At last fall's Penny Arcade Expo, the first game
that attendees caught on their way onto the show floor was the cartoonish
brawler Castle Crashers, advertised with
its titular colored knights frowning from the booth. And the team at The
Behemoth, led by programmer Tom Fulp and artist Dan Paladin, play well with the Penny Arcade crowd, thanks to
their appealing character design, retro side-scrolling action, light toilet
humor, and ramshackle "anything goes" aesthetic—where knights on a
medieval adventure can wind up playing volleyball in Arabia, or mowing down
aliens on a UFO.
Castle Crashers is
amusing, but limited. The campaign rambles through predictable
environments—here's the lava world, there's the ice—taking
tangents, like the UFO, that feel indulgently random. With only a handful of
combos and enemies who are remarkably similar except for their sprites and
their endurance, the fights don't offer much variety, and the boss fights
demand more patience than tactics. The few hours' of story are fun but never
thrilling, and while the light RPG elements give you the pleasure of leveling
up a cast of characters, only the diehards will take the journey a second time.
Beyond the game: Castle Crushers repeatedly plugs The
Behemoth's Alien Hominid HD, also available on Xbox Live Arcade. But if cash
is tight, hit Newgrounds.com and try Fulp and Paladin's Dad 'N Me, or their scrotal saga Sack
Smash.
Worth playing for: The sight gags strewn
throughout the game—a knight performing CPR on the battlefield, wild
animals crapping themselves in fear—offer a few laughs in the middle of
the hacking and slashing. If anything, the game could use more of them.
Frustration sets in when: Up to four people can play
the game together—but at press time, critical bugs in the matchmaking
system made online play practically impossible. Herding some pals into your
living room is your best bet for cooperative play.
Final judgment: It's a fine line between "retro"
and "rehash," and while Castle Crashers coughs up a few neat ideas, its freshest
element is its art.