Well, I’m gonna be quick about this because everyone here should know everything about this game by now. So this review will be for the people that are not sure if Castle Crashers is really worth their money.

Short answer: YES!

Long answer: Yes. It is.

Yes it can
Castle Crashers is of course a 2D beat’em up in the style of Streets of Rage and Golden Axe, and it deserves a place among those classics. Now, you’ve probably seen all the vids already, so I’m not going to go look for them and embed them again. You walk around and kill stuff, that’s pretty much the basics. And you can do it with 4 players online!

What you may have overlooked, is that you get XP for doing damage. After every level, or at any point in the World Map, you can assign stat points towards four things: melee damage (strength), magic damage/regen (magic), HP/armor (defence) and ranged attack/movement speed (agility). This means that of all the 20+ characters in the game, you can spec all of them towards your playstyle. Maybe you want a badass archer? Put points into agility and see your arrows fly faster, harder and further. Are you more in a Mage mood? Just put those points in magic and notice your attacks reaching further and enabling you to cast down fiery doom from the air! This allows you to create a set of characters tailored your needs and moods. It definitely can’t hurt to be able to choose from a melee, magic or ranged character if the online party requires one.

Also, the combos in the game are not just pressing X. X (light attack) and Y (heavy attack) can be used for the usual set of heavy damage, area clearing and juggling moves. You can also do a lot of different attacks in the air though, which means you’ll be hacking and slashing on the ground and in the air pretty seamlessly after a short while. You also have items to use, such as health potions and sandwiches that turn you into a huge badass. In all, there’s a lot more variation than just hacking, shooting or casting magic.

Graphics and stuff
The graphics in the game could be something you can love or go “meh” over, but really.. if you don’t love them or like them, there’s probably something wrong with you. The Behemoth succeeds in creating a ton of levels with lots of style and personality, and a lot of humor. The game looks and moves awesome in HD, and there’s none of the noticeable fakeness that you can spot in any 3D game. This is a cartoony game, and it looks great as a cartoony game. There’s no room for bad aliasing, uncanny valley or texture artifacts here, so please move along. Still, if you have seen the videos of this game and the art style doesn’t interest you in the slightest, well that could theoretically happen. Suffice to say that the trailers don’t do the full game justice and that there’s a lot more to see and laugh with than you’ve probably seen so far.

The sound, it has it. The music is great in my opinion, a mix of retro-styled tunes and some techno beats. The sound effects work great as well, giving you enough satisfaction when your blows hit an enemy. This is something that is sometimes overlooked in beat’em ups, especially on the current and last gen games. When you are supposed to be a badass, it has to sound like you are really thrashing something when you do it. You don’t need 69 million sound samples or voiced lines, it just has to feel right. Good thing it feels right in this game.

The gameplay doesn’t get old very fast, thanks to the XP system and the variation in levels. If you are going to grind through the entire thing in one sitting, it might wear you out at some point. But then something else comes along and you’ll go “haha, that’s amazing!” and all will be well again. Multiplayer makes it all the better, providing it works. I’ve had a lot of disconnects by people or by groups at random. Most of the time, it went alright. Sometimes, someone got dropped from the game or there would be only one guy left. It’s not really that much of a deal to create a new room, but it’s a hassle that shouldn’t be there. I’m sure the developers are working hard to fix these things as we speak, but it’s still something to mention.

Well that's good!
Another thing that comes with multiplayer is that since everyone is getting this game, you might end up playing the same first few levels with different groups over and over again. Some of these levels have bits that can’t be skipped, and are funny to watch the first couple of times. After 10 times though, I kinda want to skip that shitting owl and move on. Then again, after a couple of days or weeks, people will have a lot of characters of higher levels, so it’s pretty much a luxury problem.

Are there any real negative points to discuss? Well, it’s pretty hard to find them when you play it. It looks, sounds and plays fantastic and it lasts quite a while to finish it. The only thing I noticed was that the first half of the game felt like it was more tightly designed than the second half. You are moving from great bit to great bit on and on at the start, while some of the later levels don’t have as many laughs in them. For instance, an ice level that consists mostly of enemies and enemies on defensive positions. It’s still fun to play, it’s just that after the initial barrage of awesomeness, you get used to that level of awesomeness. And even if there’s a slight lack of the same amount of awesomeness at any point after that, you could notice it.

All of that is just whining and looking for negative things though. The Behemoth have put more great stuff in this 1200 MS points game than the best moments of at least five “pretty good” 800 points games, and that’s just in the first two hours of the game. The game oozes polish, which is good since we have waited more than a year for it :)

Closing thoughts
If you have the points, but aren’t sure if you should get this game, please don’t think too much. You like good games don’t you? Ones that you can play for quite some time, and even again after years to come. This one does that, and it’s only 15 bucks. The amount of characters and the XP system mean you can keep coming back to it without it feeling old. The amount of levels mean you can play this for a good few hours on end with your mates. Hell, if Streets of Rage HD or Final Fight HD are ever released, we would probably get them for 800 or 1200 points, and those games maybe last you an hour or two at best.

Finally, there is a certain boss at the end that is just AMAZING. You’ll know it when you see it, but it’s probably the best boss fight in years. Also, the ending is the best one I’ve seen since, hell I don’t know. The “would you kindly” thing in Bioshock perhaps made you go “oh shit!”. This ending beats that hands down, I was just glued to the screen in marvel of what was happening before my eyes.

Get this game. Now.

A score if you need it: 9.5
A blast to play offline and online (providing you can stay connected), good value for money, deeper than you may have thought and hey, you’ll play it longer than Braid!