KUNGFU KICKBALL REVIEW PLUS

This brings us to the martial arts/soccer hybrid KungFu Kickball, an arcade party game by developers WhaleFood Games. Luckily, as Rocket League has shown, video games have had great success blending together different sports for our entertainment. Though not completely unseen, this doesn’t often ring true for the sporting world, with the obvious exception being chess boxing (yes that’s a real sport and yes you should look it up). Chocolate and peanut butter, eggs and bacon, myself and a Dyson, there are just some combos that pair famously well. KungFu Kickball feels casual but is anything but, and that discordance might cause more problems than it solves.Some things are just better off when they’re together. Equally, a poor player will just dance around the ball without moving it in any way. If a player knows what they’re doing, they can wipe the floor with someone else. But the skill ceiling is so incredibly high in KungFu Kickball, that it leaves ample space for problems. It’s at its best when booted up for a throwaway match: a chaotic game of quasi-Rocket League while you’re waiting for a takeaway to arrive. There’s undoubtedly a problem at the heart of KungFu Kickball. But, as it stands, this is a lean offering. With any of those inclusions, KungFu Kickball would have been elevated, taking it into the higher scores.

KUNGFU KICKBALL REVIEW PLUS

In Guts ‘N Goals you have all of that, plus hundreds of unlocks, multiple game modes and a campaign of sorts. But a match never really feels different, and the context of that match doesn’t change much either. In KungFu Kickball, you have tournaments and quick matches, against AI, local players or online players. While KungFu Kickball, at its peak, feels more fun and second-nature than Guts ‘N Goals, it can’t match its depth. A good comparison is Guts ‘N Goals, a similar game that launched at the tail-end of 2021. You can’t necessarily just pick-up-and-play KungFu Kickball with a group of mates, particularly if one of you has made time to practice.Īnd while there are several arenas, each with different nooks to tuck their bell into and different obstacles on their approach, KungFu Kickball feels a little slight. You might invite a new player to play, but the combination of a complex move-set and crazy ball physics means that they may never find a handhold. In multiplayer, it can mean that matches are over almost as soon as they begin. Regardless, the steep difficulty gradient will lose KungFu Kickball some players. You can start to ratchet up the difficulty and win more tournaments.

There’s still an unpredictability to the path of the ball, particularly when the arenas differ, giving you roofs and outcrops to anticipate, but your bewilder-o-meter goes down and down until you feel like you have a modicum of control. Soon, the value of a kick over a punch becomes clearer, and you begin to time your jumps correctly. Training and a Target Practice also offer learning possibilities, while playing in 1-v-1 or 2-v-2 matches locally are also opportunities. Here, the NPCs have just as hard a time punting the ball as you do, and it offers breathing room and time to learn (plus, you can replay matches as often as you’d like). Jumping into the Arcade Mode, as close as you get to a campaign, it’s possible to dial the difficulty down to Easy. We all but gave up in these first moments, as KungFu Kickball made us feel like Sunday leaguers versus a Premier League side.īut to KungFu Kickball’s credit, it gives plenty of methods to git gud. There are a fair few controls, which only make things more complicated, and you have to be incredibly precise to hit the ball, let alone direct it the way you want. This is a small ball, and your first moments will be spent dancing around the ball without really hitting it, like you were practicing some capoeira.

The ball bounces everywhere, and it’s not exactly Rocket League-sized. What hits you round the face first is how high KungFu Kickball’s skill ceiling is. And each character has a signature move, pulled off with a double button-press. With the arenas being quite large, it’s important to keep up with the ball, so there is also a blink teleport, which moves you a few metres beyond where you are.

A kick gives the ball an arc, looping it towards the bell, while a kind of roundhouse kick launches the ball directly upwards. In KungFu Kickball, you can punch the ball forwards, or hold that punch button for a powered up version. Tetris Effect gets disconnected, as five games leave Game Passĭevelopers WhaleFood Games know that things could quickly get the wrong side of chaotic, so they give you a great deal of control over your character.

Kungfu kickball review