Well, it looks like I’ve got a regular gaming session with my old college buddies every weekend now, so this week’s session was Castle Crashers, developed by The Behemoth. This was released just a year ago and has received great praise from many reviewers, and it’s a 4-player co-op, so we thought we’d give it a shot. Like I said before, when my buddies and I have the opportunity to get together, we want to enjoy a few beers and just take it easy together while playing a great fun game. Well, we had a blast playing this one and we even talked about it for several days afterwards on how to improve our beat-em-up strategies. So let’s not waste anymore time, here’s Castle Crashers for the Xbox 360.
There really isn’t too much of a story to Castle Crashers. The game begins with the Red, Orange, Blue and Green knights partying it up in the local pub when an evil wizard busts in and steals all of their maidens. So of course the 4 heroes chase after the wizard and the game begins from here. That’s really about it. There’s no reason to congest a simple game like this a complicated story. You just jump right in and start owning face.
You actually get a good amount of game play for your money here. For only 1200 Microsoft Points, you’ll get the main game, which could take you 4 to 5 hours. There are also 2 mini games including an Arena Match where you have to survive waves of monsters, and an “All you can Quaf” button masher where you and your friends have to see how much food you can stuff your face with!
What is really great is that the game can be played both locally with all players on one screen, or via Xbox live. Your character data automatically transfers between both, so you never lose all of your hard earned work. Speaking of which, there are 20 different un-lockable characters in Castle Crashers and each provides a different gaming experience with different abilities and spells. There are even 2 expansion packs that you can download for an additional 160 points each that provide some cooler characters to play as through a few extra levels.
Throughout your journey you’ll battle endless waves of monsters through flowery fields, scary caves and rustic castles. Along the way, you’ll even start to collect your own arsenal of up to 40 different weapons that you can swap at any time by returning to your home camp. The games bosses each have a different gimmick that you’ll have to figure out to defeat them, and until you do, you’ll probably get whooped up on.
Castle Crashers is not your typical 3d side-scrolling beat-em-up. There are actually RPG elements intertwined into the game so that as you defeat monsters, your character will gain levels and thus gain points that can be spread out amongst different stats to make yourself deal more damage, take more damage, and even deal more deadly magic. With that, each character in the game has it’s own abilities and spells, such as the Blue Knight’s ability to freeze foes, and the Red Knight’s ability to shoot long range fire balls. There are also small animals that you will find along the way that will follow you and provide passive stat bonuses.
Throughout the world, you’ll find several stores that will allow you to spend your hard earned money on additional weapons and gear like potions to help you keep that health bar full, and that’s really important. Castle Crashers can actually get a little tough sometimes. First off, there is always a ton of action going on all over the screen, so sometimes it can be a bit tough to find your character. You’ll also find that if you don’t allocate your stats evenly that as you progress into the later levels you’ll just get your butt whooped. Nonetheless, the game is hilarious to play. We all just couldn’t stop laughing at each other as we stomped through each level.
Castle Crashers is loaded with beautiful cell shaded cutesy graphics. It’s loaded with funny animations like when you hit a bad guy and his eyes bulge out, or when they go bouncing across the screen after getting thwomped with a club. The levels are filled with ecstatic enemies and hilarious boss monsters. The art direction is very interesting as it actually reminds me of that of Braid. The backgrounds are painted and look 3d while the characters themselves are outlined and brightly colored.
The music in the game really gets you pumped up and keeps you focused on the task at hand. It is very upbeat and makes you really want to push forward and save your maidens. But the music itself is quite loud, so if you’ve got someone else in the room that is doing something else, you’re definitely going to have to turn it way down.
All in all, Castle Crashers is just fun. You’ll laugh the whole time you play the game as you pound your swords into the heads of the goons or smite them with lightning. There is a ton of content for the low price and better yet, you get to enjoy it all with your friends. The game can present a challenge at times, but nothing you can’t overcome with a few tries. After playing several hours of this game, I can certainly tell you this; Castle Crashers is a far superior game to Turtles in Time – Re-Shelled. If you’ve got a great 4-player co-op game that you’d like to see reviewed, let me know!
