Still Playing...Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers' overworld is laid out kinda like Mario 3 with its boardgame like level selector. I had beaten every level on the main map, which is why I thought I was almost done, but there's a branch right at the beginning where you need to find a few items to get into this boat. And I thought the boat was the end of the game. I was wrong. There's ANOTHER ENTIRE WORLD on the oher side of the sea. And the game hasn't gotten any more fun to play.

Seriously. Every level - every single level I have had to play more than once. Not because I'm compelled by secrets or any sort of fun gameplay - I usually die right before I get to the boss of a level and then have to do the whole tedious escapde of mashing the x button for 20 minutes all over again.

I started thinking last night - why is this so much less enjoyable than God of War? I'm essentially doing the same thing, right? Mashing the attack button to take out wave after wave of enemies, leveling up magic spells and attacks. Combos. Its all the same on paper. But Castle Crashers fails in two areas:

1) Forcing you to redo an entire level upon death - God of War will restart you pretty close to where you died.

2) No flair. Castle Crashers is to God of War as Jennifer Aniston's character is to her co-worker in Office Space. "God of War has 47 pieces of flair. Now what would you think of someone who only does the bare minimum, Castle Crashers?"

To be fair, the game has plenty of style and charm, its just that performing a combo in God of War is 100% more satisfying than performing a combo in Crashers. Its a problem of motivation. If I bust my butt to try and clear a level and then die, I don't see a single benefit for my time spent on that level. Oh but you can level up your character you say? Yeah. You can level up - by one stat point at a time! The game makes such a big deal about you leveling up but then rewards you with one, single stat point. So you can increase your attack, defense, magic, or agility. By one effing point. Whoopee. Can't wait to rety this level again and see how my single point increase in agility plays into the equation. It's gonna be crazy.

Ugh. Can't finish this game soon enough.