DONATELLO - er, RED KNIGHT!
Developer: The Behemoth
Publisher: The Behemoth/Microsoft
Genre: Side Scrolling, Beat-Um-Up
Some of my fondest memories as but a wii (OH THE PUNMANITY) youngster involve arcade games, specifically nickel games at a locally owned little hangout. Me and my friends spent an entire allowance of a miraculous five dollars playing a side-scrolling beat-um-up, only to run out of money entirely on the final boss with about 0.1 health left. Ever since then, I've been looking for a fix for that great arcade experience - that fix has a name of Castle Crashers.
Castle Crashers is developed by "indie" game developer, The Behemoth, whose catalogue of games consists of Alien Hominid, a cult classic flash game turned console title famous for its punishing difficulty and some extremely vibrant animation. Thankfully, past experiences with the annoyingly difficult Metal Slug-esque game only serve as a constant reminder, thanks to the sheer number of references made to The Behemoth's killer, singular app.
Just after turning on the game, you're introduced to two things - the graphics and the audio. The visuals are firstly extremely lively, making sort of graphical zen achieved by keeping everything in a fluid state while not too overly detailed, vibrant without ever causing pastel-poisoning. Locals remain cliched, but the level of imagination within these tried-and-true ice and lava levels makes them always feel original in their own right.
I don't care if that's in HD, this is beautiful, and no amount of 1080p will change that.
The music of Castle Crashers is entirely another deal - a Newgrounds deal. Every track is created by an artist from the original home of Tom Fulp and Alien Hominid, giving anyone who has surfed the site for an extended period of time a cool vibe that this really is just another entry in the oftentimes barbaric world that is content created by and for everyone. Each track is rather unique and fits the location well, some driving a unique sense of adrenaline, humor, or immersion - all of which are available for download - that may leave you standing still just to take a listen to all of the sounds. Sound effects are going to be heard a lot due to the simple nature of the game, but, thankfully, they're done well enough to ever become... too... annoying.
One would be surprised to find any serious content derived from a Newgrounds product, but there does happen to be of narration behind the massive brawling. You, but a simple knight of color, have your folk rock session interrupted by the Wizard, who decides to steal some crystal that is apparently important to some... one...
... okay, there is no story, but it does serve as an excuse for sending you off in this little adventure. And the only moments that do drive this so called "story" along range from charming to downright bizarre - the cornerstone of Newgrounds comedy. Expect to see excrement at least once.
The actual gameplay is, thankfully, very simple, but spiced up just enough to keep you playing up to the last boss and far beyond.
Here we see the Knighticus Verde in its natural habitat taking down its pray... brilliant!
To be summed up, the game boils down to "kill a lot of dudes," and Castle Crashers does this very well. From the start, you can choose from one of four knights, each with their own weapon and magic spell. Attacking is left to two buttons for the most part, with a third being used to shoot a bow, chug a potion or fling a bolt of lightning, allowing everyone to jump right in and do fairly well.
Granted, Castle Crashers is not a walk in the park, but it never becomes a torturous venture, either - earlier levels are simple enough, but latter levels become a challenge that requires you to use all of your resources and to stay mobile to not die. Death, should it occur, thankfully only boots you back to the world map, so there are no finite lives to deal with or penalties to incur to dampen a gaming session.
After slashing your way through a legion or so of minions, you arrive at a boss character, complete with their own angry-faic health bar. These bosses represent a great challenge, but do ultimately come down to memorizing their attack patterns, then smacking them around a few times once they leave themselves open. These are never too difficult, though some are particularly annoying.
BEWARE THE PAINTER! BEWARE THE CONJURED CLOCKS!
To make itself stand out from other beat-um-ups (well, one), Castle Crashers does bring a few new interesting elements to the table. Aforementioned magic mixes things up quite well, allowing each character to summon flames, arrows and bombs from their fingertips, giving some variety to preexisting melee combat. Animal Orbs serve as little companions that ever follow their master, providing small but noticeable bonuses on your combat or out-of-combat abilities. Weapons are plentiful and everywhere, giving you an arsenal of tools to generally maul people with, ranging from a carrot to a lightsaber, and help to set characters apart even further than other games, where your character was really just a cosmetic choice.
One notable feature, however, is the implementation of a stat system. As you wail on everything that moves, you slowly build up experience that ultimately increases your character's level. At each level, you earn points to spend in one of four stats - Strength, Magic, Defense and Agility. Each stat corresponds to one aspect of your character's combat prowess, and each point has a noticeable difference on your abilities, though Agility tends to lag behind the usefulness of other stats. The only sad thing is that, by level 99, you will have each category maxed out.
