Castle Crashers: A biased and unprofessional review.

What's the best game of all-time? You got a good guess? You're wrong. That'd be Madden '92. What's the best beat-em-up of all time? Also wrong. That'd be Castle Crashers, ladies and gentlemen.

Castle Crashers is the newest 4 MB flash game freely avaliable at Newgrounds at the moment. It's not too much to talk about honestly. There's like 2 characters, obviously inspired (RIPPED OFF) from TMNT. The music is basically a 4x4 beat that loops. Backgrounds, foregrounds, hell even COLOR is to be desired.



Of course I jest. This is probably the best beat-em-up to come out, like, ever. It's the ultimate homage to beat-em-ups. You won't play a better 2D beat-em-up ever. Y'know why? 'Cause unfortunately, the genre's a dying breed. Yeah, people don't like to play good games anymore. Shocker.

Where do I even start? It's made by the same guys who did Alien Hominid. Lead Programmer being Tom Fulp and Lead Artist being Dan Paladin. With an artist with such a badass last name, how can you go wrong? The game looks absolutely beautiful. Don't even start with those "ENJOY YOUR 15 DOLLAR FLASH GAME" comments as the game's art could easily sell for 15 dollar posters. I'll admit, some backgrounds/foregrounds are lackluster, but why are you paying attention to that. You should be busy looking at how cool you are, how much better you're doing than your friend, and how awesome the music is.

Did I mention the music? It's one of the best video game soundtracks ever. And it was all done by like 10+ different people all from Newgounds. No seriously, Behemoth only composed about 4 songs for the game. It's got your epic movie scores, it's got those silly techno beats, it's got magic. The reason for so many styles is because of all the different areas. The game has every imaginable area that you can be awesome in, EXCEPT a city. Play Alien Hominid for that, cheapskate. And I'm not exaggerating either. Snow, Lava/Volcano, Magic, Castle/Village, Ship, Undead, Forest, you name it, it has it.

Gameplay. As it can't be stated enough, the gameplay is magnificent. Animations are clean, controls are intuitive, and the pacing is constant. Combat is done two ways: Melee (Heterosexuals) and Magic (Homosexuals). As you bash baddies, you gain XP and level up, which in return gives you stat points to spend on STR(Straight), INT(Gay), DEX(Guro), or VIT(Inflation). The more gay you get, the more spells you unlock and the more powerful they are. The more straight you get, the more damage you do with regular attacks. It's common sense to basically max out Straight and Gay for a good balance, and that leaves you with one decision. Guro or Inflation? It's basically whatever rocks your boat from then on.

There's also little animal buddies called Animal Orbs that help you a random way. And lots and lots of weapons. Fuck this game is fantastic.

Replayability? It's about five hours with one character. Read: One. There's like 20+ to unlock. You start out with four. Think about that. Imagine how much asskicking you'll do. You came, didn't you? I know I did, because there's also insane mode after you beat the normal one. That's rougly 10 hours with each character.

Flaws? The game has none. All ages can play this game. All races can enjoy it. Xbox Live is borked at the moment, but what's new?

I got 99 problems and Castle Crashers is the solution to all of them.

9/10.