Sometimes you run into games that have a certain look or similarity to a classic title you’ve played before, and even knowing that they won’t be terribly similar, it’s still a struggle not to end up making comparisons. For anyone who’s familiar with the arcade classic NBA Jam, it would be difficult not to hope that some new title could scratch that same sort of itch with exciting arcade basketball play. The bad news is that Dunk Dunk obviously doesn’t aspire to reach that same depth of play, but at least the good news is that where it lands it can at least make for a different flavor of local multiplayer action for the right crowd.

Starting with choosing your athlete, for people who love to create some unusual looking on-screen characters there’s plenty to work with here right off the bat. From cute to creepy to outright weird, there are even a variety of choices tied to other popular indie games, which can also be fun. Once you’ve chosen your players and mode you’ll then be off to play. The critical reason the game has little in common with the likes of a normal basketball title is that it’s played entirely from a side view, and the places you’ll find yourself playing tend to be quite wild and crazy. Whether you’re playing in an industrial area, haunted house, or some other odd location, there’s at least some variety that will prevent every game from feeling the same.

There are some areas where the experience unfortunately comes up a bit short, though depending on what you and your friends are looking for these will vary in their severity. The first issue is that while I appreciate the game’s attempts at keeping everything to do with the action on-screen at once, when it gets more zoomed out it can begin to be a struggle to follow what’s going on. Since player pile-ups aren’t terribly uncommon as everyone is struggling for the ball in general as well, there’s quite a lot of time wasted where nobody can quite tell what’s going on. Granted, if everyone is just yelling and having a good time with it, perhaps it won’t be a big deal, but if you’re playing with a crowd hoping to find greater depth in the experience, this will be disappointing. Yes, there can be nuance when you’re trying to block shots and things like that, but without the game being in an isometric view, all of the constant character collisions make success feel like a product of luck far too often.

In the end, I do at least appreciate that this doesn’t quite feel like anything else out there on the eShop, so that does win it some points. The fact that there are different balls and mutators that you can enable also demonstrates the developer’s commitment to helping you get the most mileage possible out of what, at its core, remains a pretty simple concept. While it unfortunately falls short of really feeling like a multiplayer sports title with some depth, it at least feels fun and somewhat fresh, while keeping everything simple enough that it can be enjoyed as an all-ages affair.