In the spirit of the delayed development of Castle Crashers, here comes a review a full four months after the game's release. In case you weren't yet informed, this game is good. Few downloadable games can hold a candle to its brilliant execution of humor, style and solid gameplay. In fact, it was just announced the best selling XBLA arcade game of the year. Sales went through the roof despite the fact it was released alongside the stellar Braid and Bionic Commando.

The reason for its success is simple: it nails the beat 'em up genre in a way that improves upon the glory days. Artist Dan Paladin called out NES classic River City Ransom as a major source of inspiration on Gamasutra. Only after reading his comments do I now see the similar general feel; they couldn't really crib from a better game. Of course, Castle Crashers adds HD graphics, local multiplayer, a broken online multiplayer (potentially fixed now), additional modes to the main story, and a decent amount of poop animations. The developers were up late giggling when they made all that dung fly, and even your humble reviewer blushed. So what makes it stand out as the best selling XBLA game of the year? Simply put, everything is outstanding with a few notable exceptions.

First, not to crush our readers' hearts, but the story is flimsy and non-existent even by NES Mario standards. Although I guess you could argue that it improves on the Mario formula by adding another three princesses to save. Of course, the point of a brawler for $15 on Xbox Live needn't be to intertwine the player in a space opera, it just needs to move the action along. And move the action along it does, the variety of levels is one aspect of the game that holds your attention throughout. There is just the right amount of boss fights to peon ratio to keep you enthralled. Also, RPG elements such as leveling up four different attributes and gaining new combo moves keeps the action interesting.

One small complaint is that at certain times the difficulty wasn't exactly balanced. From what I understand, the game doesn't scale the amount of bad guys, damange points taken, etc. to the amount of co-op players. As a player without experience points and co-op friends, it made it difficult to beat bosses and levels on the first try. Often, I would have to play it several times just to gain the XP to really deal the necessary damage and/or defend myself. 

Castle Crashers also excels in its use of magic and variety of gameplay. Each character has a unique magical power, but it isn't always explained very well. In fact, communication of abilities in general is a small let down in the game. Sometimes you just aren't sure when magic will or won't work against certain enemies. Also, you can gain various animal orbs throughout the game, but their powers aren't always readily apparent. The game then wants you to go all the way back to a beginning stage to talk to someone to hear what the animal does. Have they heard of an inventory screen? This may have been done to give it a more RPG feel, but the result is just a slowdown of the action. The other modes Castle Crashers has to offer don't really add much to the overall experience. The 'all you can quaff' event is simply a button masher like an NES track and field game. The arena mode can provide a moment's entertainment with a friend, but feels slightly disconnected from the main quest.

Gripes aside, the game does a great job of being everything to everyone. Casual gamers will not have much of an issue jumping in and playing, and hardcore gamers can try to find all the weapons, max out their XP and unlock all the characters. It's hard to imagine anyone who would not enjoy Castle Crashers.  The game offers at least 5 hours of solid, original gameplay, in a genre that's largely been ignored since the arcade era. What makes Castle Crashers so engrossing is its ease of getting started, large variety of levels and abilities, and poop humor. The HD graphics also make Dan Paladin's art style stand out. It's never too late to buy Castle Crashers, no one could blame you.

 Infinite Bits score: 9.0