PSN Review - Castle Crashers

Here ye, here ye!! Come one!! come all! After a long and tumultuous crusade on the Xbox Of Live arcade platform, The Behemoth have graced our King system, the PlayStation of the 3, with their legendary tale of Castles and Crashing them. Has the long-winded wait of 2 years been worth the it or should this 2D beat’em up stay home, waiting for the day that it might dust off its war-torn armor and go into battle once again? Have no fear followers of the PlayStation of the 3, as our review reveals the truth ye’ seek!

Hopefully my poor attempt at ‘Old English’ didn’t scare you off, seeing as how you NEED to spend the $15 on Castle Crashers because it’s totally worth it! Sadly, reviewing a game isn’t that easy..so I reckon’ I better tell you why that it worth the money, right?

Well seeing as how over 1.8 million gamers joined the crusades of the mighty colored knights on XBLA, there had to be a good reason and I now understand why… Castle Crasher’s gameplay might be from the old school 2D beat’em mold, but it sure some kicks some serious knight!! Hands down. The major reason to buy Castle Crashers is for the gameplay! Shocking, right? Afterall, the reason we play games is to experience the enjoyment we get out of them and Castle Crashers has the gameplay department locked down tight. Sure it might not be anything new..we’ve all played dozens of beat’em ups over the year, but The Behemoth took it upon themselves to spice things up a bit and I thank them for that. Yeah, the game is all about hackin’ and slashin’, but the game throws everything including the kitchen sink and a few bottles of drain-o in for good measure.

After defeating what I thought was the boss for a stage, I suddenly found myself on top of a horse and buggy, riding through the town as the citizens celebrated the wedding. I soon found enemies jumping onto said buggy and the battle continued!! Or the time when I had to fight a gigantic half-cat, half-shark, uh, thingy being rode by a panda bear looking creature. All of this and more (including aliens!!) on your way to save the four princesses and take back your Kingdom’s crystal. The gameplay is fabulous and the main reason that you need to buy this game!

One of the best parts about the gameplay is the level-up system. As we all know, all you do in beat’em ups is normally fight waves upon waves of enemies until you beat the stage. Having the level-up system in place both a.) rewards you for your hard work and b.) lets you mold your character into whatever you want him them to be. Do you want a walking tank? She’s all your! Do you want an awesome mage as fast as lightning?Let it be so! You can level any character to 99, so whatever type of character you want is yours for the making.

Another interesting idea is the ‘animals orbs’ you collect throughout the game. 28 different creatures work as your ‘equipment’ seeing as some creatures give you added offense, defensive, some will find fruit for you in trees, make your much stronger, etc. At first I didn’t quite understand why a little owl was following me around, although once I learned what the system was all about, I did my best to find all the creatures I could. The game also conveniently stores in them one location as you find them, so if you accidentally replace your owl with a cardinal, all you gotta do is head to the animal storage and fight your favorite little buddy to help you out.

If you think 28 different animal pals is something, wait until you see the ridiculous amount of weapons you acquire throughout the game. Everything from lightsabers, to maces, to huge swords to…a twig! Castle Crashers has weapons in spades and you’ll enjoy collecting them just as much as you did collecting the animals orbs.

While this game features both single and mutliplayer, multiplayer is easily king in Castle Crashers. Let me tell you one reason I would easily, easily recommend this game over Scott Pilgrim vs The World and Shank, both titles I’ve reviewed in the past month. Even though I loved Scott Pilgrim vs The World and gave it my *prestigious* ‘Winner’ of the month award on the 3rd episode of the PSLS Cross Game Chat podcast? Simple. Two words. Online. Multiplayer. You read right!! If you read my reviews for Shank and SPVTW, than you know how disappointed I was to discover that either title, in this day and age, had no online multiplayer support. While Castle Crashers is fun to play by yourself, there’s a reason why is reads ‘4-player adventure’ under the game’s logo. This game was made to be played with your fellow PSN pals and offline gamer friends. I enjoyed playing the game alone, however I had a blast when I joined my fellow knights in battle, kicking enemies tails into the next mention and combining our magic to destroy the competition. Multiplayer is the true way to play Castle Crashers and thankfully The Behemoth fleshed out the online problems they had originally on the 360 for us PS3 owners.

The game’s storyline runs around 5-6 hours in length, depending on if you’re playing by yourself or with a merry band of fellow fighters. Seeing as how you can level-up all 25 of the selectable characters found in the game to lvl. 99, along with the volleyball mode and arena mode, you should have no problem getting your money’s worth out of Castle Crashers.

If you missed out on Castle Crashers on the 360 or only own a PlayStation 3 and have waited patiently for the game, The Behemoth have certainly made the game worth your precious time and hard-earned money. Added to the package is all of the DLC from the XBLA market place, team arena, the volleyball mode, and the lush 2D graphics, make it worth the $15 asking price. If you have the time and the dime, Castle Crashers is a worthy PSN title to add to your mantle!