Castle Crashers

"The best game I have ever played! (..that has poop jokes)"

I'm always complaining how Xbox Live Arcade is lacking in beat 'em up titles (a mere four prior to the release of this game). We're always getting original content in regards to shooters, puzzle games, etc. - but there have been few mentions of upcoming brawlers designed exclusively for the Marketplace. Castle Crashers finally strolls into the scene after more than a year in development, and the idea of playing a brand-new beat 'em up has had the genre enthusiasts (myself including) drooling on their keyboards. How does it compare to the other brawlers on Xbox Live Arcade? Onto the review..

Story 7/10

An evil wizard kidnaps a kingdom's four princesses and it is up to a group of knights to give pursuit and rescue them. Not exactly a Deus Ex quality story - but for what it lacks in originality it mostly makes up for in presentation. Castle Crashers pokes fun at several popular moves and has obvious references to other beat 'em up games. Most of the bosses involve some sort of humorous theme (I love the toolbox-headed painter), and all sort of wacky comedy dots the individual levels. There is also, as mentioned in the name of this review - a healthy dose of bathroom-related jokes.

Graphics 8/10

While I am not a huge fan of flash cartoon-style visuals, Castle Crasher's artist did a pretty good jobs letting most of the game not coming off cheap looking. The sprawling levels maintain a crisp look that doesn't seem copy & pasted over like a couple of brawlers' environments suffer from. The characters are all animated well, each of them packed with unique moves that featured entirely different graphical effects. A neat aspect of the game is that your weapons are visible in real-time, an arsenal of at least least two dozen swords, spears, and things like slabs of meat - all that can swapped around. Also worth mentioning is that there are quite a few different enemy designs, some of which you can unlock as playable characters.

Sound 8/10

Castle Crashers had a soundtrack that features a nice catalogue of tunes, all of them above average in quality but I can only think of a few levels that have themes I would download onto a CD and listen to. The battle effects are satisfying, with a cartoonish range of explosions, bangs, and bloops from all action going on in the game. There isn't any real voice acting, which is both and good and bad thing (how many brawlers manage dialogue better than "I'm Bad!").

Control 8/10

Most of the time that game handles all of the chaotic action on screen without any hiccups - but I do have a couple of complaints. Some of the bosses are pretty big and it is easy to get caught behind their bodies and not be able to land any blows because of a narrow field for hit detection. Some of the bosses also require you to remain airborne to damage them (the final boss especially) and it isn't exactly easy or fun to hop around swinging, but mostly missing. I'm not going to address the various lag and servers crashes that most people have experienced playing this because I assume it will be patched eventually and I don't want to re-do this review when everything is ship-shape.

Game-play 8/10

Castle Crashers is a throw back to the good ole days of 2D beat 'em ups, but features a very modern co-op experience and a deep RPG aspect that helps you customize the characters to your liking. You can put together a team of heroes as large as four, and explore a network of linked stages that reminds me of the world maps from Super Mario Bros. 3. Unlike most beat 'em ups, you are free to move back and forth between completed stages to further level up and hunt for treasure you may have previously missed. The game has enough levels that a speedy run-through will take you several hours and soak up a couple of days for the dedicated gamer. The action is usually pretty entertaining, even on repeated plays - although there are a couple of bland levels (the desert for example), and some of the bosses are more annoying than fun to battle (the final boss should have had his numerous forms shortened by 3 or so). The developers may not have much history in gaming design - but they are obviously fans of the beat 'em up genre and went lengths to include staples like Golden Axe-style mounts, Double Dragon-inspired duels for a girl, and an elevator battle straight out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While the game isn't perfect, it builds a solid foundation for a possible sequel/franchise - which I'm sure will address the issues they need to tweak.

Replay value 8/10

There are about a dozen unlockable characters to play as, on top of the original four heroes. As mentioned earlier - there's also a ton of weapons to collect and 26 animal orbs that you can fiddle around with before deciding about the perfect combination. The co-op multiplayer in this game is the best to be found on Xbox Live Arcade - putting together a nice sense of teamwork and rivalry as you make a dash for the loot and glory. Outside of the online and single player campaigns are two small modes serve as nothing but reasons to chip down the score in this review. Arena is similar to going to an arena in an online game and fighting your buddies - only here it takes 30 seconds to put together a team with the lackluster matchmaking system and the action usually doesn't last longer than that. All You Can Quaff is even worse - it is essentially a button mashing contest, and the 360 controller isn't even built to hold comfortably for such a thing. Those disappointments aside - Castle Crashers offers the best re-playability of all the Marketplace beat 'em ups.

Overall 8/10

If you can overlook the glitches the game is having right now, and the $15 price tag - you will come to enjoy Castle Crashers as one of the best beat 'em ups on the 360 and one of the best original Marketplace games period. If you're a fan of the brawling genre or just want to play something that you can enjoy online - then I very much encourage you to make this purchase.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/08

Game Release: Castle Crashers (US, 08/27/08)