Mike talked about quite a few changes or, more accurately, updates to the operation of Zero Tolerance. Tonight, I plan to exemplify a couple of those. Obviously, this will be the first "Second Opinion" piece done here. Additionally, I'll be breaking Divekick down and commenting on some very particular areas, and giving it an overall letter grade at the end. Let's begin.
Divekick - Fighting Games Made Simple
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but several years back I was actually involved in the competitive fighting game community. I played air-dashy doujin fighter Melty Blood competitively, and dabbled in other games such as Guilty Gear XX and Street Fighter IV. For about a year, I roomed with one of the best Nu - 13 players stateside during BlazBlue Calamity Trigger. Mind you, I was never particularly good at any of these games and never placed in a single tournament. However, I enjoyed the community and the competitive spirit, and environment, these games cultivated.
The reason I left the scene was simple. The execution requirement to be proficient, let alone considered good, ranged from inconvenient to completely frustrating. It wasn't enough to understand the characters, their abilities, the match-ups and the players. You had to learn combos to maximize your damage. You had to learn tricks to extend the range of your attacks beyond what the game creators had originally allowed for. All of this was an unnecessary physical barrier put in place to disrupt the mental chess that is, was, and should be played between competitors. Instead, I retired from fighting games and moved on to the card game Magic: The Gathering (which I would then quit due to an irritating artificial rarity system that drives prices towards absurdity).
I give you all of this exposition so that you can understand my elation when, 5 years later, I got my hands on Divekick: the world's first two-button fighting game. Divekick has removed any real concept of execution. Winning is simple - hit your opponent before they hit you. No combos. No complicated super moves. No quarter-circles. No LP, LP, f.LK, HP. Sound too good to be true? Let's take a walk through the world of Divekick then.
Gameplay:
The cornerstone of any fighting game isn't flashy graphics, an orchestral soundtrack, or jiggle-physics (I'm looking at you Dead or Alive and SoulCalibur). It's gameplay. Divekick's two-button formula actually pans out surprisingly well. You get a "Dive" button (see: jump) and a Kick button. Pressing the kick button whilst airborne sends your character flying downwards at an angle and speed dependent on, well, your character. Divekick has a cast of 13 unique characters, most of whom are some form of joke. Whether they're parodies of characters from other games (Dive and Kick being Yun and Yang from Street Fighter III: Third Strike) or caricatures of actual fighting game community members (Mr. N and Jefailey).
Knowing the background isn't important though. It's raw skill at jumping and kicking that counts here. Simple in its concept, Divekick is epic in its scope. While each character comes equipped with their own signature moves, in addition to their own unique jump height, jump speed, kick speed and kick angle, diving and kicking is the majority of the game plan. And since each character possesses these same abilities, you're forced to see them for their differences. Fractions of a second and in-depth knowledge of your character's abilities can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Much applause to One True Game Studios and Iron Galaxy for managing to make something so simple, so deep and engaging.
Everything Else:
Okay, I've said it, Tsaikotyk has said it, everyone else has said it, so let's just make it public. YES. DIVEKICK LOOKS LIKE A FLASH GAME. Arguably, this game looks like it probably would have been uploaded to Newgrounds for shits and giggles about 10 years ago. This proves something though. GRAPHICS AREN'T FUCKING EVERYTHING. To be completely honest, I'm much happier that they decided to go the route they did, instead of trying to replicate something super shiny, like Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue. You need only look to Steam Greenlight to realize the garbage that comes out when indie developers try and get as close as possible to AAA graphics.
There's never much to say for audio in a fighting game. Generally, it's a lot of grunting and screaming. Divekick has actually managed to make me laugh with its character voiceovers - Kick is essentially a walking Will Smith joke, with all of his attack sounds being stereotypical Will Smith rap noises (Whoo! Yeah! Hah! Uh-huh!), and nearly all of his KO phrases being names of Will Smith movies. Even his background story and home stage are homages to the Fresh Prince.
Speaking of story, HAHAHAHA. There really isn't any. Not that it matters. You should be diving and kicking.
No, the real thrill of Divekick comes from playing against real opponents and not some poorly scripted AI. Divekick has GGPO netcode built in for near seamless online play. Players can engage in both ranked and unranked match-ups with other Divekickers from around the world. The game also includes the ability to make specific lobbies, if you just wanna divekick around with your friends. The only short-coming in terms of online multiplayer is the sad fact that there just don't seem to be enough people playing ranked matches on PSN. If only I could gift copies across PSN the same way that I can Steam.
And, like every other fighting game, Divekick has local multiplayer as well. Normally, this wouldn't receive special mention. However, Divekick is only available on 3 platforms as of the writing of this article: PS3, Steam, and PS Vita. Local multiplayer on PS3 is expected, and even 2 people sharing a keyboard makes enough sense, with the buttons located so close to each other. When I saw the "Versus" option on Vita, I assumed that there would be some sort of adhoc wireless multiplayer like most PSP and PS Vita titles. NOT. SO. Divekick on the PS Vita boasts the most ridiculous SINGLE PLATFORM MULTIPLAYER I've ever seen or heard of. One player controls their character from the left side of the handheld, using the up and left directions on the D-pad. Player 2 controls their character by using the X and O buttons on the right side of the Vita. Now, I haven't actually tried playing Divekick this way, but props to OTG Studios and Iron Galaxy for even including it.
Divekick has that special element that I wish was prevalent in more games these days. Simple to learn, difficult to master. It's renewed my enthusiasm for fighting games and who knows? Maybe I might pick up an arcade stick and start playing again. Or maybe I'll just go to Evo for Divekick.
Nik "Latency" Trumble gives Divekick (for PS3, PS Vita and Steam):
B
Divekick took a genre that I found intriguing in concept and frustrating in execution and removed the execution. The developers took a leap of faith by pairing fighting games all the way down to the most basic of core mechanics. And it worked.
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