The Battleblock Theater – A Tale of Hats and Souls
In Battleblock Theater you and a few hundred of your closest friends, including the best friend of all, Hatty Hattington, have embarked on a sea voyage! Along the way, tragedy strikes and you find yourself shipwrecked on a mysterious island prison.
Hatty, possessed by a sinister looking hat has betrayed you and your friends and now you are all prisoners of the island. In order to buy the freedom of all your friends, you must take part in dangerous obstacle courses and gladiatorial battles for the amusement of your cat-captors.
The Charming Way Battleblock Theater is Presented
The Behemoth has certainly not lost its sense of humor in the nearly five years since Castle Crashers released. The game, particularly the narration, done by Will Stamper, is incredibly rich and entertaining. While Battleblock controls do not necessarily lend itself to combat, they are however perfect for working together with speed and fluidity.
With your partners help you’ll trapeze across the tightly designed levels, desperate to find every little collectible. The game is best digested with friends, just as Castle Crashers is. Working together is imperative to being successful, but Battleblock Theater tailors itself slightly if you’re playing alone. Levels are occasionally frustrating, requiring precise coordination between players, but so fun that I found myself playing levels over and over, reaching for the prestigious A++ stamp.
The Competitive Edge of Battleblock Theater
Battleblock Theater has quite a few multiplayer modes to choose from. The vanilla team deathmatch of the game is called Muckle, a simple brawler. Despite the strength of some of the other modes, the combat in Battleblock Theater doesn’t seem suited to the straight brawler format. Combat is not fleshed out enough to carry its own mode, as it is difficult to be precise and fluid with your blows as well as with your weapon.
However, Soul Snatcher, my favorite of all the multiplayer modes, is brilliant where Muckle is stagnant. Every player has a soul that leaves their bodies when they die. Your goal is to hasten their deaths so you can collect the souls- and retain them.
You score points based on the time you’ve spent holding on to your opponent’s soul(s). Only in this mode can you kill others by jumping on their heads. This leads to fast and frantic combat in the multi-tiered levels. It is also one of the more balanced modes; it was easy to fight for control of the score the entire match.
Battleblock even offers a competitive platforming mode called Challenge that is equal parts excited shouting and groaning, especially in local multiplayer. But these are just a few of the match types available to you. Some are better than others and discovering their quirks and picking your favorites is part of the fun.
With all the chaos erupting around you, you’ll want your player to be easily distinguishable. Behemoth accounts for this by adding sheer numbers of items to unlock. Hundreds of different looks and weapons can be unlocked and traded among your teammates and opponents. You’ll soon be trading away precious yarn balls and gems to gain a boomerang or Robin Hood styled head.
The Joy of User Content
Battleblock Theater offers user created content in addition to all its other modes. While not as extensive as say, Littlebigplanet, the level builder is simple enough for anyone to create a cohesive level, but in depth enough to allow for more complex customization. You can also create playlists for others to play, mixing and matching levels you’ve created and multiplayer modes. You could have Soul Snatchers, Horse and King of the Hill going in one match. As you might expect, these have the potential to be great fun. Behemoth plans to feature especially well made playlists, and I expect to be browsing and jumping into these levels well into the future.
Time will prove that Battleblock Theater is just as much of a classic as Castle Crashers. The Behemoth offers up a hilarious story, a handful of fun multiplayer modes and an incredible time. It’s exciting, fun and pure chaos. Battleblock Theater is now available on XBLA for 1200 MS points.
4.5/5
