy (reviewed), Windows

Release Date: August 20, 2013

Price: $10

Links: Steam | Official Web site One True Game Studios: Iron Galaxy Studios: PS3/Vita cross-buy (reviewed), WindowsAugust 20, 2013: $10

The story of the fighting game genre is, generally, a story of increasing complexity. When these games rose to prominence in the early '90s with Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat, the basic battle of positioning and timing could be grasped in a lazy afternoon. Sure, you might have to learn a few tricky button combinations for a special move or a flashy fatality, and true experts could string together a few unblockable combos with expert timing. Still, the basics were relatively straightforward and led the genre to dominance.

As the years passed though, fighting game makers seem to have entered an arms race to make their fighting games more arcane and difficult to appreciate. Counters. Super meters. Air dodges. Parries. Different stances. Different "arts." Wave-dashing. Roll cancels. Guard cancels. Free cancels. Super cancels. The glossary needed to be even an intermediate fighting game player these days is so loaded down with detritus as to seem impenetrable.

This isn't altogether a bad thing. Over two decades later, the fighting game genre has remained alive and kicking mainly because developers have introduced these kinds of deeper elements to keep players from getting bored with their mastery of what came before. But this larding of new features and knowledge has made the genre incredibly inaccessible to anyone who hasn't already been immersed in it for years.

Divekick stands proudly and confidently against this trend and is the better for it. By stripping out most of the modern complexities of fighting games and many of the features that were taken for granted even 20 years ago, it reduces the genre to its bare essentials. What's left is a refreshingly pure strategic experience that's still surprisingly deep.

A brief video review of Divekick.

The game somewhat famously started as a late night joke from creator Adam Heart, as he recounts in a PlayStation.Blog post: "What if there was a game called Divekick, and the characters were Dive and Kick, and the buttons were Dive and Kick?" That joke turned into a prototype, which turned into a phenomenon at fighting game tournaments, e-sports events, and gaming conventions for the past year or so. Today, it has become a full-fledged game.

Just like the joke says, the only two buttons in Divekick are Dive—which really means "jump" or "dive straight up into the air," I guess—and Kick—which sends your character hurtling forward and downward through the air with their legs outstretched in attack.

There's no directional input at all, meaning you can't walk or run along the ground in order to gain an advantageous position. If you want to move closer to your opponent, you have to jump and then quickly kick, sending yourself downwards and forwards to a new resting position (and usually exposing yourself to counter attack in the process). You can also press Kick while on the ground to perform a backwards jump, dodging quickly out of harm's way and setting yourself up for a counter-attack in the process.

It's incredible how freeing the lack of options is the first time you play Divekick. There's no need to memorize the button presses for new moves for each character or worry about whether block is assigned to a button or just holding the "back" direction. Every bout in Divekick is sudden death as well: a single well placed kick kills (though you have to kill five times to win a match). This means that there's no varying between slow/powerful and quick/light attacks, or stringing together multiple hits into combos, or timing an attack just right so it hits an opponent as soon as they get up.

Despite the lack of these kinds of accouterments, the core elements of what really make fighting games appealing are all still there. Without all the cruft, you can really focus on the subtle dance of positioning and feints that sits at the heart of any good fighting game. Bouts come down to a refined battle of reflexes and predictions, of figuring out what your opponent is planning to do before he does it, then executing a perfectly timed counter-attack to turn it around on them. It's not about who knows the better combos or who can tap out dozens of button presses with precise timing. It's about who can get into the other player's head first.

You'd think the lack of inputs and moves would limit Divekick's lasting appeal, but like a finely honed parody, there's a surprising amount of depth to the jokey concept. This mainly comes from a selection of 13 highly varied and unique characters, each with their own pros and cons.

Beginning players will probably stick with the straightforward attacks of the brothers Dive and Kick, or the equally straightforward kicks of Mr. N or Kung Pao. After playing a bit, you'll likely move on to an intermediate character like Dr. Shoals, who can change her kicking angle in mid-air, or Uncle Sensei, who changes stances with each leap. Eventually, expert players will probably settle on S-Kill, who has a teleporting double-jump, The Baz, who attacks with a delayed lightning bolt that crosses the entire screen, or Stream, who can arc his kicks while he flies through the air. Each character also has a couple of special moves, activated by pressing both buttons at once. This increases the strategic options a bit further, though you can also ignore these moves and settle on storing up for an extra burst of speed late in the bout.











Each potential character match-up brings a new set of strategies as you try to overcome what the other character has on you with what you have on them. There are a few characters I found pretty useless in my playing, but overall, things seemed relatively well balanced. No character utterly dominated over all the others. In pre-release bouts online, I found players wielding a number of characters quite well, though I'm sure some adjustments will be needed once the general public discovers that one character or another is utterly broken.

While the gameplay design is top notch, the character and story design is a bit troubling. Divekick is heavily steeped in the relatively insular fighting game community, with a multitude of in-jokes and sly references. Most of this will be obtuse to all but the most obsessed genre fan. For each slightly chuckle-worthy bit of dialogue or moment, there is an overplayed racial stereotype, a slightly misogynist character design, or a background element that just feels juvenile. Even if and when these are offered in a knowing, tongue-in-cheek fashion, they can be pretty cringe-worthy.

Playing against the computer is alright, but like any good fighting game, you need a human opponent to get the most out of Divekick. The pre-release version I played had pretty stable netcode, with a minimum of laggy frame dropping even when using the connection for other things. Still, I had trouble inviting specific players to matches and found the ranking system the developers put in place a bit confusing. As a nice touch on the Vita version, two players can play with one system—one using the d-pad and the other using the face buttons for their two inputs.

This is a great feature, because, unlike most fighting games, I can see busting Divekick out of my pocket at a social gathering with other gamers without worrying that they'll feel immediately out of their depth or at a significant disadvantage. Divekick is one of those brilliant games that takes only a minute to learn but may take a lifetime to master all of its intricacies. For a largely lapsed fighting game fan like me, this game helped remind me why I loved the genre in the first place.

The Good

Two button controls can be grasped in literally seconds.

Great, well-balanced character variety leads to interesting strategy variations.

Stripped down gameplay comes down to a pure battle of reflexes and mind games.

Shows a deep understanding of fighting game history and design.

The Bad

I couldn't find any way to invite specific players to a match online.

A lot of borderline racist and misogynist characters and jokes wear thin.

The ugly

Seriously, you can't hear the heavily Asian-accented "Dive-o-keeeek" before every bout without cringing.

Verdict: Buy it and tell your friends to bring alcohol.