Remember when 2D beat em ups were all the rage? This game reminds us of that in a sweet package.
Combat is very simple. There's light and heavy attacks, a button for jumping and one for using items. To use magic, just hold down the trigger modifier and you can use the face buttons. It's easy to grasp and easy to master. Though you will level up your character, learn new combos and spells, the combat is fundamentally the same from start to finish. But the enemies, environments and circumstances change. And just at the instant Castle Crashers might start feeling tedious, something new is added to reinvigorate the gameplay. That might mean suddenly getting an animal to ride on, finding a new item that briefly Hulks-up your hero or entering a thrilling chase scene.
Bosses are not only grand in scale but also a fun challenge. There is a pattern to their attacks, and it requires strategy in addition to a flurry of attacks to bring them down. Early bosses are endurance tests in dodging and attacking, and later bosses ramp up the humor, as well as the challenge. Fights range from brawling on the back of a speeding carriage to neutralizing a lightsaber-wielding organist whose pipes spew cannonballs. In addition to the main foes, many encounters include a number of lackeys who will attack you while you are either trying to focus on the boss or otherwise stay alive. This extra fodder is frequently necessary to keep you supplied with health pickups (to stay alive), power-ups (to alter your character state to effectively deal damage), or gold (that you can use to later buy truckloads of goodies).
Castle Crashers has benefited from better campaign balancing and strikes just the right mixture of challenge and enjoyment. Puzzles aren't too hard, and diverse enemies become progressively tougher as you progress in the story. Death in a level doesn't end your game or force you to tap into a finite number of continues. Failure to complete a level only kicks you back out to an overworld map. From there, you can choose to replay the section you just failed or select a previous level to look for weapons, call in friends, or get more experience to level up.
Castle Crashers features four-player online and offline drop in-and-out co-op. You can form up in any way you please. Have four people meet on separate machines or have three friends on one Xbox 360 and find a fourth warrior online. The set-up is easy and multiplayer runs smoothly. Castle Crashers abides by the old rule of beat-em-ups -- everyone must stay on one screen. With an invisible wall limiting the distance, all four characters will pile onto the scene. It's chaotic, but things run well and it sure is a lot of fun playing with friends. Add in some minigames and this game is high replayable.
The art style is similar to Alien Hominid, but noticeably more polished and detailed. Incidental details abound, and the heavily stylised look is applied to an impressive range of enemies, animals and environments without ever feeling stale. Where the visuals prove less than useful is in the annoying frequency with which enormous scenery items obscure huge chunks of the screen. You're often left fighting with no idea of where you are and in a game that relies so heavily on controlled chaos that's a poor design decision. The music is simultaneously reminiscent of the 8-bit era while offering lots of catchy tunes.
If you haven't played it already and are a fan of these types of games, you should pick it up now.
Final Score: 9.0/10