Deep Dark Fight Review

On the deep, dark corners of the internet, there lies a movement that combines anime, video game, and pop culture segments with…suggestive footage of all-male “wrestling.” Van Darkholme, one of the stars of these “gachimuchi” videos, now has his own title with Evil Games’ Deep Dark Fight. Should you help this performance artist become the boss of this gym, or is a better game two blocks down?

Deep Dark Fight Review

There’s not much to Deep Dark Fight. After adjusting the master volume (with the SFX for each setting being Van moaning), players are instantly whisked away to a flooded city. Players must guide Van to the right of each level, navigating past bodies of water, half naked guys walking left and right, and machine gun fire.

The absolute bare minimum of effort was put in here, with everything poorly rendered and the same elements used multiple times. There is nothing complex here – most levels repeat the same traps and enemy layouts, and the levels end almost instantly, freezing Van in place and playing a jingle.

Don’t expect later levels to offer much variety either. Though the game will transport you to forests and the inside of a beast, it is so poorly designed that it can feel tiresome quickly. The game is also known for its cheap shots – characters like the infamous Kazuya will pop out of bushes yelling “oh oh oh ganging up” at poorly marked spots with no indication, taking a bunch of your life in the process.

If anything, this game absolutely suffers in its hit detection. Put simply, there is none to speak of here. Van has a punch move (which has him grunt each time he uses it), but connecting an attack doesn’t slow enemies down. As a result, it is easy to take a hit every time you attack, and almost every enemy takes away multiple units of health. Taking down enemies has Van saying such phrases as “boy next door” or “that turns me on,” but it’s all completely random. There are health pickups available in the form of nondescript cubes, but prepare to die multiple times on your journey.

If anything, the game feels unfinished. There is a leveling system in place, but there was no noticeable improvement. Players can also net coins, but they do absolutely nothing. Even the platforming is broken, with some “climbing sections” positioning Van in the same walking position, but hanging from the ceiling. You can no doubt tell that the game is broken from the get-go the moment you see Van’s walking cycle.

It’s not like players will be diving into this game for hours on end either. Despite dying countless times and starting levels over, we were able to make it to the final fight (which recreates the opening scene of “Lords of the Locker Room” – don’t look it up) in about two hours. Those two hours were a royal pain, one that we would not wish on our worst enemy.

Van Darkholme deserves better than his portrayal in Deep Dark Fight. This is a sloppy excuse of a game, and the broken physics will make you curse more than Van himself.