A total beginner's Crash Course on Castle Crashers

If you are reading this, you probably are starting to play Castle Crashers(Or maybe you're just bored. If you are, there are better things to read). Maybe you've heard of this game or seen it somewhere, but might not know what it is. Or you've just been dragged into a local multiplayer game. Either way, here's what to know. And how to play. Away we go(wow that rhymed)!

Castle Crashers is a 2D Beat-'em-Up made by The Behemoth. Beat-'em-ups are sidescrolling 2D games where you fight against waves of enemies. Think Double Dragon or River City Ransom. In the game, you(and/or some buddies) pick a knight of your choosing, then rescue the king's four daughters and save the kingdom. Castle Crashers is best played in local multiplayer(meaning with some friends around the couch). Don't get me wrong, singleplayer is fine, but the multiplayer is easily the best part of the game.

There are three different modes to choose from in Castle Crashers, each with their own pros and cons. Lets take a look:

-Castle Crashers
PROS: The main game mode and story, and has the most depth
CONS: Saving is chapter based and can get frustrating finding everything

-Arena
PROS: A fun PvP mode where you can compete against your friends in teams or free-for-alls in various contests
CONS: Gets repetitive and multiplayer is almost necessary to have fun in this mode

-Back Off Barbarian
PROS: A quick board-game styled minigame to take a break from the norm once in a while, and character level does not matter
CONS: Hard to control and only ONE music track.

Each game mode has different traits that set it apart from the others, but you mainly want to stick with the main game mode. The others are more like the icing on top of the Castle Crashers cake.

In the picture above are the main four knights you start with. You could consider them the main characters. Each one has a different magical power.

-Red Knight uses lightning

-Orange Knight uses fire

-Blue Knight uses ice

-Green Knight uses poison

In adiition to the characters shown, it is possible to start with 3 other characters: Pink Knight, Purple Knight, and Hatty Hattington. 2 are purchased through DLC(which is really affordable and cheap, thanks guys), and 1 is unlocked through purchasing another game, BatlleBlock Theater, from the same developers.

More characters are unlocked by beating arenas and levels and beating the game with specific characters(with some exceptions like the DLC character, Hatty Hattington, and some others). There are around 30 characters in all. Try them all out!

One last note on character choice. Green Knight is generally avoided by hardcore players. This is because Green Knight performs a essential technique differently than the other characters, messing us muscle memory. This shouldn't be a problem if you are playing in Normal though.

Castle Crashers can be played with a keyboard or controller. I use a wired controller to play because I don't have to pay extra for unneeded features, they're cheap, and easy to connect. I can't suggest your keyboard layout because I don't know what you would prefer, but you should change movement from the arrow keys to WASD because that's what most games use for movement. Controllers are well set up, so I suggest leaving them as is.

Castle Crashers is a game with excessive cartoon violence. However, this is contrasted by the bright and colorful art style and upbeat music. There is crude humor, like frequent use of poop, but this happens only a few times through the game. Gore is in the game, but it can be turned off in the options. The ESRB rating is currently T, but with a few tweaks, you could make it be more like an E10+.

Anyways, thank you for reading this guide! I stayed up until 5 a.m to make this, so could i please get some steam points for this? Thanks. I plan to do this for a couple of other games i have, like Bastion or Super Meat Boy. The Pink Knight pixel art was made by me, and all the other images were pulled from Google Images. Thank you so much for checking this out, and good luck crashing castles!