Castle Crashers

No, don't beat me up...

Hack & Slash. Beat 'em Up. Button mashing. There's pleasure in the simple things. Following an intricate story, solving a challenging puzzle, mastering complex mechanics... sometimes you're just not in the mood. You want to sit back and press an attack button over and over, watching the chaos unfold.

It can be too simple, though. You'd prefer it if your button mashing made you look cool, or if the context was humourous. It'd probably be much better with co-op partners, too, to really hammer home that old school feeling of fighting your buddies as much as you fight the baddies.

A game like that could take many forms, but chunky colourful visuals from the golden era of Flash gaming, from the folks at Newgrounds, no less, sure sounds like a damn good idea, and that pretty much leaves us with Castle Crashers.

Will the knights in shining armour please rise and promptly run out of the castle to hack and slash everything in sight? And try not to hit each other?

Fun Times

The plot of Castle Crashers is basic and not really the point of the game. An evil wizard steals a crystal of some sort, and a bunch of damsels get kidnapped too. Your bobble-headed characters care about at least one of those, as well as all the tales of glory in combat that can be found between now and your heroic rescue.

So out you run into a wonderfully nostalgic-looking 2D side-scroller that slowly fills with enemies that need to be dealt with before you're allowed to advance to the next skirmish.

You have a light and a heavy attack, a ranged attack, and can even jump and hang in the hair, swinging wildly in ways surely inspired by the hangtime in Devil May Cry. Basically, you're well equipped to beat the snot out of these faceless enemies that swarm towards you looking for a fight, and it's ever so satisfying to land each and every hit.

The artwork here absolutely sells the game as something to have fun with, not to be daunted by. Swooses and swipes of your sword show how violent you are, as heads pop off and spurts of blood shoot into the air. When you get hit, your normally angry-looking knight is rendered as a comical goof, eyes wide in a stunned expression before quickly recovering to hit right back.

Frustrations

There are times where you see nothing, though. Picking up a new weapon is always a treat, but one spoiled by a text-box that lingers far too long and right in front of the continuing action. Similarly, elements of the stage used to sell the 2.5D look can get in the way a little too much as well.

As you can tell, I'm only playing this as a single-player - I can only imagine the hassle it may be to try and pick out your knight when there's four times as much stuff potentially happening on screen. A hassle, but perhaps a joy at the same time. It's meant to be chaotic, right?

Further Fun Times

I was replaying these levels for the first time since the twenty minutes I had dabbled with Castle Crashers in the past, and the first section sort of ends with this boss fight. The game is full of jokes, the first perhaps being that a big guy you look set to fight gets crushed by the door caging this fella, who fills the arena.

It's not too difficult a fight, though I wasn't exactly an expert. Jump and hammer an attack button, run away from any attacks, jump in and hammer an attack button once more. Maybe that's all that's called for and I'm overthinking it. In either case, we get to cut down the girl and save the day.

This was as far as I played first time out, and replaying the first few sections I had levelled up a bit more and could pad my stats out. I don't really know what they do for me. Everyone has a magical ability, but mine looks to be non-existent, so I don't dump any stats into it. Maybe that's why it's non-existent.

As I spend the vast majority of my time in the thick of the action with no way to run around it, I similarly disregard the agility side of things, too, again, probably to my detriment. I get the impression that this levelling system isn't going to make or break my game, so I shouldn't really worry about it. Just gobble up all the gold coins, spend them on the cool weapons, buy a health potion, and get back to the fight.

Castle Crashers takes part on a branching map, and from here on, it's all new to me. The docks give me the impression of being a little too similar to what I've already seen, so it's time to head into the forest, where I'm sure we'll cover all the greenery in a complimentary red...

Further Frustrations

I didn't expect it to be my blood that was colouring the stage. Getting hit in Castle Crashers is upsetting. Getting hit repeatedly by one bastard archer is annoying. Jumping onto a dorky-looking lizard mount with a huge bite attack is awesome, but one fecking arrow from that bastard archer knocks you off and then someone else jumps on the lizard and you've got to knock them off before you can get back on it...

These are the irks of all beat 'em up gamers, but in Castle Crashers it really cut into my enjoyment. There's a block button which raises your shield and blocks incoming attacks, including arrows. If you're not looking the right way, it will do nothing. If you mistime it, it will do nothing. If you do either of these, again and again, you will get frustrated at your incompetence, though you will place all blame on that bastard archer, and finally killing him will feel great.

