Its been forever since the last beat 'Em-Up game, Castle Crashers is 100% awesome Real Score: 9.4
However the company found from the website Newgrounds.com The Behemoth , which gave us a decently good Alien Hominid, now they are back with a multiplayer beating frenzy, does this game prove the series should be left behind, or does it show that the genre is still alive?
Basically Castle Crashers is a mix of Beat em up, with some mild RPG elements. Like many beat em ups. You go from screen to screen taking out anything in your way. you do this by either using slashing with melee weapon, Magic, and long ranged weapons.
You can use standard swords, to fish, maces, forks, sticks, along with a neat amount creativity with each one. Along with the appearance of the weapon, everything does have stats. Each ranks on Speed, Strength, and Magic. there are tons of weapons to pick from.
Each character has there own magic. Castle Crashers features many different characters. The main 4 are the Green, Orange, Blue, and Red Knights. Green has Poison magic, Orange has fire, Blue has Ice, and Red is electric. You start off the game with a weak magic, but as you level up, your magic gets stronger, and new variations of spells are unlocked.
Finally there is long ranged weapons. By far this is the least in depth part of the entire game. There are Arrows, Bombs, and Boomerangs. These are either bough at stores, or found. However if you combine all the elements you get a wide range of ways to kill baddies
The game also allows use of Pets. These are Neopet like critters that you can buy or find while in game. Each pet gives you a certain boost, weather that be biting heads of enemies, increase speed, find items, etc.. there are a whole ton of these guys as well, some are really hard to find as well.
Now lets just talk about the basic level design, and gameplay. Like it sounds you go through colorful levels in this "Mario World" like map. Each section has unique enemies, music, and usually a boss battle to close it all out. You basically beat the snot out baddies, and move on. Not much thought as far as attacking what characters. But each stage is terrific. Boss Battles are terrific. The overall flow is great. You will get some spin off mini levels like riding on deer to escape a giant monster for example. This was very common in many old beat em ups. Along with the ability to ride animals, like Camels, and Dinos.
The way to get the most fun out of this game is to bring over 3 other people, and play 4 player beat em up all day. There is nothing more fun then that. Online is fun if you can get past the glitches, but without a doubt the best part of the game is to play offline on one tv and have a blast doing so. It feels more old school, and not many games can put that kind of offline fun in a game. I could honestly careless about online, but its good, but def. offline is where its at
Castle Crashers is filled with lots of humor. You can tell that the creators put in tons of laughs. Even though this game has zero voice work. Ifs funny to a point where you will laugh out laud at certain things throughout the game.
Music in this game like i said is very good. The best part is that this is user made original music from users at Newgrounds.com Many of the songs are catchy and have a great nostalgic feel to them.
Graphics is some of the best 2D i have seen in a video game, besides Wario Shake it on the Nintendo Wii. However the graphics are in HD, very colorful, have a great art style. Its kinda hard to admire a work of a 2D, but after playing this game you def. will love the look of the game. Also the Magic Spells are Very well animated.
Castle Crasher is not the longest game in the world. it takes a few hours to get past the main story. But beyond that there is tons of reasons to go back and play the game 2 3 4 5 20 times just to get more characters, animals, weapons, and level up even more. Also there is Battle Modes and other little mini games you can play.
Overall Its hard to not like this game, even with some short comings this game has the contents that surpass many Full length retail games. the amount of options and replay value is amazing. This is definitively one of the top XBLA games ever to hit the service. The game is a must download.
Breakdown
Gameplay: There is nothing more entertaining or fun then beating the living snot outta bad guys with 3 buddies
Graphics: great 2D that is surpassed only By Wario, but what Wario does not have is HD! overall good looking, although some technical issues
Sound: Excellent Music from the start up screen to the end credits music. This is solid through and through
Value: For 1200 microsoft points this is a huge steal. with Alien Hominid being a retail game, Castle Crashers surpasses that game in every way. best amount of points you will spend
Overall: Castle Crashers shows there is still life left in the Beat Em up Genre.