Crashing Friendships and Castles At The Same Time
If you've ever played any given side-scrolling beat-em-up, you'll feel right at home. If you remember Donatello yelling "Ohhh, shell shock!," or Haggar's big, burly self beating up the same pallet-swapped baddies for hours on end, or even if you've had a good round of Battletoads, you know the drill. But that's not to say it's resurrected business as usual, far from it. The Behemoth has breathed fresh life into this old genre, attaching a simple leveling mechanic and a truckload of humor to this otherwise tried and true format.
The gameplay of Crashers is simple enough. Up to four players dice up some foes or blast them with spells until a big arrow tells you to step up to the next batch. There's a gratifying element to the simple gameplay, and it's made all the more addictive with the more players you get. There's a bit of depth found in the combo system, matching up weapons and Animal Orbs (little pets that give you various bonuses), and the whole level-up mechanic. And just when hacking and slashing through hordes of evil doers starts to wear on you, they throw in some new level-specific mechanic to the level to help make things fresh, whether it's riding perpetually crapping deer or surfing downriver on the corpse of a thief.
There's not a whole lot of dialog to any of the scenes, and most of it is just putting the story together, but that story is still ridiculously hilarious. It's also a nice stab at your traditional storytelling. Not only has some evil magician stolen an apparently important glowing crystal, they've kidnapped four attractive (or so you assume) maidens for no real reason. The story moves with pretty much every level, and while not traditionally compelling, what's next is always fun to see.
The soundtrack to the game is great, composed of pieces from many of the artists on Newgrounds.com. The tracks range from overly dramatic to very... how to put it... video-gamey music. You'll know what I mean when you hear them. The sound effects are pretty gratifying, like the different hit sounds and the occasional scream.
The game's strong point has to be it's replayability. While you start off with four characters initially, you end up unlocking various enemy models for repeat playthrough's. Each character has a unique set of magic abilities that keep them feeling different and always enjoyable. Also, there's a load of Animal Orbs and weapons to collect, and at any time you can run the character you've crafted through an amped up "Insane mode."
The game also features an Arena battle and "All you can Quaff" button mashing game that.... that's not so fun. The arena's good though.
So here comes the backlash: this game is bugged. (More like Crashing Crashers?) I've had a few minor bugs, floating characters, glitched bosses, that eventually fixed. I've also had complete game lock-up's that all seem to revolve around one of my favorite animal orbs, the chicken. Or maybe it's because of having four players. Fortunately the game saves every time you hit the world map, so it wasn't to drastic, but it is a pain. This game suffers from a decided lack of quality assurance. What's worst is that the online play barely works. While I think this game is better served with people in the same room, anyway, it's still a major gripe to have a giant broken element. The online versions of both Arena and All You Can Quaff seem less problematic, however.
Fifteen bucks has been titled "too much!" by many people for XBLA titles, but I think that's a load. This game is more than worth $15, and is better than a number of full retail games I've played as of late. Hopefully a patch will fix the online modes at some point, because that's the only issue that really hinders an otherwise ridiculously fun game that I would recommend to everyone. It even has a blood-filter for younger players, so I could easily recommend it for them as well. Go now, download this game, get some bud's together, and watch your hours get sucked away.
-Make it a Good One.
Randy "Dr. Randle" Marr
