Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that incorporates a small number of role-playing video game elements. After selecting a character, the player then selects a starting stage through an overworld map. After completing a stage, the player has the choice to revisit it or to move to another stage. The map also displays shops where the player character can buy items and weapons using coins gained from defeated foes, bosses, and chests. Arena stages can be unlocked where the player character can take on challenges to unlock additional characters such as the villager.

Castle Crashers supports cooperative gameplay for up to four players, either locally or online. The game progression in terms of what stages are unlocked is defined by the player who is furthest along, although some levels require all players to have unlocked them before proceeding to them; however, each player character will gain experience points and acquire wealth, weapons, and animal orbs independently as they progress with the rest of the party. In each stage, the player can use melee and combination attacks. g.

Castle Crashers is set in a fictional medieval universe. It begins with the character the player chose at the character selection menu attending a party in a king's castle. During the party, a dark wizard arrives, stealing a mystical gem and capturing four princesses. The king sends the non-player-character “grey knights” and the player to retrieve the gem, rescue his daughters, and defeat the wizard in battle.

), barbarians, thieves, trolls, a giant "catfish", bears, fencers, an industrial prince, ninja pirates, desert bandits, skeletons, eskimos, fish men, anthropomorphic corn, demons, cultists, imps, slimes, bats, giant insects, a necromancer, a dragon, Medusa, a frost king, painter and aliens from Alien Hominid. As the player progress, they succeed in rescuing the princesses, and ultimately the journey culminates in a final showdown with the evil wizard. The player emerges victorious from the confrontation, having defeated the dark wizard, rescued all of the king's daughters, and recovered the mystical gem. The player then ride the reclaimed gem through several empty battlefields on their trip back to the castle.

Castle Crashers was first revealed on July 14, 2005, at San Diego Comic-Con under the working title Ye Olde Side-Scroller; however, the game did not receive its title until 2006 Comic-Con, when it was announced for Xbox Live Arcade. Though the original Comic-Con 2005 demo was shown running on a GameCube, no mention was made of a release on a Nintendo-based platform. It was released for the Xbox 360 on August 27, 2008. On July 23, 2009, The Behemoth announced that Castle Crashers would be coming to the PlayStation Network.

The game was released on the PlayStation 3 in North America on August 31, 2010, and in Europe on November 3, 2010. A Microsoft Windows version exclusive to Steam was announced on August 16, 2012.

Castle Crashers was well received on each platform. Metacritic reports aggregate scores of 82/100 on the Xbox 360 and 85/100 for the PlayStation 3. It has been a commercial success, with the Xbox 360 version selling over two million copies on the Xbox 360 alone as of year-end 2010. 6 million on Xbox Live Arcade alone.

The PlayStation 3 version has also done well, moving over 181,000 in 2010. IGN editor Cam Shea ranked it third on his top 10 list of Xbox Live Arcade games. He praised it for being both a call-back to a much-loved genre and a great piece of game design. Additionally in a September 2010 ranking, IGN listed Castle Crashers fifth in their top twenty-five Xbox Live Arcade titles of all time.