Castle Crashers



Castle Crashers is a Beat'Em Up available on the Xbox Live Arcade and for 1,200 Microsoft Points (1,600 MSpts; roughly US$20.). It was created by the same guys behind the Web site Newgrounds, and maintains the comedic style and artistic look you might find on their Web site.

You (and up to three of your friends) are gallant knights, fighting off a barbarian horde, lava beasts, the undead and the like to rescue four beautiful princesses who have been abducted. That's the extent of the story for this game. It's all about playing an oldschool-style hack-and-slash on high-definition gaming technology. And you'll have a blast doing it.

Good news, everyone! Castle Crashers has also made it to the Playstation Network as of August 31, 2010.

Castle Crashers provides examples of:

 * Advancing Boss of Doom: Several times, you are running away from a troll large enough that its eyes alone are the size of two players each. The first time it is encountered, you simply run. In a following sequence, this troll becomes a type A boss, which you will fight in a variant of the Minecart Madness level.
 * Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Wizard's Castle has one hell of an odd background. It's all swirly and purple and black and... whoa.
 * And I Must Scream: The Weapons Frog (look at it's eyes), but it's untied for the ending sequence.
 * An Ice Person: The Ice King, the Blue Knight, the Icekimoes.
 * And Now You Must Marry Me: The leader of the Coneheads is attempting to forcibly marry the Green Princess when you show up. The other princes may or may not be holding the other Princesses for marriage.
 * Apathetic Citizens: Used painfully straight in the beginning of the game, then subverted later in the swamp level, where the peasants, encouraged by your violent bravery, join you in fights.
 * Yes, but even then, you have to lure the Corn Boss into attacking them to actually have them join you in fighting the monstrosity.
 * you can unlock peasants as playable.
 * Art Initiates Life: The Painter.
 * Art Shift: The Painter's creations are rendered in a less-refined, non-shaded style.
 * Author Guest Spot \ Offscreen Start Bonus: Many of the minds behind Newgrounds appear.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: The King is a badass.
 * Avenging the Villain:
 * Badass: Basically everyone, though special mention should probably go to the awesome Necromancer, if only for his music.
 * Badass Adorable: All of the characters are cute little guys, but special mention goes to the Pink Knight, who wears pink armor, smiles constantly, and uses rainbows and stuffed animals as his magic attacks.
 * Badass Normal: The Grey Knight and several of the other unlockable characters (most notably the civilian and peasant) have no magic, gadgets, or special high-tech equipment of any kind. They make do.
 * Bait and Switch Boss: The first boss appears to be just a simple Giant Mook. Then, the door behind him that's three times his height (for reference: he's twice yours) breaks down, crushing him, and the real boss comes out. He barely fits through the giant door.
 * Big Bad: The Wizard.
 * Bishonen Line:
 * Also, the Necromancer, the Wizard's second-in-command and most powerful minion, is humanoid, whereas his two lesser underlings are monstrous.
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The Blue, Green, and Red Princesses, respectively. The Orange Princess, meanwhile, follows a different trope.
 * Indeed she does:.
 * Bonus Dungeon: Insane Mode fits the trope, even if it isn't a dungeon. Enemies have many times their normal HP, and do crazy amounts of damage. You, on the other hand, only get as strong as stat caps will let you.
 * Boss Room: The Barbarian Boss applies here too.
 * Boss Rush: A set of brand-new fights right before the final battle.
 * Bowel-Breaking Bricks: Several animals in the Thieves Forest.
 * Brick Joke: The deer being propelled by his Bowel-Breaking Bricks will later be seen flying into the sky in the Full Moon level.
 * Bubblegloop Swamp: The swamp and Medusa's Lair.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: Most of the villains...as implied by their names.
 * Cats Are Mean: The Catfish. The Giant Troll looks a bit like a huge cat too.
 * Character Level
 * Character Customization: Players can specialize in strength, magic, defense, agility, or any combination of them. Can result in characters becoming a Jack of All Stats, a Mighty Glacier, a Fragile Speedster, and more.
 * Cherry Tapping: The Shovel can hit an enemy twice in one use, but it can be difficult to time, and it's often not that worth it. The Horn can send opponents flying in the same manner, but it's a bit easier to time.
 * Chest Monster:
 * Color-Coded Multiplayer
 * Convection, Schmonvection: One of the greatest examples is the Cyclops boss: after his defeat he fall into a pit of magma and is buried here. When the necromancer resurrects him as Recyclops he doesn't look burned at all.
 * Cowardly Boss: The Industrial Prince runs away from you at every point up until the battle with . Then he runs again, but gets zapped by the wizard instead of getting a ride. You can smack him off the tower of his castle for some satisfying revenge.
