KickBeat review: doesn't quite land every kick

I am a huge fan of games that mix music and gameplay if done well--like Audiosurf and, more recently, Beatbuddy (ignoring its technical faults--read my review)--so I was excited when Zen Studios--best known for their many pinball games--announced KickBeat, a game set to mix music and kung fu. Well, the wait is finally over and, sadly, KickBeat doesn't quite hit all the right notes--sorry, I couldn't help myself.

I played KickBeat on the Vita, but it is also coming out for the PS3 via PSN and is a Cross-Buy title, so you will get both versions of the game when buying one or the other. The gameplay is simple; your character is in the middle of different themed arenas, surrounded by a mass of enemies in one of three different colors that signify enemy type, and you attack enemies in one of four directions--up, down, left, or right--with either the face buttons or the directional pad (or by touching the screen on the Vita) as they attack alongside the beat. It is a great idea, but it doesn't always work out according to plan.

Some songs feel really fluid and mix extremely well with the gameplay--like "Last Resort," by Papa Roach, which was my favorite song to play and, if every song played like it, I would be in love--but around half of the eighteen songs included never felt right and seemed to be just offbeat enough to mess with my rhythm. On top of that, the music selection is not too diverse--featuring some metal, rock and the occasional rap song--and, personally, I didn't care for most of it. Thankfully, after progressing through the main story--which only takes about an hour--"Beat Your Music" mode will unlock--which allows you to take any song you own and turn it into a level; it is a very simple process and adds unlimited replayabilty.

But as much as I like being able to play any song I own, I just didn't love KickBeat's gameplay. The simplicity of it all made sure the game was never too exciting as every level played the same and enemy patterns never changed from where they were in the beginning to where they ended up; I also wish the harder difficulties weren't locked from the start because I found the harder difficulties--all those above the default, "Normal"--much more fun because they didn't include an on-screen indicator showing which button needed to be pressed next, making it more about the music. And, on the Vita, I found the touch controls useless because whenever I touched an enemy on the screen, my hand always got in the way, hiding potential enemy attacks. There are moments when I think KickBeat could be awesome, but more often than not, I just found the whole experience rather empty.

Visually, the game looks good and I like the slight exageration in character designs, but, once I realized there wasn't much variety, everything started feeling bland--which, as you may already notice, is a recurring sentiment. And I must mention KickBeat's story, not because I liked it--the story itself is barely there and never interesting--but because the voice acting for the initial main character--Lee--is horrible; he sounded like a robot and never brought any emotion to his performance. The rest of the voice acting is passable and it is nice that the story has a second, full arc once the main story is completed, but it just ends up as a rinse and repeat session with some new cutscenes and a female character skin.

KickBeat isn't a swing and a miss, but a foul ball, and there is still potential within its core; I would love to see Zen Studios try again at mixing music with gameplay in the future. (As someone who doesn't watch baseball, I don't know where that last sentence came from.) I really wanted to like KickBeat more, but you can't always get what you want, eh.

*KickBeat is available now on PSN in the Americas, and will be available next week, on Sept. 10, in European markets for $9.99/€9.99. (It will be 20% off for PS Plus members for the first week in American markets.)

KickBeat (PS Vita / PS3)