(Recommendation of the Week)

Sorry about the lack of RotW articles during the past month; I've been on multiple vacations and haven't had the time to try out any new games. However, thanks to the Steam summer sale, I've been able to get back to an old childhood favorite, Castle Crashers.

Created by The Behemoth, Castle Crashers is a crazy and adventurous 2D beat-em-up built with RPG elements and with a heavy focus on 4-player co-op. The game's story focuses on a knight or a set of knights, each with their own unique set of magical skills, going after an evil force who kidnapped their kingdom's four princesses across a massive world with a huge amount of levels all filled to the brim with insane enemies and quirky situations. Starting the game gives you access to the original four knights (shown above), each one representing a different magic element. As you progress through the levels by beating the crap out of every enemy you come across, you gain experience points and, after leveling up, get to add skill points to Strength (melee attack power), Magic (unlocking new/stronger spells), Defense, and Agility (running speed and arrow-shooting distance). Each knight's experience points are unique to itself, meaning players can max out the knight of their choice, then start fresh with a brand-new inexpereinced knight if they so desire, and unlockable characters are given out as you venture further. New weapons and animal companions (called Animal Orbs) give knights stat boosts or extra skills that help them through their quest. To master the game, players have to learn the combos knights obtain after leveling up that consist of alternating between the Heavy and Light Attack buttons while occasionally throwing in some magic. Don't let this scare you off if you're new to beat-em-ups; the combos are very simplistic. Items like potions, arrows, bombs, and sandwiches are thrown into the mix to add even more variety to the gameplay. While it's possible to play all the way through alone, it is definitely an experience meant to be played with friends; the four player co-op allows for some hectic fun traversing through the world and Castle Crashers is jam-packed with humorous moments best enjoyed together.

The boss battles and situations presented in Castle Crashers are absolutely insane, but in a good way. For example, as you progress through one of the first levels of the game, you hear a loud consistent thumping sound. The local animals in the forest hear it, too; in fact, they're so frightened by it that they literally start shitting themselves right then and there. The boss battle in the next level takes place on a river in which you and your friends are fighting a massive rabid Catfish. ...literally. It's a cat with a fin on its back. It spews furballs and everything. While beat-em-ups can get repetitive at times, Castle Crashers mixes it up with these boss fights, as each one of them has a special strategy to taking them down, and the aforementioned RPG elements keep it fresh as you go. Each environment is uniquely designed as well, which prevents the backgrounds from getting stale, and each level has its own set of enemies which shows off the game's very creative and unique art style. What's special about this game's soundtrack is that every single track was designed by a different person on Newgrounds, so every level has an individual musical piece to fit its individual setting. ...Not to mention the soundtrack as a whole kicks all kinds of ass.

Castle Crashers is some of the most fun you can have with you friend(s), and it's available on multiple platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and, as of just last year, Steam. See if you can nab Castle Crashers at an insanely low price on Steam during the Summer Sale, or pick it up for your respective console if you want to. While the price on Steam will be varying within the next few weeks, the regular price is $15, as is the PSN version, and the Xbox 360 version goes for 1200 Microsoft Points.
 
(Recommendation of the Week)

The fourth installment of the Animal Crossing series is now out, and has been since this Sunday. It's already blown up in sales, setting a new 3DS eShop record and a new record for the series as a whole, selling over 200,000 copies in the first week alone. It's been out in Japan for about a year now and is still selling strong. A lot of the custom creations and creative possibilites shown from Japanese players, the ability to buy it digitally, and the option to customize your playstyle with the use of ordinances got me interested in picking the Animal Crossing series back up after originally being disappointed with City Folk. I'm a week in and things are really starting to pick up and I'm quite happy with my purchase thus far.

By original problem with Animal Crossing on the GameCube and City Folk on the Wii was that I had to swap out the discs to play a game that was intended to be played every day (or at least frequently), and so far, having New Leaf digitally makes a world of a difference. I can play New Leaf from 10 to 2 and immediately switch to Super Mario 3D Land or Fire Emblem: Awakening until 7 when the expensive bugs come out and I can then switch straight back to New Leaf, all without ever changing the game cart. It makes the game much more accessable in the way of playability. From the gameplay standpoint, it's holding up more than previous Animal Crossing games so far in that it's way easier to save up and collect Bells (the in-game currency), in turn making it easier to get your hands on furniture or expand your house. The only downside is that it takes a few days for everything to become available, but once everything is open and ready to go, managing your town as its new mayor is a lot of fun. Speaking of mayoral duties, you can further customize your town by setting up public works projects, allowing you to add things like new bridges or park benches to your town, making you feel more in control of the game instead of having to abide by strict rules set in place in previous games. The best part of New Leaf is easily the multiplayer and social media functions; using a Wi-Fi connection, you can upload screenshots (taken by pressing L and R simutaneously) to Twitter or Tumblr by opening the 3DS internet browser (which doesn't require you to close your game) and visiting i.nintendo.net. If you prefer your friends to see your creations and your town in person, however, you can easily allow them access into your town through the internet. The visits are all in real-time; you can communicate with your visitors with an in-game chat and, if it so pleases you, chase after them with your axe. There aren't seperate friend codes, either; for a friend to visit, they just have to have swapped friend codes. This simple approach to multiplayer and the fact that more and more people are buying this game every day allows for you to get in touch with your friends and have fun with them in a whole new way.

