If you haven’t gotten the title, I was looking forward to the week of August 24th for a looooong time. Not only was it the week of PAX, but it was the week Castle Crashers was released…which kinda makes sense since I’ve played it at PAX for the past two damn years so I’m used to late August fueling my Castle Crashers fix. Now that the game is out and all is said and done, I thought it would be totally appropriate to write a small review of the game…to go back to my roots as a guy who only played a gaming journalist at E3.
If you haven’t heard of the game before, Castle Crashers is a beat-em-up by The Behemoth, known previously for the Alien Hominid series of games. If you could call remaking the same game a couple times over a “series”. While Hominid focused on old school 2D shooting, Castle Crashers is a brawler in the same vain as games like Final Fight or Double Dragon where you continually walk to the right, make your way to a boss, and beat up everything that stands in your way on the way to rescue four doe-eyed princesses.
While your characters come with a default set of weapons, there are tons of weapons to be found – ranging from the deadly to the downright ridiculous. Collecting the weapons is pretty much half the fun aside from lobbing the heads off of baddies or performing full jumping juggle combos where you can juggle those bastards from one end of the screen to the other. Certain weapons will enhance your abilities, as will the random animal orbs you can find and pick up as you go through the game. Some animals are totally useless, while others, such as the bipolar bear are totally useful – especially on the game’s insanity difficulty.
Aside from the useless animal orbs (which are few and far between) and a couple of gameplay quirks, the gameplay is as fun as it gets and feels like a normal progression from the brawlers we knew back in the day to a more modern style. Kinda’ like a new Beastie Boys CD in a way…if all they did was beat people up that is. While the gameplay only makes up for some of the game’s charm, there’s no doubting the charm of Dan Paladin’s art here. Everything carries his trademark style, even the hulking monsters that your castle crashers mutate into after downing a sandwich. There are sight gags everywhere, and while some are more obvious than others, it’s the subtlety that really stands out. For instance, you’ll fight through a cave on your way to a boss. It seems a little uncanny that there are stoned soldiers all over the place…then you start seeing women’s clothing in the background…well, then it all comes together. It’s a friggin’ medusa. Just things like that (not to mention the eternal friendship between black knight and Cyclops) keep the beatings interesting to make you want to move on.
Aside from the single player game, there are a variety of multiplayer modes for you to take your leveled crasher online, or if you don’t feel social, you can also battle up to three additional players locally or play through the story in co-op. Granted, the online features are a little flaky and like to disconnect random players from matches often. On top of that, I have yet to get an Xbox Live four player story mode game going without all of the other players falling off into the ether. When you CAN get a multiplayer game going, you can challenge other players in the arena where you can go toe-to-toe against other characters, fight in an arena with nothing but a bow and arrow, or forego the weapons and get right into a mutation battle where players fight for sandwiches to mutate and bring the pain to everyone else.
So right now on the cusp of not making this a quickie review, so let’s sum it up. If you’re a fan of old school brawling games, and haven’t gotten your fix in years (let’s face it, Final Fight: Streetwise was the dregs) Castle Crashers may just be the game to satiate your craving. A solid and entertaining story mode chock full of baddies and huuuuge bosses make this game great, four player co-op and versus play make this game a must have. Castle Crashers is just about the greatest game to grace the hallowed halls of XBLA in a while.
Since 2007, Gamescrap has brought you the the worst video games, game commercials, game merchandise, and gaming moments ever to grace the industry. No matter if it's a beloved classic or the next hot thing, no bad game is safe from the horrors of the Gamescrap heap.
Since 2007, Gamescrap has brought you the the worst video games, game commercials, game merchandise, and gaming moments ever to grace the industry. No matter if it's a beloved classic or the next hot thing, no bad game is safe from the horrors of the Gamescrap heap.