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There are many phases in video game development, but two seem to matter most, because if developers mess them up, the whole product can suffer: the idea and the execution.
The idea of Kick is terrific: you run around your neighbourhood kicking a ball. What kid didn't do that growing up, regardless of country or continent, because football is a universal thing? Translate that properly into a video game, and you've got a recipe for burning hours, a loop that grabs you and won't let go until you've seen everything the game has to offer.
The timing helps too. We've just come out of one of the biggest FIFA World Cups ever, which reignited global interest in football, even among the stubborn Americans who insist football is played with your hands and the real thing is called soccer. Everyone's obsessed with the sport again, and any game built around chasing and kicking a ball is more than welcome right now.
So the concept is spot on, and the timing couldn't be better. That leaves the third and most important piece: the execution, or how it actually feels once you've got a controller in your hands. And that's exactly where Kick starts to show its cracks.
Kick plays in a 2D side-scrolling style: you start a level, make your way to the end, and once you've met its conditions, you move on to the next one. You start from home and pass through your neighbourhood on your way to school, kicking the ball the whole time. Almost every kid knows that feeling, and the game leans heavily on nostalgia to wake up the kid in you.
But while the idea is fantastic, the execution isn't. The biggest problem, and one I don't think the final version of the game will be able to fully solve, is clunky controls and a ball with loads of missing frames. You side-scroll with the ball, leading it as you move. On the move side, you can run, jump, slide, and do all the basic actions. When it comes to the ball, you can kick it with R1/RB in the air (a very awkward move), and if you're moving while kicking it, it goes in a curved trajectory.
You can also kick the ball powerfully with R2/RT, sending it forward close to the ground, hit it with your head, or attempt a bicycle kick once it's in the air, combining all of those seamlessly. But be ready for frustration beyond words, because the ball simply does not abide by the laws of physics. As you make your way through the levels, kicking the ball earns you coins (obtainable either by your body or the ball), and some levels require you to gather a certain number of them to exchange for rewards.
Hitting obstacles or knocking things over, either with the ball or with yourself, results in faults. Commit a bigger fault, and you get a yellow card. Two of those, and it's a red card and a repeat of the level. This gameplay loop is engaging, and the challenge it provides is genuinely commendable, but the control clunkiness undercuts it considerably.
Some levels require you to race against time or other players, and you'll have to call on every skill you have (read: luck) to get through them. This can be rage-inducing, not because there's a skill issue, but simply because the ball won't go where you intend it to go. The game also relies heavily on precision when it tasks you with hitting well-hidden coins or other collectables, but you have no control over how strong, how high, or at what angle you kick the ball. It's pure luck, and often pure inconsistency.
Visually, Kick looks as cute and beautiful as I always wanted a nostalgic game like this to look. It uses a hand-drawn style with a very bright and happy colour palette. The city feels lively, and through each level you'll meet different obstacles in the form of people, cats, dogs, and everyday events that will genuinely warm your heart. The characters are rendered faceless. I don't know the intention behind this, but it somehow feels like it needed to be done this way.
Even though Kick isn't a game that demands a monster of a PC to run properly, the graphical presentation is far from blunt. I really liked the background images, which, truth be told, are just stationary pictures requiring little to no effort to run, but regardless, they make every level look different and unique, and some graphical effects, like good reflections, make things look even better.
The real problem, in both the gameplay and the graphical presentation, is missed frames. I don't know if that was intentional, but it looks and plays badly and doesn't do the game any favours. Please, devs, remove this from the game immediately.
Final Thoughts
Kick is a unique game that plays heavily on the nostalgia card, waking up the kid in us whose only worry in the entire world was the ball and how to kick it all day long. The concept is great, the idea is perfect, and the timing is ideal – every star has aligned for Kick, if only the devs knew how to get the most out of it.
Clunky controls and huge inconsistency in kicking the ball, which, by the way, is the game's main goal and main mechanic, sadly cast a huge shadow over a perfect idea and concept that could otherwise make Kick one of the most original and unique games out there. If the devs somehow manage to iron out these problems by the final version, you have my blessing to play it. In its current state, though, the experience is considerably diminished.