 * The moment can be even more hilarious depending on what means you smack him with. The shovel. The horn. Anything works.
 * Bring along Bipolar Bear.
 * CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: If a teammate loses all his HP and has no potions left, you can revive him via CPR.
 * Crosshair Aware: Whenever sub-bosses use cannons, you'll see a glowy red cross on the floor. Makes no sense, because the cannons don't have crosshairs themselves.
 * Cycle of Hurting: In cases where enemies spawn en masse, they may stunlock you until your health runs dry. And even then it may take them awhile to stop.
 * Cyclops: One of the bosses.
 * Death Mountain: Full Moon.
 * Defeat Means Friendship: Defeating Pipistrello causes him to shrink down into the Bitey Bat Animal Orb.
 * Degraded Boss: The big, squarish Troll from the early-game forest level appears later in normal fights a few times.
 * Dem Bones: Skeletons appears as mooks and potential playable character. Oddly, they can become beefy even if they're, you know, skeletal.
 * Disney Villain Death: The Purple Prince.
 * Distressed Damsel: Four, one for each of the main characters' colors.
 * The Dragon: The Necromancer, to the Wizard.
 * Dying Like Animals: The background in the very first stage. Played for laughs.
 * Elite Mook: There's a Conehead wearing a backpack to help him avoid getting juggled.
 * Enemy Mine: You can outfit your Player Character with enemy designs, each with their own unique magic attacks.
 * Escape Sequence: The first encounter with the giant Troll. This is the original reason for the poor deer's... uh... propulsion.
 * Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Conehead Groom and the Cyclops are real close.
 * Everything's Worse With Bears: The bear tribe you encounter shortly after Catfish.
 * Subverted early in the game. A bear gets ready to attack you from behind a bush, but quickly gets scared off by a much more threatening enemy.
 * The Bipolar Bear will attack anyone with low health. Yes, even its owner.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Barbarians, thieves, trolls, sharks, fish, bears, demons, sandworms, slimes, and more.
 * And those are just the ones that make sense. One boss is a
 * Expressive Mask: The knights manage to be pretty expressive despite wearing cold steel helmets.
 * Sometimes they even sprout mouths through the helmet.
 * Which makes no sense considering you see the gray knight unmasked.
 * The Faceless: The Orange Princess's face is never seen throughout the majority of the game. Even when you're fighting the first boss (where all four princesses are seen in the background), her face is obscured by lots of ropes.
 * Several other characters fit this, such as the Royal Guards, the Black Knights, the Wizard's Cultists, the Coneheads, the colored knights...
 * Fighter, Mage, Thief: Strength/Defense, Magic, and Agility, respectively.
 * Fire, Ice, Lightning: Three out of the four playable characters available from the start are an ice magic user blue knight, a fire magic user orange knight, and a lightning magic user red knight.
 * Flunky Boss: Several bosses, including the Barbarian Boss and Pipistrello, constantly summon regular mooks. The Necromancer deserves special mention, as he summons two waves of 10+ enemies each.
 * Floating Continent: The Wizard's Castle... which falls during the last two phases of the final battle.
 * Funny Background Event: See Brick Joke.
 * Gang Plank Galleon:
 * Get Back Here Boss: battle becomes little more than an annoying game of Whack A Mole when it's low on health.
 * dodges you for the first half of his bar by only coming down from his spot to create more minions. Eventually his elevator breaks and he runs around screaming for help.
 * Giant Mook
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: . also fits.
 * I believe deserves mention.
 * Or maybe.
 * Go-Karting With Bowser: At the end of the desert level, just after you slaughter dozens of saracens, you play a friendly game of volley ball with some survivors.
 * And even then, you can STILL beat each other senseless.
 * Good Wings, Evil Wings: The Necromancer, as if his power and his black armor was not enough to unambiguously label him as evil, also has a pair of bat wings.
 * Gorgeous Gorgon: Medusa fits this category quite nicely. Just don't get caught in her stare.
 * Gotta Catch Em All: Collecting all the animal orbs and weapons.
 * Harmless Freezing: The Blue Knight and several other characters can freeze enemies. They'll thaw and come right back after you.
 * Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Pink Knight's magic consists of rainbows and plush penguins/weasels. The rainbows are the longest reaching splash attack in the game and, when hit, enemies make a peace sign for a spit second. Now tell me that isn't awesome.
 * Heavy Mithril: The four knights are head banging and moshing when the story begins.
 * Hoist By His Own Petard: Medusa is turned to stone after her defeat. The Ice King isn't luckier as he slowly turns to ice, screaming all the time. The Cyclops falling in the lava grave he dig for you may count.
