Double Kick Heroes review code was provided by Headbang Club. Special thanks to them

When people think of rhythm games, the term “simple” comes to mind. A short and bite-sized experience using music as a gimmick. This typically takes the form of playing as a band on stage while trying to nail a particular guitar solo. Most games don’t try and do too much with this genre and thus, most gamers don’t expect much out of it. 

Enter Double Kick Heroes, an indie title from Headbang Club that combines the style of a rhythm game with the explosive action of a shoot’em up. Taking players across the broken highways of a dystopian America, which has been overrun by zombies. The title band, the Double Kick Heroes, has been rehearsing in preparation for a gig; only to find that their entire crowd is a bunch of flesh-eating zombies. Now they must battle zombies while going on tour to see if they can learn what is going on.

The first verse, same as the first

Double Kick Heroes sports a fairly simple and juvenile plot; despite being the zombie apocalypse, nobody is all that disturbed or worried. Our titular band of five is never portrayed to be overly dramatic about what is happening around them. Instead, they spend most of the cutscenes in this game making jokes at each other’s expense. Even when one of their bandmates is kidnapped, a comedic tone is played throughout the whole affair.

This makes for an amusing experience with the story seeming like a parody of the zombie survival plot. Double Kick Heroes especially nails that “rag-tag group of friends who make fun of each other yet, all secretly care” vibe that makes the main characters so charming. The personality of each member is distinct and memorable, though it quickly becomes noticeable how one-dimensional they each are. 

The plot of Double Kick Heroes is overall a silly one, less interested in telling a gripping narrative and more in making its players laugh with any number of well-timed jokes and references to real-life rock stars scattered around this ruined world.

The Double Kick Heroes

Turn up for the chorus

Double Kick Heroes requires the player to battle monsters using the power of metal as they drive along the stage. This will be done by hitting the drums in time with the music to shoot a gun attached to your drum kit. With each successful hit, the gun will level up, becoming a more powerful weapon. Continued success will maintain the firearm at the highest level while failing will result in some power loss, weakening the player’s and the band’s ability to defend themselves.

This is a very smart incentive to keep players on their toes while discouraging button mashing. If success is to be obtained, learning the game’s controls is the only way. Double Kick Heroes uses its rhythm-based style of gameplay and directly crafts it into the design of the combat system, creating a unique feeling all on its own.

All that said, the actual controls one must become good at to master this title holds a few issues. Similar to other titles in the same genre, Double Kick Heroes will task players with timing their button presses to the beat of a song in order to win; this being completely doable during the early levels. However, as early as the third world out of six, this quickly stops being the case.

Double Kick heroes gameplay

Sour Beats

The songs become far faster than before with no gradual difficulty curve to ease players into it. This leads to forcibly mashing the buttons to get through some of the quicker paced tunes, leading to the loss in firepower and the lowering of your score. Now the difficulty spikes would be manageable if it weren’t for the fact that some numbers are simply too fast to keep up with. The buttons can’t comfortably be pressed fast enough to land each beat and thus, players will inevitably miss a large volume of the beats due to being unable to have their input registered in time.

Double Kick Heroes does sport motion controls, in which each joy-con will act as a drum stick that players will shake to hit the beats. This makes the levels more doable and enjoyable, which seems to be the optimal way to experience this game. Though it still isn’t quite up to par as due to the sensitivity of the motion controls, it’s quite easy for the game to count one shake as two and cause beats to be missed. 

Double Kick Heroes is somewhat forgiving in the earlier levels but, by the fourth world, failure typically results in death which will require the stage to be repeated. This is a difficult game but its challenge comes not through clever enemy patterns but instead due to a lack of polish in its control scheme.

Should players manage to finally complete this game, there are quite a few extra modes to keep those interested. Ranging from Fury Road, an endless mode that will test endurance, or Hellgate, a mode filled with bonus stages and songs to blast zombies to.

Double Kick Heroes fighting a Boss

Ending on a Good Note

Double Kick Heroes is filled to the brim with personality in its visuals. Sporting a nice, pixel art style with a wide range of colorful locations and a wide variety of different enemies. There is real attention to detail in the presentation of this game that’s very commendable. From the distinct and colorful character designs to the animations each member sports when at a pit stop, the visuals are eye candy.

The soundtrack features both original and licensed music that will be played during each stage and it’s all good stuff. Metal is very much an acquired taste sort of genre and thus, may not be every player’s cup of tea. However, the music does a good job of setting a tone and psyching one up to tackle this zombie apocalypse. 

Overall, Double Kick Heroes is a unique and visually stunning game with some incredible tracks that will get stuck one’s head. However, its unfortunately unpolished gameplay and massive difficulty spikes hold it back from being a truly great title.

If you’re looking for more reviews of titles on Nintendo Switch, check out our review of Paper Mario The Origami King

That’s all for this review. Thank you for reading and until next time…