Gamespot score:8.0(great)
my score:8.2
(+)Pros:-Great campaign filled with levels and levels of fun,-4 player co-op is a blast,-lots of different playable characters and weapons,-frequent boss fights make the game more anticipating,-variety of areas and enemies help stray the game away from repitition.
(-)Cons:-Not as fun alone,-battle can be slightly repititive.
gameplay time:10-20 hours
Downloadable games nowadays are pretty common. Both PSN anf XBL provide tons and tons of downloadable games, perhaps its the future generation of gaming. Just look at the PSP-GO, the whole damn things itself runs on downloadable. Luckily for us gamers, downloadable games aren't bad at all, with many great titles, such as today's castle crashers, these games prove to be as entertaining as disc games. Castle crashers may look like any ordinary 2D side scrolling beat'em game, but combine that with up to 4 player co-op, great character customization, a lenghty campaign, and tons of mini games, you get one hell of an addicting game. Castle crashers is a strong title, and stands to be one of my favourite downloadable game up to date.
Castle crashers' story is near inexistable, but its there. The game doesnt really need a complicated story anyway. You play as a bunch of knights, and are going on in your everyday lives as per normal, when one day a dead knight's corpse comes rolling down a stairs into the knights relaxing chamber. All knights go to arms, and rush to battle, including the knight( or knights if you are playing co-op) you control. When you finally reach the scene, most of the other knights are already dead, and a villian can be seen stealing the king's royal crystal. To make matters worse, the 4 princesses get kidnapped. As a knight of the castle, you are to rescue the 4 princesses and recover the crystal, before the kingdom is doomed!
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| Beating on abominal snowmen has never been this entertaining. |
Being a 2D side scrolling beat em up, you can expect castle crashers' core gameplay to be simple, and it is. All you do is run around fields and beat on hordes of enemies, and when you are done, an arrow on the screen appears, designating you to move to the next area. Its kinda old school, but it works. In battle you can wack your opponent, cast magic, use items, lob arrows at your opponent, and many more. Luckily the game adds in a few tricks for you, to prevent things from getting too boring. For example, there are many playable characters, in which you get only 4 at the start.
Each character has a different starting weapon and different magic attacks. But how each character proceeds on depends all on the player. After a few kills here and there, your character can level up, and you can add stats for that character after each level. The stats system isn't very complicated or special, but its lets the player decide. Be it a monster wrecking strength maniac or a powerful magic master, you choose what your character becomes. And playing aside 3 other players, each with thier own way of playing, makes the game a huge blast.
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| Look at em dead bodies. |
In castle crashers, theres alot to go around. As mentioned before you can distribute stats to whatever way you like, these are mainly for weapons and playstyles. There are loads of weapons in castle crashers, and each weapon have different attributes and stat requirements. Like how a staff requires magic and a hammer requires strenght, it all applies here. There are lots of weapons to choose from, giving players more freedom.The game isn't stingy to throw stages at you too. There are alot of levels in castle crashers, and the scenery changes alot.
You will be visiting lots of areas, including swamps, deserts, factories, volcanic areas and even snowy mountains. And each of these areas have thier own share of weird looking enemies, as well as bosses, which I may add, appear quite often. Bosses are a good way to seperate the game from the tedious minion killing, which can grow boring after you do it for huge amounts of time. Bosses are fun and obviously require different strategies to be dealt with, unlike the usual button mashing to beat minions. Aside from the main game, there are many other mini games to entertain you. Volleyball is lame, but at least its there, arena allows you to battle your comrades. Playing these minigames help relax after a long day of battle.
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| The game is more fun and hectic when played with friends, as you can see. |
For a downloadable game, castle crashers is great. It potrays a good side scrolling adventure and emphasizes on the co-op factor, making it and intense blast to play, especially with comrades by your side. If you're one of those players that hunt for downloadables, castle crashers is indeed, one game not to be missed.