Unfortunately, no game can be perfect, and Castle Crashers is not alien to its own share of issues. Attacks are limited to one literal plane, meaning that you may be "hitting" a foe, only to find them leisurely awaiting death a few centimeters above you. Things can also become quite cluttered when multiple baddies show up on the screen, causing things to become busy enough as to lose your character amongst the crowd, or to simply disappear behind a larger character's model as they proceed to transcend planes, much to your displeasure.
Can you find the Orange Knight? (Hint: He currently is an eye)
Still though, issues are left in the dust once you give a controller to a friend and launch off on your own adventure. Multiplayer is this game's strongest suit, either online or in a local session, though local has this reviewer's pick as the best form, giving you the opportunity to actually smack someone for taking your money or fruit. Online has, at my previous encounter, been riddled with disconnects that have never seen me and a friend living but three miles away to the first boss, though a patch, either upcoming or already implemented, will relieve online features of their "unplayable" status.
In addition to the main game, there are two additional modes that require at least a few characters of recognition. The first is a relatively insane and challenging arena mode that pits you against ever increasing mobs of baddies, ending with your death. A second is a button masher a la Mario Party. Both are but simple distractions from the actual game and real multiplayer - I'd say beating the tar out of your friends to make out with a princess beats pressing X and Y repeatedly for an extended period of time, non?
At the end of the crusade against a clone-driven army, Castle Crashers is a piece of nostalgia that actually fairs quite well as an actual game - at a relatively low price of 15 dollars, you get both a great game and a bucket full of content, thanks to a somewhat long campaign and a slew of unlockable characters, weapons and enhancements, meaning that that those 1,200 Microsoft points don't go to waste. Complaints are far and far between, with the only real issues being the limited range of your attacks to something in front of you and on the same parallel, time zone, nationality and country of origin as you, somewhat busy visuals when multiple entities gun for your head, and large enemies and bosses that cover your sprite. Still, at a meager, budget price, there really is no reason to not know that joys of "rocket" propelled deer.
This message is approved by the coalition of head banging to rockin' folk music and making out with princesses.
Bet you didn't see THAT one coming!
Bottom Line: Castle Crashers is an insane beat-um-up that, while never straying too far from simply killing person after person, always remains entertaining, even after several playthroughs. Issues are almost nonexistent, save for the intolerable (as far as I know) online functionality.
Recommendation: Buy it - at a budget price of 15 dollars/1,200 Microsoft Points, there really isn't anything to lose. All you get is a surprisingly deep, long, and extremely satisfying homage to simpler times in the most modern of ways.
Publisher: The Behemoth/Microsoft
Genre: Side Scrolling, Beat-Um-Up
Some of my fondest memories as but a wii (OH THE PUNMANITY) youngster involve arcade games, specifically nickel games at a locally owned little hangout. Me and my friends spent an entire allowance of a miraculous five dollars playing a side-scrolling beat-um-up, only to run out of money entirely on the final boss with about 0.1 health left. Ever since then, I've been looking for a fix for that great arcade experience - that fix has a name of Castle Crashers.
Castle Crashers is developed by "indie" game developer, The Behemoth, whose catalogue of games consists of Alien Hominid, a cult classic flash game turned console title famous for its punishing difficulty and some extremely vibrant animation. Thankfully, past experiences with the annoyingly difficult Metal Slug-esque game only serve as a constant reminder, thanks to the sheer number of references made to The Behemoth's killer, singular app.
Just after turning on the game, you're introduced to two things - the graphics and the audio. The visuals are firstly extremely lively, making sort of graphical zen achieved by keeping everything in a fluid state while not too overly detailed, vibrant without ever causing pastel-poisoning. Locals remain cliched, but the level of imagination within these tried-and-true ice and lava levels makes them always feel original in their own right.
The music of Castle Crashers is entirely another deal - a Newgrounds deal. Every track is created by an artist from the original home of Tom Fulp and Alien Hominid, giving anyone who has surfed the site for an extended period of time a cool vibe that this really is just another entry in the oftentimes barbaric world that is content created by and for everyone. Each track is rather unique and fits the location well, some driving a unique sense of adrenaline, humor, or immersion - all of which are available for download - that may leave you standing still just to take a listen to all of the sounds. Sound effects are going to be heard a lot due to the simple nature of the game, but, thankfully, they're done well enough to ever become... too... annoying.
One would be surprised to find any serious content derived from a Newgrounds product, but there does happen to be of narration behind the massive brawling. You, but a simple knight of color, have your folk rock session interrupted by the Wizard, who decides to steal some crystal that is apparently important to some... one...
