Castle Crashers

"Plenty of Beat 'em Up goodness"

Castle Crashers is a title which is reminiscent of the side-scrollers of old.The combination of hand-drawn art, fast and furious attacks, and RPG elements make for an enjoyable experience, albeit one which may frustrate novice players.

The story is simple: Bad Guys take the Princess (Four of them in this case) and some McGuffin that's never explained. To get them back, you must smash your way through numerous stages, fighting various (although similar) enemies, and over-the-top boss battles. That's about it. Like many old school beat 'em ups, the game is light on story.

The gameplay is fairly intuitive, with two attack buttons, a jump button, an item button, a guard button and a magic button. Various combinations can be employed by alternating attacks and the jump button. As you gain levels, you learn new combos, which allow you to further manhandle your opponents. Thanks to juggling, you can bash your opponents across the screen and back. Items can alter gameplay; there is a bow, for obvious ranged attacks, potions to restore health, bombs, PB&J sandwiches which make you grow to immense size, and so on.

Magic comes in multiple varieties, affording various attack possibilities. There are single shot, line, and air versions on a simple theme; the Green Knight, for example, uses poison gas; the Blue Knight uses icicles, which will freeze most opponents. Several characters use arrows, bombs and blades as their "magic" attacks. Not all characters have unique magical abilities, but there is still plenty of variety in types. Each attack diminishes your magic bar, and when you run out, you can't cast. Fortunately, magic recharges relatively fast.

Single player is fun enough, but the game really shines with 2-4 players. You can play with any combination of online and offline players, and the Live process is well integrated into matchmaking. There have been problems with online play, but playing only with people on my friends list, I'm yet to experience any problems. The major flaws appear to be with random matchmaking and the like. The folks at Behemoth are said to be working on the problem. I can't comment on a patch that hasn't been released, so I will suffice to report that a portion of the online play is currently broken.

On- or offline, alone or with friends, you will storm your way through hordes of enemies, gaining levels, improving your abilities, finding weapons, earning gold, and unlocking animal orbs. Weapons provide stat bonuses and penalties, some providing special abilities to shock or burn your foes. Animal Orbs follow you around, providing stat bonuses, special abilities (regeneration, finding fruit or items, etc.), or attacking your enemies for you.

Both weapons and Animal Orbs can be found in the open or hidden and discovered in various ways. Finding them all will require backtracking and some clever hunting. Some are obvious, a few are less so. Some are clearly just for the sake of collecting--a lot of the weapons are on par with the starter weapons, which are outclassed very fast in the course of the game.

Gold allows you to purchase items, along with certain weapons and Animal Orbs. Always useful are potions, in case you're getting dominated by hordes of enemies or that troublesome boss. Gold is fairly easy to come by, and you're unlikely to find yourself strapped for cash, really.

Leveling up provides you with basic stat bonuses, as well as points to apply to one of four abilities. You have Strength, which affects damage of melee weapons; Magic, which increases your damage with magical attacks, and improves the recharge time on your magic bar; Defense, which increases your health; Agility, which increases speed and damage with ranged weapons. Magic also increases your variety of magical attacks, unlocking them as you reach the colored bars on the chart.

The game is fairly forgiving in terms of levels. If you are under-leveled, you can go back to previous levels and gain XP. There is no real penalty for death, aside from having to restart the given stage. In multiplayer, there is a "CPR" mechanic, which allows you to bring a fallen ally back to life. This is balanced by the fact that enemies can attack you, meaning you have to be careful when you choose to do it. All gold is retained, all weapons, levels, and Animal Orbs gained are retained as well when you die. You can even exit a stage at any time, should you wish to level up. The only catch is that you have to restart the stage.

On top of the main levels, you can choose to fight in arenas. Single player arenas pit you against waves of enemies to earn certain bonus characters, and in multiplayer, you and your allies will duke it out to the death. There is also a mini game called "All You Can Quaff," in which you pond buttons to chow down on food faster than the competition.

The game's visuals are generally quite good, though the occasional bit of art sticks out as significantly below the rest. There are several fairly childish "poop" jokes, but they don't show up often enough to destroy the fun of the game. The graphics are striking, with the layered backgrounds standing out as pretty phenomenal, all while maintaining a very simplistic, cartoony feel.

Bosses are fairly colorful, from a catfish manned by a Panda to a grieving Cyclops to a Painter who conjures up art from Newgrounds (A tribute to the people behind the game) and a spaceship which spits out Alien Hominids (A tribute to the prior title). The Hominid is also an unlockable character, available if you own the full version of Alien Hominid HD.

There are some points that will likely frustrate novice players or those not familiar to the genre. Having RPG elements, "grinding" for experience can be important, especially when you are new to the game. Some bosses will start attacking so rapidly it can be hard to keep up with them, and groups employing ranged attacks can pin you to the ground, sometimes indefinitely. There are about twenty stages, but not all stages are created equal. Some will pass really quick, making them unsuitable for grinding. At higher levels, earlier stages offer little, meaning you are likely replaying the same five or six stages (tops) over and over again for experience. A seasoned player likely will not need to do this, but for the rest of us, it's an issue. There is an "Insane Mode," but a player who finds normal mode difficult will no doubt struggle with the higher difficulty. Air juggling is a necessary skill, and if you haven't mastered it by the later stages, you might as well resign yourself to failure. Blocking is also a must, often an afterthought in most action games.

The music is high quality, though I have the same problem with the "farting" sound effects that are similar to the "poop" visuals.

Such issues aside, Castle Crashers is a strong action game and great multiplayer fun. At 1200 MSP (15 dollars US), the game may seem pricey, but it will certainly keep you playing for quite some time. If you are a hardcore player or can deal with a little hair-pulling, this is easily one of the best beat 'em ups in recent history.

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

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