Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove

After owning this game for years, I went back to it and got through the original campaign and I absolutely loved it. This game does more than just throw pixel art on a platformer. It's increasingly common and has seen varying levels of success, but with Shovel Knight it shows that if you put the care and the heart into it, you really can show why people triumphed for those old NES platformers. Shovel Knight doesn't just get the look, it doesn't just get the feel, it gets the charm, too. If this game came out in 1989, it would have been top of its game then and we would be looking at it as a classic today. It's an excellent example of how, even though this game is rooted in ages past, some things can really become timeless. Beyond its nod to the great games of past, beyond its nostalgic feel, it's an absolute gem, and I want to recommend it to everyone, regardless of their history with video games. As an aside, I just started on the Plague of Shadows campaign earlier today, and I don't know how they've done it, but I'm having even more fun than ever. I want to hug the entire dev team. No matter what angle I look at this game from, it's brillant. There aren't enough stars I can give it.

So many games in the classic retro pixel-look are released these days. But only a few of them are really good ones. Shovel Knight is one of them. It's played fluently and flawless, it has it's own charme and although it cannot lie about its roots in the old Megaman-games, it has it's own setting and style. I grew up with the Megaman-series on the NES, I liked part 9 and 10 of it and I really like Shovel Knight, which is more like a "a bit Megaman 11". If you liked these old but good games, you will love Shovel Knight.

I was born a few years before the new millennium and didn't play many old-school games like Super Mario 64 or Megaman. I played newer games like those on the original Playstation and Xbox, then to the PS2. I've had almost no exposure to pre-2000 games except for some Dig-Dug and Pac-Man at arcades. Many people would've thought this would be for older gamers to get some nostalgia out of them. Well, I bought it. I don't regret it at all. It's actually become one of my most favorite games I could have the pleasure of owning. The gameplay is superb. You play as Shovel Knight, a shovel blade-wielding knight of legend as he journeys to defeat the evil Enchantress and her Order of No Quarter and save the realm from evil and tyranny! You jump, slash, dig and use magic as you traverse levels. Learning enemy patterns makes traversing a level almost until you get to the boss. The story is pretty cute and, in a way, simplistic, however it is its presentation and characters that make you want to progress through the story just to see what unfolds. Each level has its own music(which is amazing!), own designs, unique enemies and secrets to find. When you feel bored of traversing one level, the next one is instantly fresh with its own feel and charisma. It's amazing how much detail and individuality a small indie team has managed to put in each level. They feel like their own game. A hidden wall can be destroyed to reveal a hidden room with gems, enemies, death traps and maybe a music sheet, which you can turn in for even more gold. Death is kind of like Dark Souls. It is brutal, comes easily and is rewarding when you avoid it. Get killed and a portion of your money gets put in floating bags for you to recollect where you died. Die before getting to the bags and those are gone, replaced with a new portion of gold. It makes the game tense and yet rewarding when you get your hard-earned gold back. Buy this. It's an amazingly fun game, with New Game+ & a great new expansion.

It is definitely inspired by ALOT of platformers traditionally on nintendo. Castlvania controls (able to control yourself in air though) and weapon hitboxes. The map is very mario 3 style. It even pays homage to the games which it pulls it's inspiration: In the first town there are "gatherers" who appear to be wearing link's tunic, and "Playing Kid" who looks like megaman without his helmet and speaks like Sonic the Hedgehog. There is alot of light humor, mostly filled with puns, but comes in all types. That said, the game's biggest inspiration is very clearly megaman. Before things get rough, they make sure you are well introduced to the challenges, just like the megaman games did. The music instrument style and overall style are very reminiscent of megaman. Boss battles take place at the end of stages, just like megaman. Although the weapons appear earlier in the stage and doesn't seem to be related to the bosses, you still get weapons per each stage you beat. Stage design in general is also like megaman, such as how ladders are used almost (if not entirely) exclusively for screen transitions, the screen transitions themselves, insta-kill spikes on floor and ceiling, etc. And it may be considered a spoiler, but it's even mentioned in the goodies, but you can even play against one of your adversaries. If you've ever enjoyed megaman, i highly recommend this game.

The game is beautiful, has wonderful music, diverse environments and everchanging hardcore gameplay. It manages to be nostalgic without resorting to copying the classics or lame in-jokes. In fact, it is better than console games ever were; think of it as being as good as they _appear_ in nostalgic restrospect. My main criticism concerns the bad controls: - You collect "relics" that allow you to use magic. Why there isn't a simple "use relic" button is beyond me. Instead you have to press "up" and the "shovel attack" button together. I had to reconfigure "up" to one of the buttons on the underside of my gamepad to make this combo easier to use. - When you press "down" while falling, you land using the shovel facing downward like a pogo stick. This is a core mechanic of the game. But once in pogo mode, it does not stop, even when you stop pressing down. You have to manually do a horizontal swing with the shovel to stop this. Why? There are some places where this is a serious complication. - The detection for "down" is much too sensitive on the analog stick. Regularly you enter pogo mode without wanting to. - Unplayable with a keyboard. A few other questionable design choices: - A lack of save points; in some levels this is downright unfair. - For an extra challenge (and bonus gold) you can break savepoints. Nice idea, but they break so easily that I broke them accidentally multiple times. - Random elements on some screens mean that whether you succeed is to a degree luck. - When you die you lose gold. That's fine, but it makes it hard to save for the purchase of upgrades. There should be a way to safely store gold between levels. - The last two boss fights at the end of the game are ten times harder than anything before in the game. Weird. - In the second to last level you have to fight ALL the previous bosses again, and they behave exactly the same way as before. This is just lazy. Also there are no savepoints between those fights, making them even more annoying.