Friends. A group of friends. A group of friends having lunch and cracking jokes at each other. There may have been the occasional fart joke or joke about a chicken trying to cross the street, but one joke in particular pops up among the group. What if there was a knight who ran around and fought with a shovel? That joke seemed to be ridiculous at first, but it would slowly morph into an idea. An idea that would appeal to any type of person or audience. However, there is no way to introduce a knight with a shovel in the world we live in today. People want action, violence, spectacle, style, and pieces of fiction that have depth and emotion. Nobody wanted something as simple as a knight with a shovel. That’s the world we live in today and it’s sad that we can’t look back.
To the past we grew up with and helped make us who we are today. Those times when you were a child and you had no care about who you wanted to be. Wake up, eat some pancakes, run outside for a bit, maybe play in a puddle, and then run back home to sit on your living room couch and play some video games. What could have you been playing at that moment? Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Street Fighter, Sonic The Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, or whatever other games were in your gaming library. Those games are probably one of many things that made you feel happy. The group of friends I was just talking about were probably reflecting back at when video games were so simple and easy to appeal towards. One of them must have said, “Let’s go back to those happier days of gaming”. What started as a joke became a Kickstarter campaign for a retro platformer named Shovel Knight. It had a bit of everything old school and the influences were obvious. A little bit of Mega Man and a bit of Super Mario Bros 3. A little bit of Ducktales and a bit of Castlevania.
A demo was released to showcase how the game would play and how the levels would be structured. Those who discovered the project and downloaded the demo were immediately impressed with what the developers had to offer. Tons of people funded the campaign and the goal for a complete product was met within a few days. The group of friends decide to form their own game company known as Yacht Club Games and together they would make sure Shovel Knight came out as a full fledged game. The game was released in 2014 and Yacht Club Games are prepared to face whatever criticism is thrown at their game. They even hire a few online gamers like the Game Grumps and Penny Arcade to get their game out there. A coin is flipped into the air and there's a fifty-fifty chance that Shovel Knight will be all that good. The coin lands on the ground and it lands on heads. Head being that the game would be a success. Shovel Knight was much better than everyone was expecting it to be and the sales would rocket within a few months. Reception for the game is extremely positive and Shovel Knight gets nominated for a few end of the year awards. It was everything people would want from a video game and it’s developers. Love, thought, dedication, and quality. It was also a landmark for indie developers and showed them any game could be good as long as you devote yourself to it’s production. Shovel Knight is amazing and is truly one of the most important games in indie developer history.
I remember when my sister bought the game a few years back. She got a physical copy for our Wii U and loaned it to me to play. I hopped in with low expectations and something smacked me in the face. My face then smiled and I kept on playing. I was hooked. Shovel Knight is one of my favorite games of all time and nothing has really come around to top it’s position. