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Castle Crashers
PlayStation Network
I… Can’t Believe What I Just Saw…
3/5 stars
“Castle Crashers” is the second game by Indie developer, The Behemoth, a group whose staff is also responsible for the popular Flash video humor site, Newgrounds.com. While “Castle Crashers” began its existence as an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive in 2008, by 2010 the game had made its way to the PlayStation Network.
Presentation
The affinity for “Castle Crashers’” development staff for Flash is readily apparent in the fact that the game looks like a Flash game. The 2D graphics engine is completely flat and dominated by simple, solid-colored shapes. The animations are all super-simple and very cartoony, which gives the game a unique style among the majority of console games that strive for as much realism as possible. Of course, the graphical style also makes “Castle Crashers” look like something I should be able to play for free in my web browser of choice. The character designs are completely demented as well.
The Behemoth made a lot of noise about commissioning each track in the “Castle Crashers” soundtrack from Newgrounds users. The result is a decent soundtrack that features a variety of nice music. But the stages are so short and filled with such hectic action that only the overworld map theme made any lasting impression on me due to force of repetition.
Story
“Castle Crashers’” story is utterly surreal and bizarre, and narrated entirely through pantomime. Taking place in a generic Fantasy kingdom, a team of four elite knights are rocking-out at one of the King’s parties when an evil wizard appears with an army of barbarians, steals the kingdom’s Crystal of Power, and abducts the King’s four daughters. Our heroic knights immediately set out to take back what was stolen and lay down a hefty layer of smack upon the wizard and his henchmen.
After defeating the barbarian chief, our heroes discover that the wizard’s influence reaches much further than one primitive tribe, and they must follow him the entire breadth of the world. Their travels take them through a forest filled with animals that are literally shitting themselves in terror, a volcano filled with demons, a scorpion-infested desert, and more. As the knights rescue one princess after the next, they fall to infighting to determine who will gain the princesses’ favors in the form of kisses.
Though the story isn’t particularly original, the execution is. It’s completely irreverent and filled with politically incorrect humor. From the opening to the not-entirely-surprising ending, the story kept me playing just to see how each successive stage could increase the insanity and depravity of those that came before.
Gameplay
“Castle Crashers” is an old-school Beat ‘em Up in the vein of “Double Dragon” or “River City Ransom,” but slightly updated and improved with some light RPG elements. Specifically, characters gain experience by landing hits on enemies. Gaining enough experience results in a level-up that grants two points to be spent on upgrading one of four character stats: Strength, Magic, Defense, and Speed. I found speed to be utterly worthless, with Defense acting as the most useful upgrade. In addition to stat boosts, increased character levels unlock more and more combo attacks, allowing the characters more options in the ways they swing their weapons. Characters can also find money by defeating foes, which can be spent on a variety of weapons, animal companions, and expendable items at shops. Expendable items consist of bombs that cause a large area-of-effect attack, potions that automatically revive a character a single time, and sandwiches that transform a character into a beefy Hulk.
The game’s controls are rather simple, with Square performing a light attack, Triangle performing a heavy attack, X jumping, L2 raising a shield, and L1/R1 cycling through useable items in the character’s inventory. Characters can also cast a variety of magic spells (these must be unlocked by increasing the Magic stat to specific amounts) by holding R2 and pressing a specific face button. The game’s interface is simple as well, with a HUD revealing character Hit Points, character Magic Points, and current Experience Points, as well as the currently-selected item. The controls are solid, but the large number of combos can be difficult to remember and leads to button-mashing. In addition, I found that the entire game engine has extremely picky hit-detection when it comes to lining-up characters with enemies on the 2D plane. I never had this kind of difficulty in getting my character to actually hit enemies in old-school fighting games, outside of the horrid Game Gear version of “Battletoads.”
The game begins with four playable characters, a Fire Knight, an Electric Knight, an Ice Knight, and a Poison Knight. These characters are identical aside from the spells they can learn. The Ice Knight is actually the most useful character, as his magic temporarily freezes its targets in addition to dealing damage. As the player(s) progress through the game, additional characters become available, ranging from a Generic Knight, to an Alien Hominid, to a variety of the game’s enemy henchmen. Of course, only characters that are actively used gain levels, so completionists will find themselves starting from scratch with each character they decide to play: This is the game’s main problem. While “Castle Crashers” is reasonably fun as a multi-player Beat ‘em Up, the story mode only lasts about 5 hours. Players who want to get more time out of the game have plenty of options for grinding, including replaying the game on Insane Difficulty, but I didn’t find the basic gameplay engaging enough to want to do either.
“Castle Crashers” is also a game clearly designed with multi-player in mind. Players are able to revive each other (by performing CPR) as long as one character is still alive. The single-player mode doesn’t have this option, making it more difficult, as the player is sent back to the beginning of the stage after each death.
Overall
“Castle Crashers” is a fairly straight-forward Beat ‘em Up whose only replay value comes in the form of excessive grinding. While the story is bizarre and humorous, once completed, there is no reason to revisit this game. “Castle Crashers” seems like something that should be free-to-play at Newgrounds.com or 99 cents from a smartphone app store instead of a $15 download on a regular console.
Presentation: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 2/5 Single Player, 2.5/5 Multi-Player
Overall (not an average): 3/5
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