Developer: The Behemoth
Publisher: The Behemoth
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC
Reviewed On: Nintendo Switch
Code Provided: Yes

As someone who heavily played the original Castle Crashers back when it launched on the Xbox 360, I was extremely excited when The Behemoth announced that Castle Crashers Remastered would be coming to the Nintendo Switch. 11 years later after Castle Crashers‘ original release, the remastered version of the game still holds up as one of the best Beat-‘Em-Ups of all time.

Story

Castle Crashers Remastered has a simple yet very intriguing story. You start by seeing a evil wizard steal a crystal above the King’s throne. You’re then thrown into battle, with the goal being to reclaim the crystal. You travel across the vast world killing hundreds of enemies and fighting numerous intricate bosses.

Gameplay

Castle Crashers Remastered is a pretty simple game to play, however it does require some strategy. To control your character and attack, you have a couple of different options. First, you have your light and heavy attacks. To make a light attack you press Y, and to make a heavy attack you press X. You can use these two attacks to build different combos that can help rack up mad damage on an opponent quickly. The player can jump with A, and later on can unlock combos where the player can double jump by double tapping A. The last part is of course magic. Magic depends on the element of your character and your character’s magic level. The higher the magic level, the more attack options the player has to choose from. For example, the Blue Knight has the element of Ice, which allows the player to cast down icicles upon the opposing enemies. Castle Crashers Remastered offers a leveling system, which allows players to level up by slaying enemies. When a player ranks up, they can apply two skill points to one of four areas. The first area is strength, which allows players to deal more damage. The second is magic, which allows for new attacks and a faster recharge rate. The third is defense, which gives the player more HP. The fourth is agility, which allows for the player to walk quicker and be better at archery. Balancing and upgrading these skills will allow the player to progress through the world of Castle Crashers Remastered. The player can acquire many different weapons, which will give the players some perks. One weapon could give the player +3 Strength and -1 Agility, while another could give +5 Magic and -2 Defense. It is up to the player on how they want to approach their stats. The player has an item slot, which will allow for the player to hold different items. The main item most use is the Bow and Arrow, which allows the character to shoot an arrow at an enemy. This is very useful for some fights. There is also potions, which allow for HP recovery. Once you get onto the battlefield, you will use all of these strategies together to defeat all of the enemies that may come your way.

Modes/Minigames

Castle Crashers Remastered offers plenty of modes for players to enjoy. There are single player and multi-player modes, all of which offer a new take on the world of Castle Crashers. Castle Crashers Remastered offers 3 modes. The first is titled Castle Crashers. This is the main mode of the game, and is where 99% of the content is housed. All characters, the story itself, and more are in this mode. The second mode is called Arena, and it allows 2-4 players to square off against each other in battle. There are lots of arenas scattered across the map, and beating one might grant you a new playable character. This is really fun to play when you have friends over. The last mode is called Back Off Barbarian, and it is a board game like mode where you frantically run away from enemies. Castle Crashers Remastered also offers an Insane Mode where players can attempt to play the game at a very high difficulty, and online multiplayer for all the modes listed above.

Bosses

The bosses in Castle Crashers Remastered are fantastic. All are extremely humorous and offer players a very enjoyable experience. The boss fights gradually get harder and longer as you go, and some will take some strategy. After seeing how the boss attacks, it should be pretty easy to determine how you must counter it. There are a grand total of ten boss fights in Castle Crashers Remastered, and they are all glorious. The art style really allows for some crazy expressions and moves to happen from the bosses, and they each have some incredibly humorous and unique attacks. The last boss fight leaves the player feeling extremely victorious, and is quite an accomplishment with the long length of the fight itself.

