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Insane Mode is a game mode for Castle Crashers. Playing Insane Mode will increase the health of enemies as well as the amount of damage they will do. Players will not have any levels unlocked in Insane Mode when they first play; you will start at the Home Castle level just as in Normal Mode. Certain weapons will only appear on Insane Mode; for more information about this, check Stores. Items, such as the Horn, will not carry over from Normal Mode, so obtaining these items is still required for doing a lot of things. Pets and skill points do transfer to Insane Mode.

How to get Insane Mode[]

First of all, the character you want to play with must have a white skull. If you have Insane Mode unlocked on one character, then that does not mean you can play on Insane Mode with another. If you do not have a white skull, then read the following information down below:

  • Insane Mode is unlocked on any platform by completing all of the checkpoint levels and defeating the Final Boss. This task needs to be completed for each consecutive character you wish to play as in Insane Mode. Once completed, Insane Mode can be entered by walking onto a now opened space just below the Barbarian Boss level. Players who are already in Insane Mode will find the space back to Normal Mode in the same location, but on fire. You can still go back to Normal Mode, however.
  • If one player completed all the previous levels and finally beats the Final Battle, they will unlock Insane Mode; but if they completed this last level while joined by other players who have skipped some checkpoint levels, then they will not unlock it, at least not until they finish their missing "checkpoint levels" and fight the final boss again.
  • Insane Mode is only available for those characters you have completed the checkpoint levels and beaten the final boss with. Characters that have insane mode unlocked will have a skull by their portrait in the character selection screen.
  • If you complete all the previous checkpoint levels with one character and on the last level another player joins using another one, only the character who completed all of the "checkpoint levels", will have Insane Mode unlocked.

The "10x Rule"[]

Most enemies' health on Insane Mode is multiplied by ten; enemies with 50 health normally will have 500, enemies with 350 will have 3500, etc. On top of that, most enemies' damage is multiplied by ten (enemies that deal 4 damage normally will deal 40, enemies that deal 35 normally will deal 350, etc.).

There are multiple exceptions to this rule however. Some examples are: Painter having 5x health and his paintings having 3x health and doing 5x damage, Corn Boss having 5x health, certain enemies doing half damage (Ex: All enemies in the Necromancer Fight), etc. See this page for more details.

While the "x10 Rule" seems like a huge obstacle to success, with ten times more health per enemy, you also get ten times more XP per enemy because you have to hit them ten times more to kill them. By never adding to Strength, you can level between 5~6 times faster than a player with more Strength, and a great place to grind XP is the Troll Mother, which is reached very early in the campaign. By farming the Troll Mother on Insane Mode, you can get to level 99 in less than two hours; you just have to never upgrade Strength. For most players, this is the preferred XP grinding spot with all characters. The most efficient XP grinding spot is repeating the first wave of Snow World, and juggling all of the enemies at once against the ice tower on the right, generating a surplus amount of extra, low-damage hits. Though in order to use the Snow World method effectively, you must have minimal to no strength, and an extra controller along with a character who already has Snow World unlocked in Insane Mode so you can bring the character you wish to level up to Snow World early.

The Evil Wizard in his final phase deals 150 damage to himself every time he hits himself with his own fire meteors. Easily killing himself in the process when you utilize the mediumweight juggle.

If your main character is the Fencer or Industrialist, then you can spam Splash Attacks on Catfish or Painter, and by doing this, players with limited juggling skill can level up semi-quickly. For the Catfish method, it is optimal to not have the cannonball stun the Catfish, so you can get the most hits on the boss before he dies.

Upon Completion[]

When you beat the game on this mode, your character will show a golden skull instead of a white one on the selection screen.

On the grand majority of the versions of Castle CrashersOpen-Faced Gray KnightKingNecromancer and Cult Minion are unlocked by playing specific levels on Insane Mode. The Xbox 360 version is the only version that differs from this as it offers these characters as downloadable content.

Character PS3 / Steam / Xbox One / PS4 / Nintendo Switch Unlock Method Xbox 360 Availability
Open-Faced Gray Knight Complete Catfish on Insane Mode King Pack DLC
King Complete Pipistrello's Cave on Insane Mode King Pack DLC
Necromancer Complete Industrial Castle on Insane Mode Necromantic Pack DLC
Cult Minion Complete Ice Castle on Insane Mode Necromantic Pack DLC

Notes[]

  • Every time you begin Insane Mode, you will be in the Home Castle level. This can be skipped if you already completed the entire level by exiting to the map.
  • Certain bosses gain attributes not seen in Normal Mode.
    • The Barbarian Boss' speed increases after each of his attacks.
    • Pipistrello's tongue attack deals 999 damage, killing the majority of players in one hit.
    • The Conehead Groom is extremely challenging to bad Magic characters and even good Magic characters; very fast.
    • The Cyclops gets a very fast speed boost.
    • The Frost King's icicles can obnoxiously get louder as Frost King nears the brink of death. In addition, Frost King takes the longest to kill out of any boss.
    • The Painter drops a maximum of 16 Health Potions depending on how many players are in the game and how many Health Potions the player(s) has/have in stock.
    • The Undead Cyclops gets a very fast speed boost while summoning the Undead Groom.
    • The Necromancer's summoned enemies are also extremely challenging to all characters.
    • The Evil Wizard gets a very fast speed boost in his 2nd phase, 3rd phase, and 4th phase.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Though a white skull is technically required for unlocking Insane Mode, it is actually possible to skip to Insane Mode as low as a level 1.
    • To do this, start a new character. Any character will do, but the player must make sure they do NOT yet have the Barbarian unlocked (this can work with any other arena character or character unlocked on the World Map, but Barbarian is the easiest). Complete up to Barbarian War. Collect the Compass from the Blacksmith level and head to the King's Arena. Complete the arena, and hold light attack and down at the same time. As soon as the "character unlocked" menu appears, let go of light attack. If inputted correctly, the player character will walk towards the Insane Mode spot, permanently unlocking Insane Mode and the Insane Store for that character.
    • However, the player must make sure they have all skill points allotted if they have leveled up before attempting this, as the skill points menu will disable any movement input while it's active.
    • A visual guide to the method can be viewed here.
  •  BattleBlock Theater, another game by The Behemoth, also has an Insane Mode, which, upon completion, unlocks a gold trophy as a back accessory for the player character.
  • If there are two to four players in the game, all players need to vote to get into Insane Mode. This disallows one person from forcing everyone else into Insane Mode.
  • Since beefy enemies only have 5x more health compared to 10x, they only have a little bit more health than regular enemies (excluding the Thief).

See also[]

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