Castle Crashers' art design and personality complement one another in an
extremely enjoyable way. This 2-D side scroller is loaded with hours of
fun game play and honest-to-goodness moments that will make you laugh.
Castle Crashers has personality through and through. Also, its hack and
slash gameplay are simple yet harmonize the other simple but cultivated
features the game has to offer. So, sit back and enjoy the rollercoaster
that is "CASTLE CRASHERS".
The simple breakdown of Castle Crashers is like so.
Graphics/Character Animation - 10/10
Fun Factor - 8/10 single player 10/10 with friends
Story - 6/10 (Not a problem I'll explain later.)
Controls and User Interfacing - 10/10
Learning Curve - Better than Fine
Sound - 10/10
Value - 9/10
Total - 8.83
The game starts. Even the way the introduction logos for the developers
at the beginning of the game start can make you laugh and emphasizes
this game's personality. Their ridiculous art style and animated
interpretation of themselves into this art style to give one another a
mid-air high-five can start the snowball effect of laughter this game
will most likely deliver. From woodland critters that apparently have no
control over their bowel movements to strange white teddy bears that
wield fishes for weapons and ride giant "catfish" (which are taken quite
literally), this game's ensemble is bizarre to say the least. One boss
in the game is an enormous half-cat half-fish. It swims under water and
dashes at you while the white teddy bear on its back emerges from the
water like a periscope to find and strike you. Coughed-up hair balls
ensue and cannon balls launched from a friendly boat all combine to make
just one of the game's fantastical off-the-wall encounters. This is all
done with charm and poise in a "Saturday morning cartoon" kind of way.
The character animations are always flawless and the game is basically
eye candy to watch unfold throughout.
The reason I gave the game a low score on the story is because there
basically is not one and what is there is 20+ years of videogame cliché.
You don't really know for what reason, but several events arise that
comprise the game's story. You start the game and you're partying with
your other castle crasher-esque buddies in some type of a banquet hall.
Suddenly, a grey castle crasher knight launches tumbling through the
doorway and topples down a staircase to his death…better go see what
just happened. As you exit the banquet hall you see an "evil looking"
cloaked character bullying the old king into a scare and taking some
type of large white crystal that is atop his throne. Through the use of
the cloaked character's telekinesis he moves the crystal from its
fixture and moves it under himself to fly away on it like an airborne
surfboard. Shortly thereafter, as you are in pursuit you realize that
several princesses have been abducted as well. Your Castle Crashers
Knight's pursuit of said stolen item and abducted persons are the events
that arise in the story to fuel the fire of the quest. This is a pretty
cliché narrative. Although, a lame attempt to have a complex story
would only demean this game's lack of seriousness in its attitude. The
game's story is not trying to be creative or say it is not a cliché of
old "hey they kid napped the princess" game storyline incentives. It is
being ironic and exacerbating the qualities that make those old games
great.
This is part of the fun factor of the game. It has qualities and
mechanics of old-school 2-D side scroller standup arcade games like:
X-men, TMNT, AvP, Simpsons, Streets of Rage, etc. This game is an
absolute blast to play with friends because of several different
elements. For instance, there are the usual quarks like grabbing coins
and riches off the ground before your friends and trying to share food
to regain health between your group, but there are some elements that
are a bit different and unique. For example, when you save one of the
abducted princesses, if you're playing with friend/s, you have to
compete for her "kiss" immediately after her rescue. This event starts
an every-man-for-himself battle among you and all of your friends until
only one is left standing to relish the spoils, a kiss…awe. Another
example of something that is fairly unique to the old 2-D genre, but has
been incorporated into many modern games, is the ability to revive a
fallen teammate. When a friendly character has fallen in battle any of
the other living teammates can come try to revive them. When this
happens you can either hit the revive button as quickly as possible to
just get them up on their feet quickly as possible or you can try to time your button
presses as a white cursor goes back-and-forth on a bar with a heart in
the middle of the bar. If you execute the revive perfectly with roughly
five chest compressions right as the white marker is passing over the
heart, you can revive the fallen member for nearly all of their health points. The
"local" multiplayer obviously works fine and the online multiplayer
works perfectly as well. Multiplayer adds to the fun and makes the game
even more enjoyable than it is when playing by yourself, which is still
pretty damn fun.
