Divekick

Divekick

BUY/SALE/PASS: Buy - Feel free to buy at full price

Divekick is a recent addition to the fighting game genre developed by Iron Galaxy Studios and released in late August. Everyone loves fighting games, right?

No. Not everyone. But why?

The fact of the matter is that for most fighting games the barrier to entry is complexity. Players must learn about each of the characters, how to perform special techniques, and master precision combinations on a six-button layout just to be able to compete.

Real player with 239.0 hrs in game


Read More: Best Indie Local Multiplayer Games.


Divekick is a fighting game you won’t need to spend hours in a training mode practicing combos that’ll never land anyway in order to get better. You may not immediately click with its unique parody of fighting games and general poking fun at the fighting game community, but at the very least, you’ll probably be pretty good at Divekick by the end of your first match due to its elegance in simplicity.

1 Dive Button.

1 Kick button.

1 hit and you’re dead.

5 rounds won and you’re godlike.

1 hell of a good time.

Real player with 20.9 hrs in game

Divekick on Steam

Icons: Legacy Edition

Icons: Legacy Edition

This review is written from the perspective of a melee player for other melee players.

This game doesn’t have much going for it. The reason this game appealed to me at first was for a few reasons (many which I think other melee players would share):

1. This game is easily accessable which means I don’t have to worry about carrying a CRT or bringing setups anywhere to play with tons of people. Faster Melee has this, but is inconsistent on my home connection so this offered me an alternative.

2. While melee is a great game it has many shortcomings that I think the melee community doesn’t acknowledge as much as it could simply because the game is static, no point in complaining about wobbling becuase it is permanent. Similar to shine/spacie utilt being busted, half the cast being complete garbage, jigglypuff bair, etc etc. I think melee is a great game, but a studio taking a stab at essentially making “Melee 2” sounds like a game with unlimited potential.

Real player with 67.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Indie Action Games.


TL;DR at the bottom

To contextualize this review, allow me to give a little bit of a personal history on myself: I’m a platform fighter player of nearly 4 years, starting with Smash 4, dropping it for Melee, and then becoming a Rivals of Aether beta tester (a title which I still retain after roughly 3 years).

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CHARACTERS & BALANCE

Icons: Combat Arena is the latest competitor to step into the platform fighter genre, headed up by Jason and crafted by fragments of the Project:M development team. Project:M ultimately got a C&D order from Nintendo, leading to the dissolution of the mod team, despite its popularity among the community. The game was known for bringing Melee mechanics to Brawl, while also working to make a larger portion of the cast competitively viable. Unfortunately, there were many times in which that viability was achieved through jank/gimmicks being added to kits in lieu of any real reworks.

Real player with 50.9 hrs in game

Icons: Legacy Edition on Steam

Glory of the Arena

Glory of the Arena

It is all about the viewers. They came to the arena to be entertained. Show them your best moves. Defeat the enemies with style. Make a ruthless kill, or spare a life when they demand.

The Audience will reward you with money and glory!

Use the Streaming mode to connect with Spectators, or just use AI viewers.

Let the audience decide whether you shall get more challenging enemies, a powerup, a thumb up or a thumb down.

Or maybe you would prefer to be just the viewer, cheer and vote for the best fighter?

Choose your avatar, armor and weapon. Train your skills and unlock the moves.

Never hold back, never hide nor run from a fight as the audience will hate it.

Jump on a horse or switch weapons.

Fight with honor to win the hearts, or get a reputation of a merciless killer.

Enjoy the single player campaign. From a small local stadium, through battles on ships and fighting animals, to the colosseum itself. Fight your way up from the province to the greatest areas of the Empire.


Read More: Best Indie Action Games.


Glory of the Arena on Steam

Orbitals

Orbitals

Gladiators, Grenades and Gravity Boots! Players battle in arenas filled with monsters, opponents, and friends.

Be a flippin' space ninja! Control gravity to fight on any surface while mastering a variety of traversal mechanics, weapon types and devastating special abilities to dominate in the arena.

Single-player or Co-op story mode. Play with and against friends in online or local multiplayer party-mode mayhem.

Orbitals on Steam

Runic Rampage - Action RPG

Runic Rampage - Action RPG

As I always start my reviews, play the game in English and don’t watch the translations. The Italian one is awful like every other one, so let’s stick with English.

This one is an action RPG with good graphics - I love them, 3D and with a view from above which allows you to see enemies and everything that surrounds you, since the fights are those of a hack ‘n’ slash and you don’t have a party, but a single dwarf XD.

Price is quite high (7€) so, get it on sale if you manage to!

The gameplay is really great and 100% joypad supported, so you have lots of combos, lots of equipment upgrades and most of all you’ll never have to deal with many sidequests or paths.. it’s a straightforward game with levels and bosses of increasing difficulty (never too hard, actually) and for a game like this to me it’s really good!

