I have always loved inviting friends over to play silly platformer games like N++, Rayman Legends, Super Mario Bros. games, and the like. Of course, I also have played my fair share of mobile phone games. So a game like “Crossy Road Castle”, developed by Hipster Whale, piqued my interest quickly when I saw it was coming to consoles. I was able to get my hooves on a review copy, and I’ve spent quite a few hours exploring the procedurally-generated floors of the various castles with my wife in local couch co-op, and I’m relieved to say it didn’t let me (or her!) down!
In Crossy Road Castle, your goal is to complete as many short platforming levels as possible in a row, interspersed with boss levels now and then. In those levels, you are trying to not only reach the finish door, but collect coins and tokens to be able to unlock hats and characters in a gacha machine to use for future runs. You can enjoy the game alone or with up to 4 plays locally or online, and everybody works together to grab collectibles and complete the level. As long as one person finishes, everyone moves on! The goal, ultimately, is to complete as many levels as possible in each run, while collecting as many coins, tokens, and completing other various little goals as you can.
There are tons of castles to unlock, each with their own variety of gameplay mechanics and surprises. In addition, each themed castle comes with its own set of hats and playable characters. That means there’s a TON to try and win from the hat/character machines. However, that also means that the more castles you unlock to play through, the lower the chances are that you can win any specific unlockable, because it’s always based on lock. We used the character gacha machine 7 times and got a character we wanted to use only once. There were plenty of hats that we liked, sure, but the characters cost 50 purple tokens each, which are harder to collect than coins and thus that much more valuable. I would’ve loved the option to maybe save up and spend a few more coins on a specific animal I wanted to play as, instead of randomly getting a flea or a witch that I’ll never use. Something akin to how lots of gacha games these days do where you can “prefer” or preselect a character to increase your chances of randomly drawing them. That, or just let me buy them for a higher token price than taking my chances.
We really enjoyed each castle and the many, MANY different platforming mechanics introduced throughout. It provided a nice little game to boot up for a casual cooperative session, and enough content to justify playing it multiple times. We really hope to have more people over to play it with us, because as I said before, only one person needs to finish to avoid losing a precious heart. You get a max of 3 total and if you lose them all (before having the opportunity to buy a replacement one every 10 levels) your run ends and your points are tallied. Some levels were better than others, but they’re so bite-sized that it isn’t upsetting.
The sound design is appropriately 8-bit inspired, with tons of boops and beeps to go around. It also had a fair dose of silly, with loud flatulence noises bursting through the TV every time someone fails. Every character also had their own emotive sounds to match their design. There wasn’t a moment where the speakers weren’t filled with playful effects and music. There were some noises that seemed to not abide by the volume sliders, but not that many. It’s not going to win any Grammys, but hey, it’s an arcade game.
Speaking of 8-bit, the visuals are certainly a treat to anyone who likes the isometric Crossy Road style that has always stood out. Bringing a new dynamic to it, Crossy Road Castle builds on the fun of the mobile game by turning the dial up to 11, as each castle is filled with little touches of creativity to match the castle’s environment. Whether that’s while you’re bounding through a construction tower, or a candy shop, or even a snowy frozen obstacle course, you’ll always have something new to look at. It’s all procedurally generated, too, so you never know when or where the visual treats will be.
There are so many characters & hats to collect, stickers to earn through challenges, and the castles themselves to unlock, you’ll always have something new to look forward to seeing or playing as. Crossy Road Castle is a fun time that makes itself accessible to average or expert gamers, and is one I could see a family of any age group enjoying. It doesn’t penalize the group for one person’s struggles, and gives everyone the chance to be the hero without much consequence. Sometimes that’s what we’re looking for in a game, and Crossy Road Castle is a great example of accomplishing that.
