Music rhythm games are one of those vices amongst some gamers – find an addictive enough game and you'll end up losing track of whole hours, if not days, at a time.
Most games in the genre use flying colors to keep you visually stimulated while you bang out the buttons on your controller or plastic instruments. Kickbeat has you wailing on hordes of enemies to the tune playing in the background. Mistakes normally would have an audio queue – either a screech in the music playback or a gap; instead mistakes are more tangible – your character gets hurt and takes damage. Too much damage and the game is over.
The game itself is more visually gratifying than the Rock Band or Guitar Hero games where you are left looking at color based sheet music. As you succeed, your enemies are sent flying in impressive ways. The music selection isn't too bad either, most metal heads will find a number of familiar songs in the mix.
The difficulty level is pretty unforgiving. While the early levels will be enough for you to figure out the core concepts, the mid to late levels are a challenge in restraining to throw your controller (which considering the controller is the Vita makes it a little bit easier). People who go out to master every aspect of a rhythm game will find a longer challenge than most traditional entries in the genre.
Detractions – The cinematic view… at certain points of the song you get a close up view of your character's fight while he dispatches someone spectacularly. However you lose perspective on where the enemies are momentarily and it just makes for a guaranteed way to fail the next two beats of your game.
At the end of the day, Kickbeat is just a one-trick-pony and while it is a download game; at a price of 8 bucks for a Vita game you can get similar-veined titles on an iOS device for half the price.
Is it one of the better games in the genre right now? Yes. Is it overpriced for what you are getting? That's up to you the consumer. Myself, I wouldn't pay that much for a rhythm game but there are some people who readily would especially when it's a good title. All in all, Kickbeat is a good game, but overpriced for its market.
- Tazman
The Good:
- Pretty decent selection of music
The Bad:
- Really more of an iOS game than a Vita game
- The cinematic view is a pain
Score: 6.0 / 10
