Castle Crashers

"Crashers will spice up your XBLA collection, if only for a short time"

Lets get this clear: Castle Crashers is a pretty damn fun game, one that seems to bring out the nostalgia in all of us. Those that grew up with Battletoads, Ninja Turtles or any other Side-Scrolling brawler will enjoy hacking and slashing through legions of foes, saving the princess and obtaining “phat lewt”. Yes, what Castle Crashers brings to the table is plain, unadulterated fun, but ultimately, the overall game starts to become stale, repetition rears its ugly head, and the game loses its initial luster quickly. Lets delve into a detailed look at this XBLA title, and keep an open mind.

Castle Crashers contains three main modes of play, two of which are completely unnecessary. During this review I will elaborate only about the main game, simply called “Castle Crashers.” this mode offers the meat of the game. It is where you initially pick one of four different characters, Knights who don different colored mail, and you hack your way through a non-existent story to save four princesses who have been kidnapped by some evil sorcerer, who also happens to steal some big crystal from the King. You don't know anything about what goes on in this game, and frankly it doesn't matter. This is not a story game and it was made with that in mind. Those looking for story, leave this review now, because this is retro storytelling at its best; minimal, and there is just enough to keep the game from becoming a hollow husk.

In the main mode, you or three of your buddies (locally or over LIVE) can start a fairly brief campaign. You start out at level 1, a fresh Knight with poor attack, defense and magic. What separates this from most brawlers is that there is a scant hint of RPG character development. Doing damage in this game to enemies nets you XP, which increases your level, and gives you points to allocate to different stats. While not a deep system, there are a couple of different ways you can wish to build your character based on your style of play. All Knights operate the same, but they all have different magic abilities. One Knight in particular suit's the Magic route more so than the other three, but any of them can become “Casters” if you wish. The Green Knight offers magic that poisons the enemy, and does damage over time. The Orange Knight is a based around fire. The Blue, Ice. His unique side effect of his magic is freezing enemies in place, which is quite useful. (Playing with a buddy over LIVE demonstrated just how nice it can be!) The Red Knight features arguably the strongest magic, a multi hit lightning attack that can stun groups of foes and damage them for a long period of time, until your magic runs out if you wish. Whichever Knight you choose, you will have a pretty fun time playing. Most of your time will be mashing the X or Y button and attacking foes that frantically run all over the screen to attack you. Enemies start off fairly slow, but later some will become bothersome and further, some become outright frustrating. No matter what means you choose to kill them, you will be rewarded. Enemies most of the time drop coins, which you use at the next vendor to buy things; fruit or food items that restore health, or if you are lucky, a new weapon.

As you slaughter hordes of enemies, you are bound to come across new weapons to pick up and use. Each weapon will add to or subtract to certain stats. Some even add multiple different attributes, and some have a side effect. Early on you start with a pretty standard melee weapon. You can find some menacing weapons in this game, like giant hammers, wicked swords or silly things like a dead salmon, or a sausage of all things. Not every weapon is very practical to use, and those who don't care about collecting will skip over most of them for the ones that give the best stats and overall “oomph” with attacking. Which ever you choose, each weapon you pick up will always be available to you any time you want at the Blacksmith, where you can find a variety of things you pick up in this game. Even if you don't keep a weapon you pick up, it will save to your Blacksmith and be able to be used any time later. Even a friend who hasn't found a particular weapon will be able to use yours (he/she must meet the appropriate level) if you play together.

Each Knight will gain combos upon reaching a certain level. In the beginning, X is a light attack which can be chained into your own combo of XXX or whatever you will. Y is a heavy attack and for the beginning of the game, spamming Y can pretty much bring you through early areas. Adding in new combos upon level will give you XY for example, a light attack followed by a heavy attack that lifts enemies into the air. XXXY will offer a nice head but to enemies upon hitting Y after the chain. Gaining a sprint move early on will allow you to plow into enemies while running, usually knocking them down and doing stacked damage to one or a group. Magic plays out similarly to physical combos, but to unlock different spells, you must allocate your points to this stat. There are light blue sections in the magic stat bar that unlock a new spell by adding a point, otherwise each regular point increases your power and regeneration. Likewise, Defense will increase your defense and hit points, Strength your physical power, and Agility will increase move speed and arrow damage/speed, which is something I did not personally see much use of.

Your Knight has a secondary item that you can use. Activating the B button will use the currently selected item, while the right and left bumper will scroll through all secondary items you carry. In the beginning you can carry potions. You will eventually get a Bow, which as I said above, I didn't use much, but agility players can see a substantial increase in its usefulness if they see fit. Other items to use show up as you play. Some can be bought, some are found. Some are simply for unlocking new parts of the story mode, and those same items will be used for hunting for treasure or animal partners. Yes, Castle Crashers features a “familiar” system. Those that have played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night will understand this term. Let me explain.

