For the past few weeks now, my partner and I have been looking for something to play together that could momentarily distract us from the misery that is 2020. They had some preferences as to what kind of game they wanted to play, but we both agreed that we wanted something cooperative that we could progress through together. After a few suggestions, we ultimately landed on 2008’s Castle Crashers, a game which is still very much worth playing 12 years later.

Being that we both own Nintendo Switches, our choices of games weren’t exactly limited considering the vast amount of options available on the platform. Up till now, we’d been bouncing between several of the classic NES and SNES games that were included with the online subscription like Dr. Mario and Panel De Pon, along with full priced games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons. But we needed something fresh, fun and accessible.

Turns out, Castle Crashers is still an extraordinary game that managed to meet both of our needs. It also has revealed to me that my partner is a gold hoarder in video games, and will prioritize collecting money over defeating enemies or aiding me in combat. It’s fine. It’s definitely not something I poke fun at them for doing every single time or anything.

It’s also a great game to play while talking on the phone because it doesn’t really require you to focus too intently on, so that’s been nice. I personally wanted to pick up Diablo III with them considering I’d heard tremendous things about the console versions of the game, but it’s still a full priced game which was a bit too steep for us. Also, it certainly had more going on in it than Castle Crashers, which might have ended up being a little too complex for what we were looking for.

I still love Castle Crashers 12 years later, and am glad I get to introduce it to my partner for the first time. I don’t know if they’re as ecstatic about it as I am, but we keep playing it together, so they must enjoy something about it. Maybe it’s the art or the satisfying combat, but I think we mostly just end up fawning over the cute animal companions you get. They’re pretty freaking adorable.