Woody Woodpecker Crazy Castle 5

"Take the Crazy Castle series and change around the rules. You get this game!"

Ah, Woody Woodpecker Crazy Castle 5. In many ways, it's similar to the other 4 games of the Crazy Castle series, and in others, it's different. First and most obvious, is that Woody Woodpecker is the star here, not Bugs Bunny. As much of a shame that is, it doesn't really matter. Does this game deserve to have the Crazy Castle name? Read on to find out.

Story: 6/10
Mother Nature wakes Woody up from his nap to tell him about monsters taking over Crazy Castle. She also adds that if he succeeds, he gets the treasure of Crazy Castle. Woody accepts the mission thinking the treasure could be gold. A somewhat cliche story, but older Crazy Castle games didn't have a better storyline either.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics for a game in the early GBA years looks fine. Woody's a polygonal 3D model, and that's pretty cool. The enemies are rendered models animated to look 3D, and they do so pretty well. The environments are alright, too. Nothing amazing, but they fit their theme well.

Sound and Music: 7/10
The sounds in this game are fairly basic. They're pretty cartoony, just what you'd expect from a game like this one. The music's the type that you could be tapping your foot to. Well, some of it, not all.

Gameplay: 6/10
As with every other Crazy Castle game, the main character, Woody in this case, can't jump. There are objects that act like springs, and send Woody into the air. BUT, the height of Woody's jumps are limited. This can be a bad thing at times. You would be taking a lot of time trying to reach that ledge that Woody's jump height JUST reaches. The weapons here are not as useful as the other Crazy Castle games. Plunger guns do their job perfectly, but bombs are now timebombs. You really have to predict the enemies' movements to place it right. Which comes to the next little problem. Enemies. They're pretty fast and aggressive, but have a limited area to move around in. The chasing ones are the ones you'll be frustrated with. They always seem to find a way to corner you at times. And, killing them is practically futile. They'll respawn in about a couple of seconds. So you have to use your weapons sparingly if you want to clear each level. There are costumes that do different things in each world, but some are next to useless. Crazy Castle 5 does it's best to try being like it's older siblings, but has too many new things to stay in their league.

Replay Value: 2/10
There isn't much to come back for once you beat this game. There's multiplayer, but I haven't tried it out yet, so I can't really cover that part.

All in all, Crazy Castle 5's an alright game. It just doesn't do anything that the older Crazy Castle games did right.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/09/09

Game Release: Woody Woodpecker Crazy Castle 5 (US, 12/02/03)