Castle Crashers | a Review
originally published on 14/02/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the crasher of castles, G.E.M.Simov, a goon that knows the olden times, here to tell you about the game “Castle Crashers”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Castle Crashers is a side scroller that makes use of a 3D field - featuring not only an X and Y axis, but also a Z axis - meaning that aside from having up and down, and left and right, we have forward and backwards. That is the main issue with the game - this 3 dimensional playing field introduces a lot of problems with how the game is handled and how combat - as combat is the main focus of the game - goes down.
So, what’s the deal? The Player controls a Character - the PC - and moves said character around by using the Arrow Keys - Up to go North, Down to go South, Right to go East, Left to go West - jumps by pressing the Spacebar, attack with the W and D keys, uses items with the A key, uses magic by combining the Shift and W keys, cycles through items with the E and Q keys, blocks by using the Control key, and a few more, minor things.
As can be seen, this is almost exclusively a beat-em-up game. And beat-em-up games, universally, suffer from the addition of the third dimension, because whenever the 2D sprites of one such game start moving about on the 3D grid the game presents, things get ugly.
Many times does the PC swing and not hit anything, even if it appears as though the attack should connect. Many times do enemies slink through attacks and somehow hit the PC, even though their position indicates they should not be landing hits on the PC. This is the great bother, which leaves me wanting more polish.
Though the game is quite polished as it is, or at least it is somewhat polished. Attacks stagger enemies depending on the size of the enemy and the type of attack, and while staggered, an enemy cannot attack or move. Then, attacks can be chained into combos, which combos can knock enemies back, and resultantly also knock them to the ground, or the can knock them up into the air, allowing for a continuation of the combo in the air.
It's a given that knocking enemies around will be good, because it prevents them from doing damage to the Player, but it is also bad, because an enemy on the ground is a lot harder to do damage to than an enemy on their feet. The best solution, then, is to knock an enemy up into the air, which could potentially allow for an infinitely long combo, if chained properly, allowing for all the damage needed, without the threat of taking damage.
Unfortunately, not all enemies are susceptible to knock-ups, and so other means must be employed in dealing with them. That's where the desire for polish really comes into play, as those enemies supposedly are susceptible to staggers, but not quite. It looks as though they are being staggered, it appears as though the stagger is preventing them from attacking, yet they either recover instantly - within one or two frames - and attack, thus making it quite difficult to gauge what's going on.
Then there is the other problem that presents itself with this game - it allows the Player to improve the PC by allocating stat points, earned whenever the PC reaches a level, but those stat allocations are very minuscule in their effectiveness, or the rate at which enemies grow in power is enough to negate that aspect of the Player's growth in power.
Other aspects of the game's lack of polish include certain enemies who can collect coins that fall on the ground, but when killed they do not drop that many coins, effectively destroying some of the money the Player could earn. That's really problematic.
Now, the basic gameplay of Castle Crashers is solid, although bothered by issues. The game does some work to improve upon that, providing the Player with the opportunity to, on occasion, engage in mounted combat, to fight interesting and challenging bosses, to find and collect weird little pets that provide bonuses to the PC, and even redo zones for additional levels and coins. However, even though the game does that, and even though it presents the Player with the option of outfitting their knight with different weapons or specializing in different skills, such as archery or magic, the main issues that plague the game continue plaguing it regardless of these additions.
The 2D sprites on a 3D field are not good. They make everything clunky and clumsy, thus rendering an otherwise impressively well designed game's gameplay bothersome and almost middling. 2/3
Presentation
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a crass game inspired by the internet of the 2010s, if not earlier. The developers of this game, or at least the artists behind it, draw heavy inspiration from some truly incredible flash games (that are no longer among us, R.I.P. flash), most certainly done by those same developers. Thus, it has a pretty distinct look to it, but, not only that, it also features some very, very nasty humor.
Poop, farts, and all kinds of gore come right out of old-age Newgrounds. It’s not for everyone, and it also likes making use of violence as a thing that has a funny result, but it is a product of its time. Regardless, the game looks good, due to the fact it is very clearly stylized in such a manner that it is reminiscent of hand-drawn things, with thick black lines outlining everything and making it pop.
That’s one of the key factors to how stuff looks - things that are intractable have this telltale appearance of being intractable, much like how in older cartoons stuff in the background was distinct from stuff that was going to come into the action. Stuff in the background in Castle Crashers has a dark outline, but it is not purely black, rather more reddish or brown, whereas actors and objects in the foreground, stuff that’s meant to come in use, is outlined with proper black lines.
That’s not all - the music and sound effects for this game are on a very high level, with some of the tunes being unironically amazing bangers, while the sound effects have that impact and meaty thwack of good old flash games. It’s stellar. Now, the way the game presents the story is through funky cutscenes that feature no dialogue, but with violent gesticulation and facial expressions everything is well conveyed..
Lastly, the way the game presents its controls is also reasonably good - big exclamation points over certain characters in the starting area, which characters provide a set of instructions on how to use certain mechanics. Those are not exhaustive, but they inform the Player of the basics.
With all that said, I feel as though I need to reiterate that the crass humor is not something I appreciate all that much - now, when I was a child I might have found it more than satisfactory, but as it is now I don’t really like it as much as I could. It puts a gruesome damper on my total enjoyment of the game, but I will still award the presentation with the highest score possible. 3/3
Story
The Player (and up to three friends of the Player) are knights of the King who are busy partying in the barracks. RUDELY they are interrupted by a guy crashing through the door, falling down the stairs and dying. The castle is under attack!
The king’s funky magic crystal was stolen by some wizard-ish goon! The king’s daughters, as it seems, are also being abducted by that wizard-ish goon’s goons! Naturally, the job of a knight is well known - serve king and country, and save damsels in distress!
So the Player’s Character sets off on a quest to save all the princesses and to return the King’s crystal, which epic quest takes the knight through many lands and introduces him to many funky things.
As with most flash games, the story is almost nonexistent, and it is vaguely there, on a conceptual level, so that it can be there. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time?
I am inclined to say yes , because this game truly reminds me of the glory days of flash, of those games with the beefy purple guy with a chainsaw cleaving through hundreds of goons, of this rampant age of obscurity filled with wonder and the unknown… But at the same time I know better than to do that. While Castle Crashers is a near timeless remnant of that age, the age has come and gone, and it should not be the reason I approve of this game. So no, Castle Crashers does not get the Legendary Point. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. Castle Crashers is a very good game to play with friends. It is also a decent game to play by oneself, but I'd only recommend it to fans of side-scrollers and beat-em-ups, as well as folks who were fans of flash games.
I tuck it under my belt, safe from the bag of mediocrity, but sporting more dust than is proper.