I wouldn't mind a buddy to take some of the attention away from me, even if it were an AI buddy. It's still fun, it's still great to look at, but when you're put on the floor time and time again it can make you feel a bit bleh. I don't know what the difficulty settings are if there are any. I assume I've just got to get good and try playing a little more sensibly, and a little less button-mashy.

Further Fun Times

As we go deeper into the forest, we get rumblings of something big and scary lurking somewhere around here. The wildlife we come across shit themselves, quite literally and graphically, in a manner all too familiar to people who frequented Newgrounds back in the day, and soon even the enemies we've been fighting and fleeing from something much worse.

Out of a barn bursts a grue-looking thing, I guess, equal parts dopey and violent, spitting out loads more little critters in an attempt to survive my... twig. I had an axe, and then a sword, but now I've picked up a twig, and it seems to be doing as much as anything else. Are weapons just cosmetic, I wonder, as I keep mashing the attack button whenever there's a nice window to do so.

I've also picked up a little lizard guy that floats behind me. He does nothing, so far as I can see. I'm sure I'll grow some sort of attachment to him as the game goes on, and will despair at his inevitable loss, no doubt due to my own stupidity. Let's hope that day never comes.

As another boss bites the dust, which is amazing considering he appeared to be made of the stuff, the forest continues to shake. This wasn't the big bad scary thing the animals were scared of. No, this is the big bad scary thing.

Fleeing whatever it is on a startled deer involves jumping over logs and squeezing through doors. It's not too difficult but does raise a few questions of just what this thing is and when will we finally stop running from it and start fighting it. I don't think I'll ever be ready for such a contest, and would definitely prefer three other party members to join in and help, but that's not happening any time soon.

Crashing out the back of the sawmill, I suppose that was, we're dumped into a river and Castle Crashers continues to sweep us along. More kidnapped women, more enemies standing in our way, and no choice but to flow downriver and deal with it all.

It's quite annoying. You're not sure what you can stand on, and one hit from a big fish or an archer on the riverbank will knock you right off it. You can swim, but you can't fight in the water unless you jump out of it first, which isn't too bad considering the sheer amount of attacks you can get into a single jump.

Eventually, we float far enough for another boss, and this time the king, I think, is behind us. Not sure if he's actually helping me, though, or just there for reasons.

This catfish was real tough. I had no idea how best to attack him and spent much of the time looking for something to jump onto so I could attack in the first place. But just look at those visuals. Where else can you find such over the top designs?

Even if I'm not succeeding, Castle Crashers is entertaining, which is good because the longer this fight went on, the less I found myself succeeding.

As both of our health bars shrank, the end was so close that the fight just stopped and this New Arena screen took its place. If you're bored with the story, not that there is one, you can hop into one of these arenas and just go to town. I'm not really interested in that myself, but this must be an indication of my failure, right?

Yup, dumped on the map screen with these two recent areas being listed as new and incomplete. Oh well. It was fun, mostly, while it lasted.

Final Word

I don't recall ever doing well at a beat 'em up. They're the kind of games where you thoroughly enjoy the first few levels before you hit a wall and abandon it because you know the rest of the game will likely be more of the same, but harder, and you've had enough fun so it's no big deal to not see the rest. Just me?

Castle Crashers looks really appealing to me, not because of the beat 'em up, but the visual flair and the cartoony nature of the whole thing. It really reminds me of all the fun I had on Newgrounds, but now in a package that could keep me entertained for a good few hours, rather than a lunch break.

I'm definitely missing out on the "true" experience by not playing it with other people. When the end of level rewards appear, I can grab them all without fighting over them. When the health items drop, they're mine and mine alone. There's no friendly competition or bragging in a single player beat 'em up, no being carried along by others and laughing at their misfortune as they laugh at yours. There is only getting good at the game, and for me to do that generally means investing a lot of time into a game.

This is a game I want to spend more time with, yes, but I don't know how much more I'll be able to put in before I hit my wall, caused by increased difficulty, lack of skill, poor understanding of the mechanics, whatever. Maybe I've already hit it with the catfish, who knows.

Whether I play much more of it or not, I'm glad to know that there will always be some colourful alternatives that don't take themselves too seriously. The beat 'em up genre has always been a little wacky, I suppose, but not to this extreme.

Castle Crashers is a fusion of teenage internet humour and reliable gameplay, and it works. It looks fantastic, when you can see what's going on, and is definitely worth playing.

Fun Facts

The original demo for the game was running on a Nintendo GameCube in 2005, but wouldn't be released on a Nintendo console until the Remastered version hit the Nintendo Switch in 2019.

Castle Crashers, developed by The Behemoth, first released in 2008.

Version played: Castle Crashers Remastered, PC, 2012.