Tom Fulp, the co-owner of The Behemoth and creator/administrator of Newgrounds, along with Dan Paladin, creative artist for The Behemoth, have created an exquisite RPG action game titled Castle Crashers. The game is set in the medieval era, it includes kings, princesses, and of course knights. At the start of the game, you have the option of picking one of the five available knights, each with their own unique power. The five knights are Red Knight (Lightning), Orange Knight (Fire), Green Knight (Poison), Blue Knight (Ice), and further down the road, you gain an un-lockable character who resembles the basic knights that you see in the first level of the game.
Unlike traditional RPGs, Castle Crashers is not turned-based and has side-scrolling camera angles, something I enjoyed while playing. The story follows a knight who travels to save the abducted princesses from the hands of evil. The world map allows your knight to travel from point to point, with other levels unlocked based on how advanced your knight has become. Along your travels, many shops are available for you to spend your coins you’ve obtained through battling to replenish your supply of potions, weaponry and later on in the game, beefy sandwiches that help you move, otherwise unmovable, obstacles in your quest.
Additionally, as you reach the half-way point in the game, unlockable animal orbs can be used to help you defeat large waves of enemies or bosses. Each animal orb offers unique characteristics. For instance, Bitey Bat chomps enemy heads off; Rammy knocks down enemies at random. You can also select out the different animal orbs by visiting the blacksmith on the world map.
Combat controls were beautifully mapped on the PS3 controller. Pressing certain key buttons commanded your knight to unleash melee attacks or a triad of combo attacks to defeat waves of enemies within each level. Upon defeating enemies, your knight gains experience points that can be allocated to four attributes: strength, magic, agility and defense. When at the world map screen, at any time you can re-allocate your experience points. With that, leveling up can also unlock weapons to help defeat enemies since each weapon in the game can be allocated to the four attributes. For example, there is a weapon in the shape of a tree branch. This allows your knight to have increased agility, but decreased power. Another weapon is a club, which drastically increased your strength, but decreased agility severely. Leveling up the magic attribute creates different magic abilities that help on later levels.
I was also excited to see a multiplayer component in the game as well as it being online compatible. This multiplayer allows up to four players to play in the story mode, but has a twist at the end of each boss battle. After defeating the bosses and freeing the princesses, each individual knight must now fight each other to win the kiss from the princess. I thought this was an excellent way to establish itself apart from a single player story mode.
After conquering the game, it unlocks a harder level known as insane mode for you to go back and replay, but this time the enemies are twice as hard and the bosses are no joke. It is rather nice to have this type of replayability so that you can challenge yourself in the game again and again.
Musically, everything melded. Especially during the world map, the flute and percussion were top notch and fit the theme of the middle ages. Each level had its own tune which was very refreshing. There was no set battle music, only for a few boss fights, but the scores for those were also superb.
Something that stood out to me was the similarity to some games on Newgrounds. One level in particular had me fighting through a forest. Occasionally, the ground would shake due to a large monster hitting the ground. The forest animals on screen would then proceed to spray feces everywhere, due to them being spooked. This is similar to a number of Newgrounds games and something that cause me to laugh on numerous occasions.
In addition to the campaign mode, Castle Crashers offered two other mini-games. One was the Battle Arena where you take on foes from the game in waves of increasing difficulty, much like Gladiator. You can also play with or against fellow gamers, but it is not online compatible. Another was beach volleyball. It’s based off the typical rules and regulations of beach volleyball, but with a medieval twist. You can select up to 8 playable characters total, either being AI or fellow gamers. You can also select which levels to play with each resembling the different levels traveled in the story mode. Put simply, it is classic beach volleyball with a medieval twist. Unfortunately, this is incompatible with online play.
Overall, the game was a huge success and I enjoyed every minute of it. If you are sitting around on a rainy day, this will definitely help pass the time. For all you gamers out there, there are some castles waiting to be crashed so download this game already! It's worth it!
-Alyssa Bogie
8/10 Great
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