Double Kick Heroes

Cool Guitar Hero like game but INSANELY difficult, even on "medium" difficulty, the game doesn't seem to be for casual players or friendly to people who can't "split" their hand movement. Music is nice and so is the art style, there's a lot of pop culture references in this, from video games to movies.

UPDATE 1: Changing my review to positive with a bit of a CAVEAT. This is going to be a long review so only read if you’re serious about purchasing the game as a NEW PLAYER. I don’t believe this review applies to veterans of rhythm games.
UPDATE 2: Added extra notes mainly for new players (and the devs if they even read this stuff).
TLDR: If you’re new to rhythm games and are scared that this game will be way too hard for you, don’t be. The game gives you all the tools you need to get better at it even if some of these options are a bit obscure. The music is superb, the game modes are awesome and it’s very forgiving in many aspects. It’s a well-made game overall but I do have some serious gripes which I get into in my longer review.

I’m going to begin by explaining my initial experience going from Rock to Hard Rock mode and the reason why I gave it a negative review at first.
I'm new to rhythm games. In fact this is my very first one. So I started in Rock mode as all noobs ought to. The game opened just fine. They start me off with the drums, gave me a nice tutorial, then they took the tricycle wheels off and away I went, and it was a damn blast to play. Challenging but very fun.
The issue is (and what almost broke the experience for me) was when I had beaten Rock mode and jumped into the next difficulty, Hard Rock. It starts out the same exact way as Rock mode so I'm thinking okay all is well, a little bit more difficult, okay having fun again.... then Stage 2-2 happened. In this stage, out of nowhere, they throw at you a new button. The snare button or grenades.
This new button may seem trivial to hardcore rhythm gamers but for noobs like me I had no idea how to incorporate it into my finger flow. I was already using two hands for the left and right guns so where the hell do I add a third button?
Now this would have been fine if A. They introduced the button in the beginning of the campaign with a tutorial just like they did in Rock mode and B. Started me off on Stage 1-1 so I can readjust my finger placement and slowly work the new button into my flow.
I was extremely frustrated and at this point wrote a negative review because I went from having a good flow to jumbling my fingers everywhere. Stage 2-2 is not an easy stage for beginners to start using this new mechanic. So anyway I whined and complained and ranted but I'm a Completionist, so I blew off my steam and gave the game another shot.
I had to drop using the controller because it fucking sucked and opted to use the keyboard which was infinitely better than the controller for me. Once that was done, I needed to figure out a way to practice.
At first I thought that there was no practice mode, but there IS. CHILL MODE. In this mode you can turn off the zombies and just work with the music, then I needed to slow things down a bit. You can’t slow the music down but you CAN slow the musical bar so that you can hit the notes easier.
These two things alone not only helped me get better in a big way but it improved the fun I had with this game and then the addiction set in. I wanted to play more and more and I did. Every stage in fact. This is aided tremendously by the musical score which is just incredible. More on that later.
Eventually I worked my way up to Violence mode, and oddly enough this mode had the exact thing I wanted for Hard Rock mode. The mode opens with a tutorial for this second button, same as the drums. I sat there thinking what the hell, why didn’t you DO THIS EARLIER!!?
So then I worked my way through Violence (it was tough as nails) and landed myself in Extreme and guess what? They add a FOURTH frickin’ button. The sniper, which is FINE okay but I mean you add a new button on the hardest difficulty? Ugh…
This is the only real issue I had with this game. The arrangement of the difficulties. The fix for me is quite simple even, just put a tutorial in Hard Rock mode for grenade button and start us off on stage 1-1.
In Metal mode give us a tutorial for the sniper rifle and start us off on stage 1-1. Then for Violence and Extreme feel free to increase the difficulty in whatever various ways you may like.
That’s it. May seem trivial but it seriously almost ruined my experience and just might do so for a new player that doesn’t have the patience that I do to get better at this game when they can just play another one.
Don’t increase the difficulty by adding new buttons on top of heavily penalizing us for missing notes. Of course we’re going to miss notes. We need these buttons added earlier so we can practice and prepare for the harder difficulties.
Also yes some tracks are ridiculously hard and near impossible to achieve without being a pro level player. You will be able to get all the steam achievements (barely), but there are in-game achievements that are only available for professional drummers or anyone who uses a drum kit to play this game. If you're using your fingers you're screwed. It's not happening.
For example, to get one of the hardest achievements in the game, (Mobula Extreme), I had to straight up ignore the snares completely and focus on the drums and cymbals. Okay so I got it, but did it feel good to ignore one of the game's mechanics just to do so? No, but that's the thing. The game KNOWS its brutally hard so it throws us a bone every once in a while by not severely penalizing you for dropping the snares or cymbals focusing only on the double kicks.
Why exactly the devs thought it was a good idea to include songs that the average gamer couldn't do in a million years is beyond me. Funny thing is the game would be SO much better if songs with difficult note placement were included versus songs where you have to have the finger speed of the FLASH! (Mobula isn't such a bad offender here, but 66B6 and Gojira? Seriously though... great songs but what the fuck?)
If a sequel is in order please don't include these songs. I know super fast double kicking is a drumming staple but it is not fun to play in practice, especially with your FINGERS AND NOT A FRICKIN' DRUM STICK!!! The type of stuff serves as a barrier of entry for new players who veer away from this sort of thing.
Only other issue I had is sometimes when explosions happen the notes get all jumbled and I have to reset the run. However, I’m thinking that’s mostly because my computer is crap. Also the game crashes sometimes when you do multiple resets. Other than that everything else is perfect.
The music is FANTASTIC, some of the best metal I’ve heard in any video game (including Doom). It’s also very thematic and gradually changes in tone the deeper you get into the game, starting really chill then becoming darker and darker until you’re in death metal territory. It’s extremely well done.
The pixel art is fantastic! Loved the character designs and the diversity in the characters emphasizing that no matter you’re race and ethnicity, we all love and rock to Metal. This was great. Story is kinda dumb though but you can just ignore it by playing Arcade mode.
There’s even guest tracks that are all just so damn well done and gives you a break from all the Metal with a variety of different types of music. LOVED IT!
And the icing on the cake, the best mode in the game, the Fury Road mode which turns the game into a Rogue-like. This, in my opinion, is the future of this series. I would throw money at a full game that incorporates this mechanic into the main gameplay.
I couldn’t recommend this game more. I love all the features, am madly in love with the soundtrack and would happily throw money in for a sequel IF the issues I brought up are addressed, otherwise I'll pass on it. I just hope the next game is more inviting to new players and doesn't solely cater to hardcore ones. We all want to play.

