Castle Crashers

Played through the first four or five levels/areas/spots on the map tonight. I'd say I agree with IGN's 9.0, after a rough glance through it thus far.

I was stunned how much RPG'ing there is in this. I mean, you're customizing your character's statistics and weapons throughout. I'd say it's much closer to the arcade dungeons and dragons than the straight up mauling side scrollers like TMNT or X:Men Arcade. At this point, I'm thinking magic might be just about worthless, unless it increases exponentially as you waste your xp points on it. Or, maybe the Ice Knight and Lightning Knight just have shitty magic. I'm not sure.

I was also stunned by how drab the game is in single player, as opposed to multiplayer. I mean, I expected a drop off, but this is a pretty drastic lowering of the fun factor. The enemies gang up with arrows and pretty much make your life miserable. Having folks jump in and out is key, and, frankly, I don't think I'm going to be playing this solo from this point on. Another big issue thus far: sound effects. The music ranges from acceptable to good (I wouldn't say it's ever great), but a good chunk of the sound effects are pretty dull. If I'm swinging a big ass hammer, I want it to sound satisfyingly "crunchy." A lot of the striking sounds are really anemic, even from gigantic boss characters. Maybe I just need to level up my guys, but it's definitely off.

The game seems incredibly deep. I was not expecting each unlocked character to have their own magic. Interesting. Between checking on the weapons you acquire and screaming at your teammates (it is NOT FUN to start a level over the beginning. AT ALL!), you can easily lose track of time.

**I find it endlessly amusing that an XBox Live Arcade game created by what seems like two or three guys understands that you need to see blood and flying limbs if you're trying to create an excitingly violent video game, but Lucas-Arts does not.

There was a PG-13 rating, burned bodies, severed limbs, or decapitated heads amongst the movies. It's possible for a product to evolve from medium to medium.

Source material? The Star Wars cantonverse could now fill an entire library, and much of it is wildly different in tone/content than the initial trilogy. I would have hoped a dark-side based action game would have drawn from some of the more mature works. For example, whether you love them or hate them, the Zahn books (if put to film) would have earned an "R" rating. Hell, Luke slices about a dozen aliens in half within the first thirty pages.

If you mean Lucas didn't evolve, then you're right.

Guilty as charged (though I did eventually kick the habit).

The Red Knight, once completely maxed out, has an insane Y magic attack. Paralyzes and kills everyone. Sure, my buddy was worthless in the final boss battles and I had to do the heavy lifting with my melee character (basically no agility or magic, max at defense and strength), but he probably had a lot more fun.

I was going to spend some time leveling and getting ready for insane mode, but the industrial knight looks so fucking cool (saw blade magic!) I may have to start over again. The game is video crack.

Which weapon y'all using? The fire sword you get at the end looks somewhat anemic compared to the black katana (plus two magic, plus seven defense) the wooden club (plus five strength, plus five defense, negative five agility) and the weirdo cleaver thing (plus two strength, plus five defense, negative two agility).

Online is completely broken for more than 2 players. Maybe wait?

Where do you get the claws? The black katana is from the flying knight boss, and the wooden club from the bears, right?

Game drops out whenever more than two players are on (for me, some people report it always drops out, regardless of settings). When the game drops, often times your save game file is completely erased (happened to a friend of mine). They acknowledged the problems on their sites, but it's still fairly unacceptable how broken the on-line component of the game is. It's frustrating as hell to continuously lose your progress. You can google "Castle Crashers broken" and read the myriad stories.

Now, I'm completely addicted, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't technical issues. When I stopped trying to play with more than two people on-line at a time, the problems went away (for me).

Relogging back on did restore my buddies character stats, but not the weapons and orbs. Those were gone for good (it tooks us about ten minutes for me to slowly trade him all the good stuff he lost).

As for the double bladed sword, it's amazing someone dropped it for you. There's something like a 1/1000 chance of it dropping. People actually found it easier to beat the game with multiple characters (to unlock the Brute) then find one themselves. What kind of stats does it have? I'm pulling my hair out trying to get the wooden club at the moment.

I see you on-line quite a bit. What are your characters(s) at?

The Industrial Knight is awesome. His saw blades are an incredible spam attack. He's a great reward for beating the game with the boring as hell blue knight. Max his magic out immediatemente. You can maul everyone.

Multiplayer game dropped out on me. Encountered the save game glitch. Lost 18 animal orbs, about 40-45 weapons, and about 800 in gold.

Want to punch their Q&A testers in the face.