Castle Crashers review

In response to JDW's post about VFH lacking throughout 2008, I would like to say that I am going to try my hardest to post up as many reviews as I can, and maybe I'll throw in a mystery post every once in awhile, you know, mix it up a little. Anyway, without further ado, I would like to give VFH's first post of 2009: the Castle Crashers review.

Story
Lulz, there is one, but it's on the most basic level: There's four princesses that have been stolen from the kingdom, save them. Honestly, that's about it. The adventure is fun fun fun though. The creators at The Behemoth have amazing humor, and no matter who you are, you have to laugh at least one moment in the game. And if you like bathroom humor, then your going to have a field day with this one. You also fight tons of crazy bosses, such as: A gigantic fuzz-human thing that spawns smaller fuzz-children from its fuzziness, a dragon that, for whatever reason, has a sock puppet on one of its arms, and lets not forget a crazy painter with a tool box for a head, who paints the most random shit you will ever see. But yea, cool bosses. Story, not so much.

Gameplay
Amazing. I don't even know where to start. This game has an unbelievable amount of content in it, honestly, the guys over at The Behemoth really outdid themselves this time. Castle Crashers is your basic, run-of-the-mill hack and slash. But there's also so many extra's that the game offers. It provides 22 unlockable characters, over 50 weapons to find, and an amazing number of pets to join you in your adventure. When you level up, you gain 2 skill point which you then use to level up the skill of your choice: power (increases weapon damage), magic (raises magic attack/allows different spell to be learned), defense (raises the amount of health you have), or agility (increases movement speed/how quickly arrows are shot). Each of which get equally awesome in there own individual ways.

The part of the game that really gets me is the co-op battle system. At first, you and your buddy are on the same team together, but it soon changes. Whenever you rescue on of the princesses, you and your allies fight each other. Why? To see who gets to kiss the princess of course! The first battle is somewhat boring, but by the time you rescue the last princess, you and your friend(s) are having full out, super amazing, awesome epic battles of epicness! Seriously, it's that cool. And you never get a better feeling then chopping off your friends head, and then kissing the girl of your dreams... NEVER!

Graphics
For being hand drawn, they're actually pretty good. They have this weird, psychotic child-like essence to them, but I like it. The backgrounds can get pretty out of hand, especially in the opening level when you see a wave of soldiers being crushed by a ram-shaped tank. Other then that, there's really not much to this game graphically, but I can say that Castle Crashers is far from an eye sore.

Sound
The walking sound and the swords clashing is about the only thing you really get. No voice overs, aside from the crazy painter dude described earlier. And, although you have to read it, the game has one of the greatest quotes ever "We only accept cold cash, lol."... I'm not going to go out of my way explaining it, but just trust me, with the situation that is implied, it will make you chuckle.

Overview
Good, very good, amazing, spectacular, unbelievable. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that Castle Crashers is a game that will keep you entertained for days. Although the game is only six hours or so long, you will play it over and over again trying to unlock all the characters, find all the weapons, and discover all the animals. If your not into hack and slash games, I would still suggest at least trying this one, who knows, maybe you'll like it. If you love hack and slashes, this game is a must have for you. If you have $15, an Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, what have you got to lose? NOTHING! Honestly, for the game's price, it can't be beaten.

Overall Score: 9.5/10

Castle Crashers papercraft

Found these on deviantART from user ~crzisme

Thought it was a pretty close recreation of the characters, and a relatively simple model for you beginners to try.

RED , BLUE , GREEN, ORANGE

Crashin' Those Castles

I am almost offended we have nothing about this awesome Xbox Live Arcade game up here. Thus, (that's right, I used 'thus') I will add it in all its glory.
http://www.castlecrashers.com/ <- link to game

I'll come right out and say this: If you spend money playing Turtles in Time in the arcade or The Simpson's arcade game...buy this game. Flat out. You will not be disappointed. For those of you who think side scroller...old....well yea. But! That's what makes this game so fun. There is "no 3D, no hyper realistic graphics, no boobs". Instead, we roll with hand-drawn animation, which is brilliantly done by The Behemoth team.

When you first start the game you can choose between Four Knights. Pretty easy, right? Naw, not really.

• Red Knight - Thunder (Electricity): Will electrify and stop enemy units when using your magic. Decreases your magic bar pretty fast since it can be used constantly.
• Blue Knight - Frost (Ice): Shoots spikes diagonally downward and freezes most enemy units.
  
• Orange Knight - Fire (...fire): I have not played as him yet so I do not know how the fire acts.
• Green Knight - Poison (Death Cloud of doom): If you want to beat the game as fast as possible, this is your knight. The poison cloud that this guy uses is not only really deadly, you can use it a ton before you are empty. Not only does it do quite a bit of damage, it actually poisons enemy units so they constantly get knicked away. This is imperative when playing with multiple people because you get experience based on the amount of damage you deal. (*Speculation)

Now, each time you beat the game (or beat arenas) you get another secret character that has their own abilities, but most will follow suit with something similar to the above. Each character also has a ranged magic attack that is basically less powerful, can only hit one unit, costs less money, but still retains the ailment attribute. (e.g. the frost bullet still freezes units.)

The game differs from old school arcades in one large manner, and that is because it isn't an arcade game. Castle Crashers is also an RPG where you can level up and strengthen your knight in 4 catagories: Strength, Magic, Defense, Agility. They are pretty self explanatory... and I suggest upping the magic and defense, but that was my strategy. You also get your choice of weapon from a frog's belly. There are tons of weapons to choose from that grant bonuses to your abilities, (+1 Str -1 Magic). On top of that, you can also roam around with an animal of your choice. This animal does many different things depending on what it is. The Giraffe helps you level up faster, while the BiPolar Bear attacks any unit that is near death...which if you are playing with a friend, use potions. -Segway- There are also items you can use like potions, arrows, bombs, and SANDWICHES. The last one is in all caps for a reason, hint hint nudge nudge.

The game isn't that long, maybe about 4 hours with two people playing. More if you are solo. I knocked it out with a friend in a single night from 1am to about 4:30 [Ya ya, that's 3.5 hours]. The game offers lots of replay value with new characters, new weapons, and just in general it is so much fun to play. There is also online play co-op story mode, online versus mode, and a thing called quaff where you button smash to win an eating contest. (Hot air balloon filling up from the Simpson's arcade game anyone?) As of writing this though, the online part is seriously lacking, but they are aware and are trying to get it fixed asap.

The lowest score for this game I have seen is an 80%. The highest is 95%, so that is saying something for a side scroller game in a modern game world. They really have gone back to basics for this one, just simple buttons and addicting as can be.

Castle Crashers Is Complete!

Castle Crashers is finally done, while it wont be out to download on the XBLA for a few months yet, it's exciting to know that it is done. It really looks like an amazing game thats a throwback to the days of Battletoads, Streets of Rage, and Golden Axe, only with a new age spin. All the unlockables and co-op have me excited to pick this one up. While although a price and release date have not been set, expect to see it this summer for most likely around 10-15$.

Interested in looking at the developers blog? Very interesting "making of" videos.