Stick Fight: The Game

Genre: Action-Platformer / Party Game

Players: 2-4 Competitive (Local / Online)

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Review:

Stick Fight is an Action-Platformer first released on PC in 2017 and ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2021. This game has players fighting as stick figures, trying to be the last to survive.

The presentation here is very simple, using 2D visuals for the characters and environments, generally using simple geometric shapes. Everything here is represented using ragdoll physics, so everything is affected by gravity, which gives everything a fluid feel. The only other thing beyond this is the energetic synthesized soundtrack, which works well with the fast-paced gameplay, even if it isn’t especially memorable in its own right.

The gameplay here is fairly simple. Players can move their characters with the left stick and use the right stick to aim. There’s a jump button, an attack button, and a block button. Players can jump off of walls and gain a little height by using a melee attack that attacks upward. After a few seconds, weapons of various sorts start dropping on the stage. Players can generally take a few hits before dying, but that’s it. Survive the longest.

Then do it again. And again. The game is fast-paced in a way that always loads up the next level right after the previous end. There’s no score here, no final goal, just a progression of one level after another, with victory giving you the chance to celebrate for a few seconds before moving on to the next match. This fast pacing, along with a good variety of levels and weapons that pop up, keep things fun and varied for match after match.

One of the things you quickly discover with this game is that the stages themselves are often an even bigger threat than your opponents, with lethal traps and the ever-threatening bottomless pit hanging beneath you. Just surviving can sometimes be less about fighting and more about simply managing to stay alive the longest.

One of the other things you’ll quickly discover is that the gameplay feels filled to the brim with what I can only describe as jank – movements are sloppy, players can work their way up a vertical cliff face by repeatedly tapping jump and attack while holding toward it, projectile attacks have massive recoil, and melee fights usually devolve into incomprehensible slap-fights. However, the jank here is actually a part of the game’s charm, making success a silly struggle with the quirky gameplay as well as with your opponents.

However, one thing that can’t be dismissed as a “so bad it’s good” element of this game is its complete lack of options and features. You can play in a local match or an online match, that’s it. Additionally, online play was riddled with problems. Sometimes it worked great, other times it had terrible lag. And this game has probably crashed more than any other game I’ve played on Nintendo Switch.

Still, as janky and feature-poor as it is, it’s hard to see Stick Fight being anything less than a rousing success in a party setting. Its fast-paced gameplay, wide variety, and silly jankiness make this the sort of game where “just one more match” can easily turn into hours upon hours of fun. I only wish this game gave players more options and features. However, even with the bare-bones game we’ve gotten here, this is a solid choice for a game to add to your Party Game rotation.

tl;dr – Stick Fight is an arena-based multiplayer-focused Action-Platformer Party game where players fight as stick figures, trying to survive the longest. It’s an extremely janky game, but that jankiness actually works in the game’s favor, giving it a sloppy sort of charm. Add in a good variety of levels and weapons and you have a game that’s sure to make for a lot of fun at parties. It’s just a shame it’s so feature-poor and the online play is so unreliable – those are problems that do not add to this game’s charm.

Grade: B

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