Pets

Castle Crashers Remastered allows you to bring along a pet on your journey to save the kingdom. These pets will assist you in a variety of ways; how it will assist you depends on which pet you decide to bring along. First I’d like to start by saying that all of the pets increase a certain stat. This could be agility, strength, magic, or defense. There are a couple of different categories of pets. The first is offensive pets. These pets will attack enemies with you and are very useful to help slowly drain the enemy of their health. The second category are food locating pets. These pets will bring food to the player and allow the player to restore health much faster. The food can be anywhere on the screen and the pet will bring it to them. The third category of pets are the item pets. These pets allow the player to either find secret items or find a specific type of item faster. Finally, there are a few pets in the game that will give the player strange abilities. There is only a couple of these pets. One of the more prominent ones is called Sherbet, a cat pet. Sherbet allows the player to jump extremely high. Until you can magic jump, Sherbet will stare at you from the top of the Animal Ark.

Playable Characters

Castle Crashers Remastered has quite a lot of playable characters. All of the characters have a element and a starting weapon. There are lots of unique elements that do different things. Below I’ll dive into each of the characters, going over their elements and starting weapons.

• Green Knight
  • Element – Poison
  • Starting Weapon – Thin Sword
• Red Knight
  • Element – Electricity
  • Starting Weapon – Mace
• Blue Knight
  • Element – Ice
  • Starting Weapon – Sheathed Sword
• Orange Knight
  • Element – Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Broad Ax
• Gray Knight
  • Elements – Non-Elemental / Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Skinny Sword
• Open Faced Gray Knight
  • Elements – Non-Elemental / Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Skinny Sword
• Blacksmith
  • Elements – Non-Elemental / Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Hammer
• Pink Knight
  • Element – Love
  • Starting Weapon – NG Lollipop
• Alien
  • Elements – Fire / Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Alien Gun
• Barbarian
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Barbarian Ax
• Bear
  • Element – Wind
  • Starting Weapon – Club
• Brute
  • Element – Nature
  • Starting Weapon – Dual Prong Sword
• Civilian
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Pitchfork
• Conehead
  • Element – Non-Elemental/Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Light Saber
• Cult Minion
  • Element – Dark
  • Starting Weapon – Glowstick
• Fencer
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Fencer’s Foil
• Fire Demon
  • Element – Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Black Morning Star
• Hatty Harrington
  • Element – Money
  • Starting Weapon – Emerald Sword
• Iceskimo
  • Element – Ice
  • Starting Weapon – Fishing Spear
• Industrialist
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Ugly Mace
• Killer Beekeeper
  • Element – Bee
  • Starting Weapon – Rat Beating Bat
• King
  • Elements – Healing / Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – King’s Mace
• Necromancer
  • Element – Death
  • Starting Weapon – Evil Sword
• Ninja
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Sai
• Peasant
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Wooden Spoon
• Royal Guard
  • Elements – Non-Elemental / Fire
  • Starting Weapon – Saracen Sword
• Saracen
  • Elements – Sand / Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Saracen Sword
• Skeleton
  • Element – Dark
  • Starting Weapon – Skeletor Mace
• Snakey
  • Element – Nature
  • Starting Weapon – Snakey Mace
• Stove Face
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Gladiator Sword
• Thief
  • Element – Non-Elemental
  • Starting Weapon – Thief Sword

Performance

Castle Crashers Remastered runs fantastic on the Nintendo Switch. The game runs at an incredibly smooth 60 FPS, and has no drops in resolution whatsoever. The character and enemies models are smooth and crisp, and everything looks extremely sharp on the Switch. As someone who played the original on the Xbox 360, this game looks insanely better than the original (which still looked great!).

Conclusion

Castle Crashers Remastered is a phenomenal experience and still holds up to this day. The Nintendo Switch version of Castle Crashers Remastered is easily the definitive experience, as it gives the player the ability to play anytime, anywhere. The game runs incredibly smoothly with no frame or resolution drops whatsoever and offers a fantastic experience for newcomers and those returning to the game. As a ginormous fan of this game, I absolutely cannot wait to see what The Behemoth has in store for Castle Crashers in the future.