Review: Stick-Fu - Plus Video
by Staff Writer
October 27, 2009
Overview
Stick-Fu is a street fighter type game, but with stick figures. You play as one stick figure trained in the arts of Kung-Fu who is called upon to clean up the streets in the cemetery, the dump, and the ghetto. Each level requires beating multiple enemies and one boss battle. The game is a 2D side scrolling fight fest. Battle a group of enemies, beat them all, and then move on to the next grouping. Land multiple hits to build a combo, and activate special moves.
Features
Use all types of Kung-Fu moves against your opponents, as you try to clean the streets of no good doing stick guys. There are multiple environments to play with moving backgrounds as you’re scrolling 2D. After you beat the normal enemies, a big stick baddie appears requiring all your Kung Fu skills. When you build up a combo there are five types of special moves to unleash including raising spikes from the ground, jump kick, and stick slam. When you finish a level you earn five upgrade points that you can allocate to improving your power, armor, and HP. The controls are straightforward. There are left and right buttons, as well as a punch button, and special move button. That’s it which makes this game easy to play for everyone. You can double tap left/right to do a quick dodge move.
The Good
Pounding stick figures into submission with awesome Kung-Fu moves is as good as it gets with Stick Figures. Every level presents more and tougher enemy stick figures requiring more Kung-Fu skill to progress. The boss battles are great, and really require all of the button mashing skills you have. When you’re fighting you won’t just stand, and hit punch as many times as you can. You will need to double tap left and right to do acrobatic dodges. When you build up your combo your five power moves are devastating, and great to see as they play in slow motion. The entire game is nicely designed, but nothing to write home about in the graphics department. It’s about on par with a typical flash game look. A neat aspect is the new stick figures bounce in as balls, and combine into a stick figure. The backgrounds actually scroll in this 2D side-scroller which is always nice.
Watching the Kung-Fu moves is really enjoyable too. Whether he's doing a nice leg kick to the head or diving out of the way you feel the style and grace of the moves. The special moves are especially nice from forcing spikes from the ground, doing a stick slam, or even busting out a shotgun (wait a shot-gun that's not very Kung-Fu).
Four action soundtracks are included to really go with the fighting theme. Quite a few Kung-Fu type sound effects, and various groans and grunts are included for your stick beating pleasure. The controls are easy to use to do all the moves you want. Sometimes you press punch, but nothing will happen because you’re currently being punched, so just be aware.
The game flows well, and the difficulty amps up nicely. The level progression is a great addition to be able to increase your skills to survive the next onslaught of stick enemies. Another good thing is the blood coming from the stick figures, and pooling up on the ground.
The Bad
The save system is like calls by a referee. When it’s done right it’s a good thing, but for the most part unnoticeable, when it’s wrong it is absolutely horrific. Sadly Stick-Fu’s save system just leaves a lot to be desired. The game saves your overall level progress if you quit the game for whatever reason.
The problem is that when you come back your kill count goes back to zero, but at least you get to play level 7, right? Another negative is that when you die you have to restart to whole game back at level 1. It would be great if you could continue at the level you made it to, just resetting the score.
Allegedly online highs scores are provided, but this may be the lamest excuse for high scores yet in the App Store. As of writing there are seven people listed on the online high scores with no indications of anything else.
