Castle Crashers Remastered

Genre: Arcade Brawler

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local and Online)

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Review:

Castle Crashers Remastered is a port of an Arcade Brawler originally released to the Xbox 360 in 2008 and eventually brought to numerous other platforms as well. It makes its way to the Nintendo Switch with new HD 60FPS graphics and a new Back Off Barbarian gameplay mode, as well as all of the previously-released DLC content.

For those who never played the original Castle Crashers, this is arguably one of the pinnacles of this genre. All due respect to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Final Fight, and Streets of Rage, but Castle Crashers may very well top those games thanks to its RPG-style progression system with an expanding move set, multiple playable characters, interchangeable equipment, and plenty of variety over the game’s surprisingly lengthy campaign.

The game plays incredibly well on the Switch, with the new HD visuals looking fantastic, although I have to say the new Back Off Barbarian mode is a real dud – the gameplay in this mode has nothing to do with the rest of the game, instead taking the form of an awkward tile-based game where players are moving around a grid trying to avoid enemies, with movement controls swapped around with each move. Suffice it to say, this mode was simply not fun, and its addition here seems pretty pointless – I would have much preferred the developer work on expanding the options for the game’s competitive Arena mode, which remains overly simple.

The other issues with this games are more of an issue with the genre than anything – the gameplay can still get repetitive in places, and at times it can be difficult to tell if an enemy’s vertical position places them in your attacking radius, or vice versa. However, these are minor gripes on what is, on the whole, still a fantastic game.

If you want an Arcade Brawler-style game on your Nintendo Switch, Castle Crashers Remastered should be considered a must-buy. It is arguably the best game of its kind ever made, and even though there are a few areas that could do with improvement, and the stuff that did get added here isn’t very good, the core game is still as fantastic as ever, and well worth playing.

tl;dr – Castle Crashers Remastered is a port of the 2008 Arcade Brawler with updated visuals, all previously-released DLC, and a new game mode. Well, the new game mode is terrible, but the core game is still as great as ever, and fans of the genre who haven’t already played this game to death on other platforms should consider this one a must-have.

Grade: A-

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