Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove

I like platformers. And this is an OK platformer. Level design could have been better. All bosses except scepter bro can be defeated using the same tactic - jumping on their heads. I liked them but it's nothing new. Just homage to games like megaman. What frustrates me is that they decided to put everything in - story, upgrades, map mechanic. And none of them are great. I wish they would concentrate on parts that work in platformers - gameplay.

Classic look Modern Guts.

Early on I'm already noticing things I don't care for in this game. First thing I noticed is that there's tons of jewel collecting and I've always despised that in a game. There's also spots where you have to use an enemy to bounce off of to get to reach the height needed to catch a ladder leading to a "prize room". I've had the game screw up where everytime I went to next screen zone then returned to respawn the enemy, he would go in the opposite direction and off a ledge and there was no way for me to get the jump I needed. I tried about 10 times and gave up. Then next thing is the recoil of your character when you take a hit; It can send you flying off a ledge. That's happened to me plenty of times and it's always annoying and feels like a dumb, unfair game mechanic. It leads to your death and there isn't anything you could do to avoid it. Part of it is bad level design too. Too many ledges to fall down and die sometimes. I was really hoping this game would hold up to an older title like Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, but I don't think it does. The music isn't nearly as cool either. SG'nG is waaay more bad to the bone.

Shovel Knight is a terrible platformer - it has some of the worst collision detection I've ever come across (even worse than Spelunky or Cuphead, and that's really going some). The level design is bad with really nasty rooms that require literal nano-second precision and combined with some of the levels being in near darkness results in a frustrating and sour experience. The stages encourage exploration but that's actively discouraged by the piss poor nature of the platforming itself - frequently I just wanted to get to the end boss. The end bosses though were an excercise in dumbness and more frustration - ALL bosses jump about spasmodically, flailing their skills at lightning speed. Lazy, stupid devs thinking that bosses are just about large health and too fast to dodge attacks - you will AWLAYS loose a lot of health and that's not a challenge for the player, it's bad design. But these are not the worse aspects of the game - shovel knight's two main skills using the shovel (standing still and hitting or jumping and then pressing down to poke) are badly implemented. The shovel hitting is both slow and has some bad hit detection while the jumping and pressing down is clunky and feels difficult to pull off consistenly (as you are required to do so ALL THE TIME as it is the more reliable for hitting enemies). Playing this on controller felt awkward instead of natural. And yet the most retarded decision made about this game was the fact that pressing up does not make you jump - oh no, it triggers dialog and is used for the relics and powers. What this means is that any attempt to rebind controls and you are totally buggered as REBINDING THE DIALOG BUTTON IS NOT POSSIBLE. You will literally be trapped as rebinding the platform controls is only what you can do so if you rebind UP for JUMP you are screwed. Stupid devs. Really bloody stupid devs.

Not seeing why this game is so heralded as the second coming of...whatever. It's needlessly frustrating, has crappy controls, and isn't rewarding. It's just a chore to play. If I fall into a death pit because the controls (I tried it with 3 different controllers) just decided I was pressing down and pogo me to my doom, I'm going to scream. Sick of gently tapping the jump button only to hit my head on a platform and fall to my death. I hope this nostalgia trend is over. These games died out for a reason. I didn't like them then, and I don't like them now.