Real player with 43.1 hrs in game

I’ve put in only an hour and a half into the game, so take this review as an estimate of what you’ll feel like after that amount of time:

PREMISE:

There isn’t a ton of storyline to this, but there’s some. You’re a dwarf fighting to find your lost brothers and (I assume) become the hero your father wanted you to be. You have to conquer four Acts, each broken up into three chapters, each of which has three maps - except for the last, which contains a boss fight. You collect gold, which seems to accrue across death (ie. no gold loss upon getting squished). You also pickup single-use powerups as well as temporary bonuses from single use statues. Finally, you also get skill points, with which to level attributes (str, agility, defense and greed)

Real player with 20.4 hrs in game

Runic Rampage - Action RPG on Steam

Super GMA

Super GMA

So. I adore indie games. By far my favorite genre. And while I can get into some of the more main stream titles out there, there’s nothing quite like playing a game that a small group of people, if not just one person, pours their heart into.

Super GMA is an 8-bit fighting game with 8 characters to choose from. And that could have been all that was put into it, but it isn’t. Each character gets their own unique backstory in the campaign and once you beat it, you get to see the resolve to their story. Everything that you see and hear during the game was done by one person and that is where this game gets it’s charm. Great music, with an interesting twist on fighting games where once you hit the enemy, you gain a bit of health back. Nice fair fighting. I have yet to play the local multiplayer but I look forward to doing so.

Real player with 1.5 hrs in game

Super GMA on Steam

Combate Monero

Combate Monero

mas agua pipi esperanza mo pueblo es muy caliente boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Real player with 3.8 hrs in game

Currently, the game is broken and should be considered an alpha. Depending on what controllers you use, you will not be able to edit the controls or even go through the menus. Trying to exit menus will bug out. A lot of the characters, their (“supers”) do not work. Usually only one or two per character work. Any others do not work.

From my experience, seems to be any super requiring two kicks being pushed simultaneously. The odd zoom with no effects such as (“darkening”) or any kind of splash particle seems really odd. Intro animations will make some characters appear as though they are talking yet there is no sound of their dialogue. The combat isn’t bad, just seems like this game is an alpha, not even a early beta.

Real player with 0.7 hrs in game

Combate Monero on Steam

Duel Arms

Duel Arms

Customize your character, take up arms, and crush your friends in this frantic fighter. Duel Arms is the sequel to Knight Club and has been rebuilt from the ground up for an all-new gameplay experience.

Online Multiplayer

Crush your friends and enemies in various online modes such as ranked, and casual matches with rollback netcode!

Customize Your Knight

Choose from 1000+ customization options to make your own unique character! Be a sword-swinging hero, a spear-wielding Swampling, or a fireball casting Elf!

Customize Your Playstyle

Mix and match main weapons with sidearms to create a playstyle all your own. Play keep-away with fireballs and bombs, lock your opponent down with curses and zombies, obscure the battlefield with smoke bombs, and more!

New Mechanics

All weapons have been given new attacks, along with a brand new meter mechanic. Fill your meter and unleash powerful EX attacks, or hold on to your meter to receive a huge buff to your selected weapon.

Single Player

Battle it out against an AI in Arcade Mode, or add AI bots to your multiplayer matches.

This store page is still a work in progress and will be updated over time as new information regarding the game is made public. Check back often!

Duel Arms on Steam

Floaty Fighters

Floaty Fighters

Neat bullet hell type 2D fighter that’s become my new go to party game. Up to 4 players shooting all over the place. Way to much fun!

Real player with 53.9 hrs in game

This game is incredibly fun to play. It’s a fresh take on the fighting game genre and I’ve enjoyed playing it with my friends and family. Would absolutely recommend that anyone.

Real player with 9.2 hrs in game

Floaty Fighters on Steam

Indie Pogo

Indie Pogo

A different take on the “platform fighter” genre.

For most games in the platform fighter genre, they aim to do what Super Smash Bros. does but in varying but ultimately minimal degree. The dodge, respawn, or ledge mechanics may change, but they all still abide by the laws of the main smash games with combo, tilts, smash attacks, specials, and aerials. Indie Pogo is built in a different way.

The main goal of Indie Pogo was an idea of your character constantly jumping, which sounds terrible in a traditional platform fighting which has walking, running, short hops, and full hops, but Indie Pogo simplifies in some areas but complexes some other areas to make a potential annoying mechanic rather fluid and fun.

Real player with 376.7 hrs in game

Simple yet has some complexity to it. It has forced auto jumping but it actually works quite nicely to the flow of gameplay since you’re always in motion.

There are only four moves and a super move for each character, a n-air, u-air, d-air, and grounded charge attack. By performing combos and landing on the ground you recieve gems which allow you to do your super move. You need 5 gems to perform one and the the bigger the combo the more gems you will get.

There are 10 stages and 14 characters in total so far but the game will be getting updates with free dlc including stages, characters, trophies, skins, and modes in the future.

Real player with 160.1 hrs in game

Indie Pogo on Steam