Warning! This game is extremely hard especially in higher difficulty.
I'm currently playing on "Metal" difficulty. I had to make my own custom button mapping just so I can get through the stages. Plus, you need to develop some muscle memory and get familiar with the songs.
With all that said. This game is highly addictive. It has good tracks and playing them is very satisfying.
A must buy for die hard rhythm game fans, especially if you enjoy metal!

Adding an additional layer of story and meta to the otherwise standard rhythm mechanics elevating the overall experience.

Its OK, I guess, about 6/10?
Since I don't know the tracks, I spend 99% of it looking at the 'tabs', and even on Metal difficulty some of them are brutal to go through. I couldn't get the first boss down in time with 99.50% hit accuracy on previous stages - so I had to lower the difficulty.
Not that what's on top of the screen matters much anyway - its basically a cool looking animation, and while you have to choose which cannon to fire by choosing which kick drum to hit, you can basically just alternate most of the time and be OK with it.
In its highest difficulty, you get to play three tracks at the same time - kicks, snare and cymbals. I believe, you're supposed to keep replaying game over and over until you memorize each song and each track. So far I've come to a point where I got to handle kicks and snares, and its kind of fun, honestly!
The custom songs system is pretty cool too, basically you can create or download a pattern, and then you just need to provide MP3 to your song.
Honestly if this game would have a Spotify integration - I'd immediately raise score for 1-2 points.
Final complaint, but a fair one for a rhythm game: calibration system should be a bit simpler, similar to what Hellsinger has. Rather than me manually inputting the milliseconds to match the blip, just let me tap the thing that I see or hear, and calculate this by yourself.

Probably my favorite Rhythm game. In the settings you can set the steering of the car to automatic (so you don't have to control the car while fighting) btw