Publisher: The Behemoth; Microsoft
Developer: The Behemoth
System: XBLA
Genre: Adventure/ RPG
Release date: Available now
Review by: Christopher J. Troilo

With home consoles staking a larger and larger claim to the videogame market, it’s hard to remember the days when pre-teen Friday nights were spent in the arcade at the local mall. I used to love going with three of my friends, pumping quarters endlessly into the giant machines and tackling epic beat-em-up games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons or X-Men. What made these games a blast was their simplicity. You moved left to right beating up anybody who wasn’t on your team. For hours this formula of action and comedy enthralled me; it was the perfect recipe for entertainment. The creators of the new XBLA game Castle Crashers clearly remember those arcade days and pay wonderful homage to them.

Castle Crashers begins the way most other games of this nature do. There’s a rocking party at the castle, but suddenly the bad guys show up and whisk away the treasure and the fair maidens. It’s then up to the noble knights to battle wave after wave of foes to get their lovelies back. That just about does it for plot, but that’s all that is needed. This game isn’t about complex storytelling, it’s about getting to the fun as fast as possible, and Castle Crashers does it ever so well.

To start, you pick your knight’s color from four options. This choice is important because the color of your garb represents the magic power of your hero. For example, the blue knight has ice attacks, such as raining down icicles from the sky, and the green knight uses poison, which I’m certain, was made to look like flatulence as you spray your enemies with green gas. But magic isn’t the only weapon at your disposal. You have more than 20 melee items that can be collected and equipped as the game goes on. These include swords, axes, bows and arrows, and even lightsabers.

As you cross the 2-D terrain, disposing of villains in a multitude of ways, you begin to gain experience points. This portion of the game resembles the common elements of RPGs, in which your character gains enough experience to level up. This allows you to bolster certain qualities of your character, including strength, defense, magic and agility. This is important given that the farther you move on in the game, the trickier your foes become.