Couple seeking fun, young game for casual relationship. All calls answered!

September 2, 2012 9:53 AM

Can you recommend games similar to Castle Crashers that my boyfriend and I can play together?

My boyfriend and I really enjoyed playing through Castle Crashers on Xbox together, but we've beaten it (yay!) and now we need another, similar game.

Things we liked about Castle Crashers:
Co-op play
Not too complicated to remember how to play
Able to play for half an hour or so at a time
Fun graphics
Some collectables and leveling up, but not so much it's cumbersome

Do you guys know of any games that would fit some or all of those criteria? It doesn't have to be exactly the same as Castle Crashers in terms of game play, look, or theme, just something we can pick up after work and spend some time together playing.

We have an Xbox 360, a PS3, and a Wii, and we're willing to buy a disc or do a download. Cheaper is obviously better!

posted by itsamermaid to sports, hobbies, & recreation (16 answers total)

Boom Blox?
posted by Lucinda at 9:57 AM on September 2, 2012

The two same-room co-op games I've enjoyed the most in recent years are Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Borderlands.

Borderlands might not fit because it's ultimately a first person shooter, and it's what's known as "loot porn." There's a lot of loot and a lot of stats for the loot but, really, you can pay as much or (nearly) as little attention to that as you want. With Borderlands 2 coming out, you can probably get Borderlands pretty cheap.

Ultimate Alliance, I'm more certain you'd like. It's also a button mashing beat 'em up, but 3D and you get to be super heroes. It's pretty old also, so I'm sure you can get a used copy at Gamestop or wherever for cheap.
posted by cmoj at 10:00 AM on September 2, 2012

Deathspank has a co-op mode allowing a second player to jump in and be Spakles the Wizard. Very fun Diablo-like lootfest with hilarious dialogue and high silliness. Available on Xbox Live Arcade.

"Hello, creepy orphan!"
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:02 AM on September 2, 2012

"Sparkles"

Stupid iPad
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:03 AM on September 2, 2012

River City Ransom. You can grab it on VC on your Wii.
posted by curious nu at 10:06 AM on September 2, 2012

The Lego games. Lego Harry Potter is the best.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:33 AM on September 2, 2012

The dishwasher: vampire smile! Also downloadable on xbox live.
posted by pazazygeek at 10:34 AM on September 2, 2012

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection includes some fun old-school ones, including all three Streets of Rage games.
posted by box at 10:49 AM on September 2, 2012

Besides River City Ransom, the ultimate entries in sidescrolling co-op beat 'em up history are the D&D Arcade games. There is no conventional way to get them on a console, but if you look into MAME it shouldn't be too hard to set up, and will have the added advantage of letting you save anywhere. The second one, Shadow over Mystara, is better.

As far as pick-up co-op games, many of the Kirby games are made for this. Superstar is the gold standard, but I think the recent ones also support some form of co-op.
posted by 23 at 9:29 PM on September 2, 2012

ToeJam & Earl Virtual Console

Zombies Ate My Neighbors Virtual Console

Defend Your Castle WiiWare

Wii Play - Tanks! (Dazran303 and MadMike)
posted by plokent at 10:20 PM on September 2, 2012

N+ has a co-op mode with specially-designed levels. You can try the free web version to get a feel for the gameplay.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:56 PM on September 2, 2012

ditto the lego games.
posted by juv3nal at 3:35 AM on September 3, 2012

My husband and I really loved playing Rayman Origins together. It's a platformer-style game, and there aren't too many collectible items (you can change your character/costume but that's about it), but it was loads of fun.

You can smack each other around but unlike Mario Bros Wii you're allowed to be in the same space so there isn't so much frustrating falling off of things due to collisions.

It's a platformer with levels, so it's easy just to do a level or two (or try and fail at one level a few times) and then stop. If one character dies he/she can come back as long as the other player is still alive, and there are no life counters. You get more abilities as the game progresses, which makes replaying some levels fun.

The music and the art are great!

It's apparently available for most systems, but we played it on the PS3.
posted by that girl at 6:11 AM on September 3, 2012

The Scott Pilgrim game is a fun local co-op beat-em-up. It's in a lot of ways an homage to River City Ransom (which is great as others have said) and it has some aspects in common with Castle Crashers.

Also the Splosion Man and Ms. Splosion Man games are underrated puzzle platformers. There's really only two buttons (jump and explode) but the levels are designed really well and there's enough variety that they never get boring. They both have co-op campaigns that are completely different than the solo levels, and most of the multiplayer levels involve a lot of teamwork and coordination between players to finish.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:15 AM on September 3, 2012

Before Castle Crashers, the guys at Behemoth released Alien Hominid. It shares a lot of the style of Castle Crashers (but on a smaller scale/budget), and it meets most of your criteria except for the leveling up. You collect hats, but if I remember correctly, that's it.

It's also not at all easy. It's a twitchy shooter and you'll die a lot.

A quick search says it's on XBLA for 800 MS bucks.
posted by VoteBrian at 3:05 PM on September 3, 2012

Thanks, all! I really appreciate the suggestions!

We've tried the Scott Pilgrim game sample (pretty fun and we'll definitely play it more in the future!), and also Alien Hominid (it's toooooo hard!).

We're also going to start Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 together soon. I've already beat most of the other Lego games, so this one will be fun to tackle as a team.
posted by itsamermaid at 12:47 PM on October 2, 2012