When comparing TowerFall Ascension vs Castle Crashers, the Slant community recommends TowerFall Ascension for most people. In the question“What are the best local co-op PC games?” TowerFall Ascension is ranked 1st while Castle Crashers is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose TowerFall Ascension is:
You run, jump, and shoot arrows, which anyone can learn in a matter of minutes. To become a great player, however, there is a lot of technique and strategy to learn. This includes aiming, using cover, reading your opponent, and many other things. As a result TowerFall Ascension is accessible to casual players while also being able to keep the hardcore players interested.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to learn but hard to master
You run, jump, and shoot arrows, which anyone can learn in a matter of minutes. To become a great player, however, there is a lot of technique and strategy to learn. This includes aiming, using cover, reading your opponent, and many other things. As a result TowerFall Ascension is accessible to casual players while also being able to keep the hardcore players interested.
Pro Feels fair at any skill level
Each player only has three arrows at the beginning of a match. Once they are fired, the arrows can be picked up by anyone. This way no player can build momentum that feels oppressive, allowing even new players to control the pace of a match since they can just hog all the arrows.
Pro Single-screen levels add depth to strategy
In the style of old school games like Asteroids, everything that moves outside the edge of the screen appears on the opposite side of it. Because of this you always need to remain aware of your surroundings and other player locations, so you don't get hit by an arrow coming from an unexpected direction. This adds a level complexity not found in many modern games, which is quite refreshing.
Pro Co-op mode that improves communication
TowerFall Ascension has a 2-player co-op mode where you and your friend fight against hordes of bad guys. It has friendly fire, so you need to communicate to avoid hurting each other. This creates a mode that motivates you to communicate with your friend more, leading to a lot of back and forth banter.
Pro Successfully avoids becoming repetitive and boring
Each level in the game has its own look and design which can keep the gameplay varied thanks to creating a need to explore in order to see what comes next. Ranging from deserts to ice filler terrain, there is no level that looks the same.
Pro The gameplay is very lighthearted and amusing
There are several jokes and silly moments throughout the game. All done without speaking any word. This keeps the game lighthearted and amusing thanks to the humor of the creators and how they infused it into the game itself.
Pro Supports co-op up to 4 players
The most fun to be had with the game is during four player co-op play. The unlockables and upgrades also keep the player wanting to come back and play just a bit more with their friends.
The co-op is available as local and online.
Cons
Con Really short co-op campaign
The co-op quest mode takes around seven hours to complete. So if you're not interested in the competitive multiplayer aspect of TowerFall Ascension, you'll run out of things to do really fast.
Con Limited to just local multiplayer
As it is now, you're limited to just playing with or against your friends or not playing at all. If you could play matches against other players online, the game would've been a lot more accessible.
Con Bugs that appeared in the original XBox title were not fixed for the PC port
There are still bugs and glitches in the game that were in the original XBox version. Even though there were simple fixes for some of these the dev nor publisher bothered to address them.
Con Fair amount of grinding
There is a good amount of grinding that will need to take place for players to be able to advance past certain bosses.