... okay, there is no story, but it does serve as an excuse for sending you off in this little adventure. And the only moments that do drive this so called "story" along range from charming to downright bizarre - the cornerstone of Newgrounds comedy. Expect to see excrement at least once.
The actual gameplay is, thankfully, very simple, but spiced up just enough to keep you playing up to the last boss and far beyond.
To be summed up, the game boils down to "kill a lot of dudes," and Castle Crashers does this very well. From the start, you can choose from one of four knights, each with their own weapon and magic spell. Attacking is left to two buttons for the most part, with a third being used to shoot a bow, chug a potion or fling a bolt of lightning, allowing everyone to jump right in and do fairly well.
Granted, Castle Crashers is not a walk in the park, but it never becomes a torturous venture, either - earlier levels are simple enough, but latter levels become a challenge that requires you to use all of your resources and to stay mobile to not die. Death, should it occur, thankfully only boots you back to the world map, so there are no finite lives to deal with or penalties to incur to dampen a gaming session.
After slashing your way through a legion or so of minions, you arrive at a boss character, complete with their own angry-faic health bar. These bosses represent a great challenge, but do ultimately come down to memorizing their attack patterns, then smacking them around a few times once they leave themselves open. These are never too difficult, though some are particularly annoying.
To make itself stand out from other beat-um-ups (well, one), Castle Crashers does bring a few new interesting elements to the table. Aforementioned magic mixes things up quite well, allowing each character to summon flames, arrows and bombs from their fingertips, giving some variety to preexisting melee combat. Animal Orbs serve as little companions that ever follow their master, providing small but noticeable bonuses on your combat or out-of-combat abilities. Weapons are plentiful and everywhere, giving you an arsenal of tools to generally maul people with, ranging from a carrot to a lightsaber, and help to set characters apart even further than other games, where your character was really just a cosmetic choice.
One notable feature, however, is the implementation of a stat system. As you wail on everything that moves, you slowly build up experience that ultimately increases your character's level. At each level, you earn points to spend in one of four stats - Strength, Magic, Defense and Agility. Each stat corresponds to one aspect of your character's combat prowess, and each point has a noticeable difference on your abilities, though Agility tends to lag behind the usefulness of other stats. The only sad thing is that, by level 99, you will have each category maxed out.
Unfortunately, no game can be perfect, and Castle Crashers is not alien to its own share of issues. Attacks are limited to one literal plane, meaning that you may be "hitting" a foe, only to find them leisurely awaiting death a few centimeters above you. Things can also become quite cluttered when multiple baddies show up on the screen, causing things to become busy enough as to lose your character amongst the crowd, or to simply disappear behind a larger character's model as they proceed to transcend planes, much to your displeasure.
Still though, issues are left in the dust once you give a controller to a friend and launch off on your own adventure. Multiplayer is this game's strongest suit, either online or in a local session, though local has this reviewer's pick as the best form, giving you the opportunity to actually smack someone for taking your money or fruit. Online has, at my previous encounter, been riddled with disconnects that have never seen me and a friend living but three miles away to the first boss, though a patch, either upcoming or already implemented, will relieve online features of their "unplayable" status.
In addition to the main game, there are two additional modes that require at least a few characters of recognition. The first is a relatively insane and challenging arena mode that pits you against ever increasing mobs of baddies, ending with your death. A second is a button masher a la Mario Party. Both are but simple distractions from the actual game and real multiplayer - I'd say beating the tar out of your friends to make out with a princess beats pressing X and Y repeatedly for an extended period of time, non?
At the end of the crusade against a clone-driven army, Castle Crashers is a piece of nostalgia that actually fairs quite well as an actual game - at a relatively low price of 15 dollars, you get both a great game and a bucket full of content, thanks to a somewhat long campaign and a slew of unlockable characters, weapons and enhancements, meaning that that those 1,200 Microsoft points don't go to waste. Complaints are far and far between, with the only real issues being the limited range of your attacks to something in front of you and on the same parallel, time zone, nationality and country of origin as you, somewhat busy visuals when multiple entities gun for your head, and large enemies and bosses that cover your sprite. Still, at a meager, budget price, there really is no reason to not know that joys of "rocket" propelled deer.
This message is approved by the coalition of head banging to rockin' folk music and making out with princesses.
Bottom Line: Castle Crashers is an insane beat-um-up that, while never straying too far from simply killing person after person, always remains entertaining, even after several playthroughs. Issues are almost nonexistent, save for the intolerable (as far as I know) online functionality.
Recommendation: Buy it - at a budget price of 15 dollars/1,200 Microsoft Points, there really isn't anything to lose. All you get is a surprisingly deep, long, and extremely satisfying homage to simpler times in the most modern of ways.