You can find and buy pets through the game. Each does something different. One can make you jump higher. One will attack enemies and knock them over if he is facing them. One will even net you more XP upon attack. Each animal you take will add a bit of variety in how you play. If you are a straight up melee attacker with tons of health and high attack, taking a pet that runs enemies over or increases your defense even more is a great idea. There is even a pet that encourages backtracking, as it finds useful items that unlock more things in the game, such as new pets or weapons. Pets act like weapons do. Once you find one, if you choose to take it along or not, it will be back at the Blacksmith in a hut with any other animal friends you find along your journey. There are quite a bit of different pets, not all of them are useful though, and more for novelty or collecting.

This game is somewhat a non-seamless experience. Between each level you are sent to an overhead world map, similar to Super Mario World. Each level is on a path and can be replayed any number of times you wish. You can travel back to vendors, the Blacksmith, or just play a boss fight again if you want. You will want to go back most of the time, to find something you missed or just simply to “level up”. There are a couple areas that require an “unlock” of sorts to proceed, but its nothing fancy.

This game should and most likely will be enjoyed more with friends. The Co-Op is what holds this title together in all honesty. You and your buddy will trudge through level after level, reviving each other, taking gold, buying potions at the vendor, swapping out pets and weapons, beating bosses, fighting for treasure, and eventually, literally battling for the affection of the princess. This is quite fun.

I've talked much about the game play. While simple, it is fun, at least for awhile. All of it sounds pretty interesting, but its not as deep as it comes off. The game is short enough that it doesn't become a bore to keep trekking on, but it isn't quite long enough or features enough variety to keep it from being a weekend wonder. There a couple places in the game that require more than just mashing buttons, but that is what a majority of the game is and was made to be, so you can't really fault it for that.

Presentation wise, the two guys who put their time into this game really gave it a style of their own. I was not a player of their previous work of Alien Hominid HD but I know of it. Castle Crashers is a great looking game. It may come off as simplistic, but there is a lot of color, style and cartoony gore to make it fun. I dare say that you will have a smile on your face for most of the game because of the look alone. Each character, being either in the background, an enemy, or the Knight you choose, animates wonderfully, if not limited, but it looks good in the process. There is a lot of humor to be found in this game, ranging from slapstick to inside humor that new grounds fans will most likely get the most out of. Even the deaths of some enemies, after a decapitation, are cartoony, humorous and reminds me of strangely, Samurai Jack sort of, which is cool …

This game features some pretty awesome sound as well. I really have to give this title props on music. The music for this game is sometimes epic. The boss battles have cool tracks, the opening music at the title screen fills you with a desire to go kick some ass. Levels feature, for the most part, unique stage music. Overall, great here.

I will get to my overall disappointments with this title. It's good fun, for the 10 or so hours you want to put into it. Unlocking things is purely up to the players desire to earn achievements or boast to friends. I am not a completionist anymore, and I don't feel the desire to run through this game maybe more than once or twice (which will take more or less about 10 to 12 hours). The game becomes a bit repetitive despite how short it is. Enemies get pretty strong later, and take almost too long to kill. There will be areas later where waves of enemies will just be literally crawling over the screen, throwing projectiles at you, coming up behind you to hit you (for massive damage, especially later on) and overall it gets tiresome killing wave after wave of these guys who take 8 or 9 hit's a piece to kill. When you've got a screen of 10 of them, it can take awhile. Those who have slower reflexes will find themselves dying quite a bit to normal enemies, or at least, taking a huge beating. There is never a “need” to grind or level up, but the later stages are sometimes oft ridiculous and playing with a friend makes it a bit less frustrating and mundane.

While Crashers features some pretty cool boss encounters, most of them are easy and what bothers me mostly about this is the fact that a room full of regular enemies is often more challenging than any boss this game throws at you. Most bosses feature a set of predictable attacks that are either dodged, blocked or just avoided outright by moving around. There is only one boss in particular that I can think of that may give people trouble, simply because they might not find a sound way of getting the hits in. With patience, each boss goes down and does less damage per attack then some normal enemies. I think every time I've died, its been mostly due to getting pounded by many minions and just simply my lack of attention to notice all of them. Almost all big bosses can be killed easily by jumping and spamming melee attacks.

There really isn't a lot to be unhappy with in this game. While my disappointments are purely opinion, its hard to rate this game down because of my own personal problems. Some people may in fact love the repetition. Who knows. I can't safely slap anything on this game but what I graded it overall; it does a disservice to the people that made it, and the people that play it and enjoy it. I just hope that someday we can get a game like this with a bit more polish, a bit more variety and a whole lot more to conquer. There is plenty for completionists: Weapons to find, Pets to collect, new knights to unlock (yes there are more than just the initial four, but playing through again as an unlocked character does not change drastically), but I guess my taste in the old side-scroller has aged a bit. It was a fun game for awhile, and I may come back to Crashers in the future for a quick bit of beat down, but it won't make any top ten lists. Lets hope for a detailed and well made sequel which adds a bit more.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/08

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