The learning curve is pretty perfect. The game is fairly easy at the
beginning and the battle mechanics are not that hard. As you go farther
on into the game the situations and enemies progressively get more
difficult then they get exponentially harder for an overall great
challenge. Playing by yourself makes the game much more difficult than
compared to only having a single companion with you. As you progress
battle situations get harder and bosses unleash a plethora of different
mechanics to test your wits. As bosses get beat up and hacked 'n slashed
they move faster and pull out all of the stops they can to try and
defeat you. Some bosses add completely new mechanics to their fight as
the battle rages on and the player must stay on their toes to see what
is new…and what exactly is happening during the bout. Not only does the
game try to defeat you with enemy mechanics but they might also try to
visually overwhelm you as well. One thing is for certain and that is
that a lot is going to be happening on your screen when you're playing
Castle Crashers. From a "catfish" that vomits hairballs, to a cornstalk
that screeches like a siren and launches popcorn at you, a boss that is a
strange take on Medusa, or a knight that plays the organ that somehow
has fifteen loaded cannons attached to it to fire at you, this game has a
multitude of big bad guys and not just in their variety but also in
their mechanics for you to overcome as well.
Combat in the game is simple but great. For the basics of combat you
have combinations of weak and strong melee attacks, jump, items, simple
throws, blocking, and magic. As your character progresses in levels you
unlock new combat combos to use to vanquish enemies. Magic spells have a
variety of different effects depending on your character. When you
first start the game you pick between four different characters to play
as. One is the Red Knight who has electricity as his magical power which
is channeled for the duration of how long you hold down you magic
buttons. The Green Knight bursts a cloud of green poison that hits your
enemy then does damage over time to all that it hits. The Orange Knight
launches a burst of flames that do initial damage then do more damage
over time. Lastly, the Blue Knight shoots ice which does no damage and
encases the enemy in a block of ice for a duration, but at higher levels
can do damage as well. As you level up magic the system is broken up
into 4 "tiers" which add additional effects to your casting abilities
and enhance existing ones. For example, reaching the end of any tier
will always increase the extension of your first main spell. Reaching
the third tier will add a projectile that spans the entire screen, but
only hits a single enemy to your arsenal. Furthermore, reaching the
fourth tier gives you a magical burst to your jump that makes you hurt
enemies around your feet when jumping and gives you some extra height.
Leveling up in the game is very simple and adds to the light RPG
elements the game supports. When you are first leveling up you get two
points to distribute amongst your four attributes; Strength, Magic,
Defense, and Agility. Strength increases your melee damage, Magic
increases your spell damage, mana regeneration rate, and does what I
previously described, Defense decreases how much enemies hit you for and
increases the amount of health points you have, and Agility increases
bow and arrow damage and how quickly you swing your melee weapons. After
level 20 you no longer get two points each level and you receive one
point per level thereafter, to a maximum level of 256 (I believe). On a
side note, I believe I was level 34 by the time I had first beat the
game solo and I was level 23 when I first beat the game with two
friends, just to give you an idea of what level you might be and how
many points you could roughly have by the end of your first play
through. Your first play through should clock you in around 5-8 hours.
After beating the game once there is an "insane mode" in which you can
continue to beef up your characters even further. Sure, you can max-out
each of the four stats if you level high enough, but a leveling system
is a nice addition to a 2-D side scroller. The addition of a leveling
system adds to the character customization and your play style in the
game. Weapons and animals add to this customization.
In the game you can equip two things, your melee weapon and an animal.
Melee weapons can have a variety of different stats and "skins" on them
and level requirements to be able to wield them. For example, one weapon
might give -2 Str +6 Magic +2 Agi, so you have to have at least 2
strength to wield it for the other bonuses. As for the animals, they are
a multitude of different things that float around and follow your
character. Some might be a giraffe's head, a puppy, a beholder, or a fat
chicken but they all have some sort of function or another. For
example, the Fat Chicken gives its master a bonus to Str, Def, and Agi
and the Giraffe gives increased experience points gained from combat.
Between the varieties of your preferred stats you want to increase and
the weapons and animal you want to equip your character with there is a
pretty nice level of customization to be had here.
The sound and music is a perfect fit into this game. There is not a lot
to say besides it is amazing, crazy, and fun. Which is a good note to
end on because that is really the theme this game is trying to
stimulate.
All in all, Castle Crasher is a throwback to good ol' 2-D standup arcade
beat'em up games with a dash of easily and quickly understandable RPG
elements. It is still great to play by yourself and has a fairly good
amount of challenge to be had, but should say "best played with others"
on the side of the box (if it had one). Adding a few friends along for
the ride only enhances an already amazing, crazy, and fun adventure.
Castle Crashers' only real drawback, in the world of videogames, is that
it is too short, but in the world of downloadable arcade games it is
not problematic. If you're wondering if you should buy this game I
almost just have to say go for it, I bought mine when it went on sale
for roughly 7$ and I have no complaints whatsoever. Castle Crasher
doesn't cost that much and if you have friends and a few controllers, or
an internet connection, it is a load of crazy and awesome wrapped in a
tortilla of fun and hilarious. Do yourself a favor…have some fun with
some friends.
