Castle Crashers Makes Me Happy
August 27th, 2008I’ve played through the trial and downloaded the full game, and am really enjoying it so far. About 30 minutes in, and I’ve played through a handful of brawler stages, including a castle, forest, and dock, as well as a Battletoads-esque vehicle stage (albeit one that is much easier).
The good: Fun art style (reminiscent of Alien Hominid), interesting experience system, plenty of discoverable/unlockable items and weapons, relatively responsive controls, multiplayer action (although I haven’t tried much of this yet).
The bad: The difficulty almost seems too easy; I’ve died a few times, but you keep the weapons and experience you’ve accumulated, so the game becomes even easier if you happen to die on a stage. Ranged-attack enemies can be very frustrating - they tend to pile up on the screen, and will alternate slamming you with an arrow as you run from side to side trying to finish a combo. Some of the weapons and characters are difficult to understand unless you experiment; I would have liked a little more intro here as well as the ability to upgrade your character within levels instead of just at the end. You can’t discover out what many weapons do until you visit the blacksmith, so figuring out if the cool looking sword is useful or just attractive is impossible in-level. The humor, although fun, can skew very juvenile (as anyone who’s seen the deer in the forest level can attest).
The unknown: I’m not sure how well the game will stand up upon continued replay, as the game is less arcadey than Alien Hominid and thus the action may become somewhat repetitive. Achievements seem surprisingly limited. I’m also curious to see the multiplayer and how well it stacks up.
Thoughts?
Posted in Geoff, Xbox Live |
August 27th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Vice a few rare lag issues and some drop outs the co-op holds up well. It was a blast to play with my buddies. And also when you play in co-op more enemies are thrown at you.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Tried it today and bought it. At first I wasn’t that impressed — tried it alone and with my roommate — but then I tried it again with my roommate and with a guy from SA and had a blast.
The game is no fun at all if you just try to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. All the fun is in chilling with friends and laughing at the art direction and the humor. If you just try to beat the game and call it quits, you’ll have a miserable time. Instead, try different characters, try different builds, play with different people. You can replay areas anytime you want, and there are no consequences to dying except that you have to restart the level (and you lose any health potions you had, but those are cheap) so you can experiment freely.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Rob, I’ve loved the single player game - in fact, for a variety of reasons, I haven’t tried multiplayer yet and am still enjoying it a lot.