Have you ever played a game in an arcade? If so you’ve probably played the beat’em-up genre of Castle Crashers. You move into the foreground, background, and side to side, and you beat up masses of enemies that walk in from the edges of the screen. Each usually takes a combo or two to put down. Blocking is optional, the best defense is to walk straight up or down out of the plane of the attack.
You will also have this nostalgia if you had any of the home console versions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games (Turtles in Time! Cowabunga!).
Castle Crashers is the most polished example of the genre. Polished in terms of production values and gameplay. However, is the best of the genre worth getting if the genre died out years ago? Read on: my impressions as a compliment sandwich