 * Hyperactive Metabolism
 * I Am Your Opponent: The Barbarian Boss makes his entrance like this in hilarious fashion: a typical Giant Mook Barbarian appears, and screams at you. The giant door he's standing in front of then gets knocked down, crushing him, and out comes a much, much larger barbarian to throw down with you.
 * Ice Palace The Ice Prince's castle.
 * I Have Many Names: Forest Knight / Swamp Trooper / Vine Knight / Medusa Minion / Medusa Knight / Tree Knight / Grass Knight / Druidic Knight / Snakey
 * Improbable Weapon User: Any player, really, given the variety of weapons that become available to you.
 * Let's see, a spoon, a fish, a lightsaber, a frozen chicken, a few different kinds of sticks, a lollipop, a carrot, a boomerang, a horn...should I go on?
 * Some enemies aren't better: the first boss you face attacks you with a colossal spiked door.
 * Ironic Wedding Tune: The theme for the Conehead Groom fight, called "Till Death Do I Impart" is a distorted version of "Here Comes The Bride".
 * Kiai: Transforming into a beefy version of yourself causes your character to emit a groaning scream.
 * King Mook: The Barbarian Boss, the Conehead leader, and possibly Pipistrello
 * Lethal Lava Land: Lampshaded, it's actually called "Lava World."
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: There's somewhere around 30 playable characters with more on the way, and a bunch more you can't play as.
 * Load-Bearing Boss:
 * Made of Iron: Pretty much everyone. Getting shocked, set on fire, or sliced and diced is only a small injury that you can get back up from.
 * Magic Knight: All the characters can cast magic and beat stuff up, but you need to upgrade attack, defense AND magic for this to be an effective build.
 * Medieval European Fantasy
 * Mini Boss: Several, although they seem to disappear after you cross the ocean.
 * Mini Game: All You Can Quaff, a massive eating contest. Also, volleyball atop the Sand Castle.
 * Monster Arena: Several throughout the game.
 * Multi Mook Melee: Pretty much every level. The Necromancer sends a few giant waves of mooks at you when you fight him, too.
 * During the level, you wind up fighting 50 enemies in one screen. They all die in one hit, but they also have ranged attacks.
 * Mook
 * Mook Chivalry: Mooks tend to try to melee you one or two at a time, with the rest staying out of your reach or peppering you from afar with occasional arrows or magic.
 * Averted in some of the arena fights. You will really appreciate your shield after it has defended you from a throng of 5 or 6 iceskimoes all wailing on you with clubs.
 * Mook Maker: The large, squarish Trolls constantly release hordes of smaller Trolls.
 * Mutually Exclusive Powerups: Transforming into your beefy self renders you unable to shoot arrows or cast magic... or do anything but smash stuff, jump and block, really.
 * Nameless Narrative: No one is named.
 * Night of the Living Mooks: Skeletons.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: You fight ninjas. That have a pirate ship. Yes, really.
 * No Name Given / Exactly What It Says On the Tin: Barely any of the characters have actual names and are named for... well, what they are. The Evil Wizard is... an evil wizard, Necromancer is a necromancer, the (Insert color here) Knights are knights with armor of a certain color... The list goes on.
 * No Hero Discount: A shopkeeper in the castle still charges you for his goods, even though you saved his life not two minutes before.
 * Odd Name Out: The boss lineup in the final level consists of  One of these kids is not like the others.
 * Oh Crap: The Wizard has an epic one
 * Old Save Bonus: You can unlock the main character of Alien Hominid on the Xbox 360 version is you've downloaded it from the Marketplace and have at least one achievement on it.
 * Ominous Floating Castle:
 * One-Winged Angel:
 * Our Dragons Are Different:
 * Player Mooks: Pretty much every character you can play as aside from the four starters and downloads.
 * Playing With Fire: The Orange Knight and the Fire Demons both use fire magic, and the Fire Demons are nigh-immune to fire.
 * Polar Bears and Penguins: Snow World contains penguins, eskimos, and BiPolar Bear, a polar bear-like animal orb.
 * Puzzle Boss: The Catfish has incredibly high defense when its teeth are clenched. To beat it, you have to protect the King's ship from its furballs so that he can fire a cannon at it, causing it to open its mouth temporarily so you can deal a lot of damage.
 * Qurac: The desert area. Filled with camels, the Saracens, and so on
 * Real Men Wear Pink: The Pink Knight.
 * Redshirt Army: The Grey Knights, who die left and right. Subverted since they're actually pretty helpful (and competent) despite their short lifespans, and two of them are playable.
