Double Kick Heroes Review

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Fast Facts

Double Kick Heroes

Developer: Headbang Club
Publisher: Plug in Digital
Website: Double Kick Heroes – THE METAL RHYTHM SHOOTER UNLEASHED (dkh.rocks)
Genre(s): Shooter, Music
Platform: Nintendo Switch (also available on PC – Windows, Linux, Mac – and Xbox One)
Age Rating: 16+
Release Date: 11/04/2018
Price: £19.79

A code was provided for review purposes

Diving into new kinds of genres you’ve never played before can be interesting. Today I dive into the rhythm genre of games. Double Kick Heroes was my start in this genre, but it combines shooting and strategy in it as well. How did this game do at combining these into one? Read and find out.

Too Much Metal

Since this is a rhythm game, the most important part is the music. The music of Double Kick Heroes is mostly metal since the group is a metal band. However, it goes into multiple types of metal music I never even knew existed. As for the quality, the songs were between great and good. However, I found myself bored with how much metal there is. All I can say is this; if you’re a metal fan, the soundtrack is for you.

The presentation of the game is great with its pixel art but I felt like the character artwork wasn’t very visually appealing. I don’t mean it was bad but I do believe it needed some work because it made me like the characters less. Sometimes, it made the characters seem more jerkish or uncaring. Outside of looks, I never encountered any game-breaking bugs or anything you should be worried about. In addition, there wasn’t any slow down at all – for the main game that is. When playing other player’s levels/songs, the game doesn’t teach you how to create them, or at least not clearly. I also experienced multiple times where my game crashed, which frustrated me to the point where I got sick of trying them.

Story Drops

The story for the game is something else that frustrated me and that is because it was a jumbled mess. I had no idea what was going on, first I was trying to figure out what caused people to turn into zombies and then I was fighting Dracula? I felt like the story didn’t know what it wanted to be. But hey, at least the characters were good, right?

No, the characters were not good. They all range from awful to it being plain difficult to care about them. All, except for one shining light and that was Lincoln because she had a level head. James had a constant hero mindset which was just annoying as time went on since he constantly thought he was all that. Randie is the only character with any development but all she ever does is sex jokes, e.g., “I know my fans would like to eat me, but not like this”. Derek was just a jerk who had a thing for food. Snake was just someone who was there. Plus the writing didn’t help either, the amount of swearing in this game made me not take it seriously.

Beats and Misses

During the first half of the game, I will admit I was having a lot of fun. Being about to just kill zombies timed with the music was fun, and strangely strategic. However, without warning, they added in a brand new mechanic – without a tutorial – that changed my entire mood on the game. This was being able to throw grenades into a group of zombies, but even after figuring it out I still couldn’t do it since it was too tough. So, whenever I was forced to use it, I just switched off the zombies and played the music. This was an alternate way of doing the levels.

Double Kick Heroes is honestly a disappointment in a lot of ways. While the music is fantastic with regard to each track on its own, they went overboard with the metal and overall made the soundtrack dull with it. The story was nonsensical and random, with the characters not caring about the situation at all. Gameplay was fun for a while, but then they added a mechanic – without a tutorial – that made it a lot less entertaining. Unfortunately, while the presentation is good, it doesn’t save the rest of the game.

Rapid Reviews Rating

1.5 out of 5

You can buy Double Kick Heroes for the Nintendo Switch here.