Experience the game that's bringing people together this summer by picking up Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS, either at retail locations or on the 3DS eShop for $35, or by getting the limited-edition 3DS XL bundle for $220 that comes with a white Animal Crossing-themed 3DS XL and a copy of ACNL pre-downloaded to the SD card.
 
(Recommendation of the Week)

If you've been looking for something alongside the new game Animal Crossing: New Leaf to sink a massive amount of time into, look no further than Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS. A tactical RPG by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, FEA is loaded with a massive amount of colorful characters with rich dialogue, many branching options for character growth, and a wide range of free and paid DLC, all packaged together with beautiful graphics and sounds. This a game that should be played in 3D whenever you can, especially during cutscenes (which I really wish there were more of), and should definitely be played with headphones, because even the great speakers the 3DS has don't do the breathtaking soundtrack justice.

It would take nearly forever for me to cover everything in the game because there are so many little details and so many varying options, the most of which I still haven't tried myself, but don't let that discourage you if you're new to the Fire Emblem franchise. This is my first step into the world of Fire Emblem, and I found Awakening to be very easily accessible, so much so that I started speeding through menus and micromanaging in my head within the first few hours of play (although that could be because I play a lot of Tetris). The massive cast of characters allows you to play however you'd like; each character has their own classes and weapons they can use, suiting all kinds of strageties to be used on the battlefield. While some crucial things aren't explained (such as the fact that weapons can break, how weapon efficiency XP works, etc.), discovering every little detail packed into the game is part of the adventure, making finding out something new feel like an accomplishment. You can also pair up characters and make them stronger (similar to the Social Links in Persona), giving you full control over the side-stories presented through Support Dialogue and providing more depth to the characters you're controlling. You also start up the game after creating an Avatar to represent you, which implants you into the story more than you might think. FEA gives players the option to play in three different difficulties (Normal, Hard, and Expert) as well as two different game modes (Casual and Classic; Classic features permadeath for individual characters on the battlefield while Casual removes the feature), allowing the player to customize the flow of the game to however they like and giving more replay value to a game that already can eat up huge portions of your time. For reference, I played Super Mario 3D Land twice, 100%ing the game each time and getting up to 35 hours over the course of a few months. In FEA, however, I reached that exact amount in under a week, and I still don't consider myself to be done with the game; in fact, I'm nowhere close. Normal mode allowed me to play through the beautifully-written storyline, but I may just play the entire game all over again in Hard mode and choose different options along the way, just to explore.

A physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening is hard to find due to shortages, but the box art and game cart make it well worth the wait. If you'd rather have it in your hand ASAP, then FEA is also available as a full download on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Both physical and digital copies are $40.
 
(Recommendation of the Week)

A relatively new game by Digital Extremes, Warframe is a free-to-play third-person four-player cooperative shooter with RPG elements that's about space ninjas doing covert missions across the galaxy. If that doesn't immediately get you interested, you're insane. Even though it's still in an open beta, it's a game with insanely impressive visuals and has a lot going for it in gameplay and concept. Essentially, you're able to pick a class (called a Warframe), customize your armor, pick and customize your weapons, and go into missions with up to three other friends to complete objectives and level up, getting stronger as you go. Along the way, you pick up credits and Mods scattered around the area. Credits allow you to buy blueprints for new Warframes and weapons; after purchasing the blueprints, you'll have to scavenge for the parts to build it. Mods are just that: modifications you can apply to weapons and yourself to unlock new attacks or to upgrade your guns. You'll have different unlockable skills and starting weapons depending on the Warframe, but the best one to start with is the Excalibur, which gets you an assault rifle, a handgun, and a sword as your melee weapon. The best part about the Excalibur is the Slash Dash move, in which you rush forward and plow through enemies with your blade; turning around will grant you the sight of all the foes you passed being chopped in half. Other skills, such as a Super Jump, will eventually end up in your inventory at some point. Each Warframe has a different playstyle, so in the end, go with what you like best.

The entire game is currently free to play, but if you want to, you can spend real-world money to skip the blueprints process and straight-up buy guns and Warframes, and to buy stuff like new color palettes for your armor and weapons. Personally, I don't plan on spending any money in this game because it's still plenty of fun without doing so, but you can do whatever you like. If there's anything I can complain about, though, is that it starts off with all these different graphical settings turned on and to as high as they go. I'd recommend turning everything off and to low, then testing out what things you'd prefer to turn back on. The game's also lacking in a structured soundtrack; for a game with a lot of atmosphere and kickass visuals and animations, you'd expect it would have a blood-pumping soundtrack to go with it. Again, though, it's in beta, so you never know what'll be added next.

It's on Steam and takes up about 3 gigabytes, but is completely free. I'd definitely give it a go at least once; I highly doubt you'll be disappointed. It's a great cooperative title that both you can your friends can enjoy.