Dynafire has 132 chronicles

1. Castle Crashers Review/Opinion
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Sep 26 2008

   Castle Crashers is one of those games that I had never really heard about, so when I saw it in XBL Arcade, I didn’t even think about it. Thankfully, ZMaine got it and told me about it, so I figured “why not?”. After purchasing a 4,000 point card (which is all gone already), I spent the 1,200 points to get Castle Crashers, not expecting anything too great or deep. Holy crap, was I ever wrong.
   
   Castle Crashers is first and foremost, a side-scrolling beat ‘em up akin to Golden Axe or Streets of Rage, for example, but with RPG elements. The only objective is to beat the hell out of waves upon waves of enemies while moving to the right. Seems pretty monotonous, right? I thought this would be getting old pretty quick, but this game has a bunch of elements that come together nicely to add a tremendous amount of replay value. I have already beaten the game 3 times, with 3 different characters, and I still haven’t gotten tired of it.
   
   The game’s art style is mostly what keeps me attracted. Castle Crashers doesn’t attempt to be a serious game at all, and I love it. It’s basically like playing a cartoon. The ground looks like it was painted in watercolor, which looks awesome, and the backgrounds are fairly busy too. There is a lot of humor present in this game, but I won’t use any examples out of fear of spoiling the game. Seriously, you’ll love it.
   
   Before, I had said this game has RPG elements. Though shallow, there are plenty of things that will occupy your time. Castle Crashers uses a traditional level up system – you gain xp for beating up baddies, and then get to distribute points to strength, magic, defense, and agility. There are plenty of different weapons to find, ranging from badass to ridiculous (a lobster?). Over the course of the game you will come across various animal orbs, which are cute little caricatures of animals. These helpers will help you in battle with special abilities ranging from stat boosts, to finding items for you. I forget how many there are, (It’s at least 20) but have fun finding all of them. On that note, there are also more than 20 characters to unlock.
   
   I think my personal favorite part about this game is the fact that magic is actually very useful, as opposed to many RPG’s where I can coast through the game using physical attacks almost exclusively. When fully maxed, magic is more powerful than having max strength. To begin with, you only have access to splash magic, which affects enemies in a straight line right in front of you, and only at a short distance. As you put points into magic though, you will soon notice that your spell is doing more damage, and has a longer range. Eventually, you will also learn different ways to use your magic. You will get a projectile attack, the ability to use magic in the air, and a magic jump which hurts all enemies around you and launches you into air, allowing you to continue raining destruction upon your foes.
   
   On top of the normal Castle Crashers game, there is also "Arena", and "All You Can Quaff".
   
   Arena is exactly what it sounds like. It is player vs. player, and I admit, it’s not the funnest thing in the world right now, because of the broken online the game features. More on that in a minute. The issue I have with arena is that you are prohibited to have two of the same character in the fight. This means that if you have a level 99 Red Knight, and someone else picks the RK first, you have to use another character. I actually got thrust into a fight with 3 99’s last night, and I had to use a level 21. I lost obviously, but thankfully, arena is set up so that skillful players will usually win. I didn’t win, as I was horribly outclassed in everything, but I didn’t die until everyone else was near ¼ health. Had I been able to air-juggle people without being interrupted, it would have been very possible to win the match.
   
   All You Can Quaff is one of those game types that doesn’t really need to be in the game, but it’s a fun change of pace from beating stuff into oblivion. The object is to eat the most food the fastest. To do this, you mash on the Y and X buttons. When you finish your meal, you hit A, and do it again. This ends after 3 or 4 plates. I admit it, I don’t really like it. However, I’ve played it using the Rock Band drums, and that adds a whole new level of fun. Try it if you get the chance.
   
   Finally, the best (and worst) feature of the game. Castle Crashers sport a 4-player co-op mode, where you and up to 3 friends can play through the story together. The only problem is that the game will disconnect regularly, and it usually happens during a boss fight. If you haven’t returned to the map screen for a while, the game will not recognize that you gained levels before you got disconnected, so you have to grind out those levels again. I’ve also heard of this problem completely wiping Castle Crashers character data from people, so for now, I would not recommend that you play with people online. There IS a patch coming, that will supposedly be here soon, that will address the connectivity issues, and hopefully make CC online as great as it can be. It is a whole lot of fun to take down bad guys with friends, but getting disconnected so frequently is just a big headache.
   
   You owe it to yourself to play the demo at the very least. I love this game to death, and it has quickly become my most played game as of late. Overall, I'd rate it at a 8.5 out of 10. The only things that kill the rating are the online problems. The music is fantastic, there's plenty of humor, the artwork is amazing, and honestly, I wouldn't have had a problem paying $30-40 for this game. There are a lot of terrible games that retail for $60, so just put that in perspective and get this good game for $15.

   
   

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Dynafire has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. ZMaine
   Posted On Sep 26 2008

   Remember when I told you about this game and you were just like ,"I'll think about it"
   
   And now you're like, "I CAN'T PUT IT DOWN!"

2. BEN
   Posted On Sep 26 2008

   Awesome summary and thoughts Dynafire. I got this Chronicle Dugg and bookmarked around the web for sure, so let's see an image attached to the post soon.
   
   I too enjoyed this game and the artwork is truly awesome. Even with the bad connectivity situation, the online mode was my favorite, because it allowed me to enjoy this little jewel with friends like you
   
   Give it a try people!