Crossy Road Castle Review (Xbox): Why Did the Chicken Climb the Castle?

Most of the time, a mobile game that tries to jump ship over to home consoles doesn’t have much value. Most mobile games only have value in making very short experiences that you can play for a few minutes at most and then put away. That’s why gaming while on the toilet is so associated with games like Angry Birds. With Crossy Road Castle, things are a little different, as this is a mobile game that has a compelling challenge that made me want to keep returning for another run.

Going up

Crossy Road Castle, like most mobile games, is very simple. You run and jump your way through various rooms and objectives as you try to work your way up as many rooms as possible. Every time you start a new run, the order of the rooms you go through is randomized. After playing long enough, you will notice re-runs, but luckily, I never found a room that I didn’t like going through. The game also does a good job of introducing new ideas to you in a way that you don’t feel blindsided. Instead of your character doing complicated things, it’s what you do in the environment that brings you forward. Jumping on explosive enemies and launching them into breakable walls and using a light to defeat ghosts were two particular challenges that stood out to me.

Every time you complete 100 rooms, you unlock a new tower. The theme of each tower is very different from the others and keeps things interesting. You start in the pink unihorse castle, but soon you’ll be running through construction zones, theme parks, and more. Each tower will have specific challenges in them that can’t be found in other places. For example, Donkey Kong Country-like barrel blasting will be in one tower but not the others.

A perfect new co-op game for your friends and family

The best aspect of Crossy Road Castle is the multiplayer. I was able to connect another controller and let my daughter play locally, and we had a blast. Going through, just one person needs to reach the door for everyone to move forward, so there’s no competitive spirit dragging others down. We only played with the two of us, but I could see a full four-person lobby being very enjoyable as you grind through floors and see how massive of a score you can earn. While I love the chaos of bumping into friends and forcing them to lose lives in games like New Super Mario Bros., Crossy Road Castle doesn’t have that collision, so it’s merely a case where you are cheering each other on as you try to avoid losing your hearts.

While I found a lot of replayability in the different rooms you come across each run, I do wish there was a save mechanism for your progress. When going through dozens and dozens of rooms, you can’t just quit and pick it up later. If you stop your run for any reason, you need to start all the way over and go through the same boss fights. Just any kind of checkpoint system would be nice for someone who doesn’t want to restrict all of their progress to one run at a time.

How much do you want to keep coming back?

A lot of the charm and magic of Crossy Road Castle is its simple gameplay and creative obstacles in each room. Even though it’s a mobile game at its core, that aspect can carry it on consoles. However, there’s not much outside of the core gameplay to capture your attention.

While playing, you can grab golden coins and purple tokens to spend on loot boxes in the main menu that award new characters and hats for them to wear. Those are fine for customization’s sake, but not something that naturally drives someone to keep playing a game. There are secret rooms you can find that have special gems hidden away, but even when you find them, the gems are placed in very one-shot areas. If you miss them, you have to start a run all over again, hope you get lucky enough to be given the same room with access to that secret room, and then try again while hoping you don’t miss it again.

A daily challenge can be entered where you try to place the best globally, but you’re just trying to speedrun through 20 specific rooms. A cool idea, but I saw no real rewards to this and couldn’t motivate myself to do it more than once.

Final verdict

Crossy Road Castle is a fun time on console, especially with friends. The cooperative grind to get through as many rooms as possible will keep you coming back for more, but that’s about all this game offers. Overall, the content well here is very shallow, but the water it does have tastes very good. If you don’t have an Apple device to play the original mobile version, the game plays just fine on console. It might not blow you away if compared to the many deeper experiences you can have, but it’s something you can find enjoyment in, no matter who you are playing with.

Crossy Road Castle was reviewed on Xbox Series X with a code provided by Hipster Whale. It is also available on Apple Arcade, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

More from us:
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Review (Xbox): High Sponsorbilleries