Castle Crashers
System: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: Teen
TC Rating


Indie development studio, The Behemoth, excels in taking old-school gameplay formulas and spicing them up with new school twists. Their first release, Alien Hominid, was a grueling side-scrolling shooter starring a head chomping yellow alien. The game’s wacky art style and cheeky humor were great, though many bemoaned its insane difficulty. With Castle Crashers, The Behemoth has toned down the difficulty and kept the irreverent humor, and the results are a more enjoyable experience.



The story follows four knights on their quest to rescue a bunch of kidnapped princesses and return a shiny magical jewel to the king. Things start out all medieval, with peasants and knights, and swords and shields, but they quickly take a turn for the weird. You’ll battle aliens in the desert, freaky teddy bears that control the weather, you’ll even crash a dark knight’s wedding. Aside from a few crude jokes, the strange story is entertaining, and the art style usually delivers a few chuckles per level.

The gameplay is standard beat-em-up action, held together with an RPG-like leveling system. As you take down foes, you gain experience, which can be used to increase your strength, magic, defense, or agility. It’s not a very deep system, but it does help keep the game from getting too monotonous. In addition to higher stats and new magic powers, you’ll also pick up a variety of weapons and animal friends as you play through the game. It’s a little disappointing that all weapons animate the same—your knight swings a giant hammer just like he swings a sword—but they do offer all kinds of stat boosts. The animal friends serve a similar purpose as they float around your knight while you move through the level.

Like Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers features the art of Dan Paladin. Paladin’s simple style has matured since Alien Hominid, with crisp, clean detail and characters that are more emotive. The backgrounds and foregrounds have a freshly drawn look to them and give the appearance of depth, though some foreground images obscure the action at times. Accompanying the charming visuals is a delightful sound track filled with catchy, folksy tunes that will keep you humming all day.



Castle Crashers is a game made for multiplayer. You’ll certainly have a good time going solo, but it’s much more fun with a friend or three. You can play with others online or locally, though online reliability is hit or miss. Getting into a game with friends is a hassle, and connections are often dropped or full of lag. The Behemoth has promised a patch to fix the online problems, but there’s no word on when that will come. Unless you have some friends or siblings to play with locally, you might want to wait to pick this one up until the online is repaired.

At $15, Castle Crashers is a little pricier than most Xbox Live Arcade Games, but the lengthy campaign, large roster of unlockable characters, and extra multiplayer modes make for a worthwhile purchase.

By Austin Light