 * Remilitarized Zone: The first level takes place during a barbarian siege on the Home Castle. In the background you can see massive armies clash (Well, at one point. The rest of the level's background is parts of the armies rushing toward the battle), and broken equipment and bodies are everywhere.
 * The Reveal: The Orange Princess (see The Faceless) shows up after the credits, her face this time covered by an orange viel. As you move in to kiss her like all the other princesses, she finally reveals her face... !
 * Rocket Jump: The characters use the magic of their choice to drastically boost their jump height.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: The King is a downloadable playable character, but even if you aren't playing as him he still shows up to help you defeat the Catfish.
 * Rule of Fun
 * Rule of Funny
 * Save the Princess: Four of them and a giant crystal, in fact.
 * Schizo-Tech: The Industrialist and his Mooks seem awfully ahead of the times in terms of tech.
 * Sequential Boss:
 * Shifting Sand Land: The desert and Sand Castle levels.
 * Sinister Scimitar: The saracens and the Necromancer.
 * Shock and Awe: The Red Knight.
 * Shout-Out: Obligatory Newgrounds cameos, especially during the fight against the Painter. The Cyclops also does the thumbs-up from Terminator 2. The opening sequence seems to have one to River City Ransom with lead designers Fulp & Paladin.
 * Also, the  level is one long shout-out to the game , right down to the mooks' HP.
 * Sixth Ranger: The Pink Knight.
 * Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Leaning very heavily towards the silliness side.
 * Unless you're talking about the soundtrack, which usually contrasts what's happening onscreen by being deadly serious and astronomically epic.....And absolutely freaking AWESOME!
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Lampshaded again, it's actually called "Snow World"...again
 * Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: The Industrial Castle has a small section covered by spiked pistons that repeatedly attempt to smash you.
 * Smash Mook: Cyclops. All he does is either attempt to smash you or throw knives. He switches it up a bit when he returns as Recyclops, but he's still limited to about three attacks. Beefy characters could also apply here.)
 * Smooch of Victory: Every princess gives one. To who depends on who can outfight the others for it.
 * Stationary Wings: The Fire Demons have wings, but they're purely for looks and never move [except for when they first crawl up from the abyss in the background and jump onto the field to engage you.]
 * Super-Persistent Predator: The Giant Troll apparently believes that Knights make an excellent meal, as he'll chase after them though a whole abandoned mill
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: A sign in the middle of Lava World claims the area has "No active volcanoes!" Guess what the mini boss is.
 * Technicolor Blade: The Dragon's Sword.
 * Technicolor Toxin: In this case we have Green poison.
 * The Stinger
 * Toilet Humor: Especially in the Thieves' Forest level.
 * Torches and Pitchforks: You lead a handful of pitchfork-wielding peasants into battle with you in one level.
 * Trick Boss:
 * Universal Poison: The Green Knight, Medusa, and the sandworms uses poison that has a green color and does a little extra damage over time. Poisoned characters are green and emit bubbles.
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Wizard's Castle. Well, a giant castle just  couldn't get much more obvious.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: Aside from the Visual Pun, there's also a literal sand castle you can destroy; the builder isn't there to cry about his loss though.
 * Violence Is the Only Option: However, there are many different kinds of violence
 * Visual Pun: The Sand Castle. It's a castle in the desert...made of sand. See also the Catfish boss, who's half cat, half fish. Seriously.
 * World Map
 * Weapons Kitchen Sink: Maces, swords, axes, tree branches, fish, lightsabers...
 * Wedding Smashers: Hell, the level is named "Wedding Crashers"
 * WHAT Series: Some of the NPCs' actions are pretty weird. For instance, every non-killable animal in the Thieve's Forest has bowel issues.
 * You would probably shit uncontrollably too if
 * Womb Level: The blacksmith stores your weapons in the mouth of a large frog-like beast with antlers
 * World of Badass: Everyone can kill anything. Even a peasant can decapitate you. With a WOODEN SPOON. Every character can also cast magic, ranging from an electrical shock to a rain of arrows to a wave of buzzsaws.
 * Worthy Opponent: The Necromancer fights like one after you've dealt with his waves of Zombie Mooks. He fights a lot like a moderately powerful coliseum opponent, and is bound by all the rules the player characters are bound by.
 * You All Look Familiar: Characters of the same faction all look exactly the same. Every Conehead is identical, every Thief is the same, etc.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: While the other princesses have natural hair colors, the Orange Princess has purple hair.
 * Zerg Rush: The primary strategy of the . They die in one hit, but there's so bloody many of them it still feels like a challenge.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: While the other princesses have natural hair colors, the Orange Princess has purple hair.
 * Zerg Rush: The primary strategy of the . They die in one hit, but there's so bloody many of them it still feels like a challenge.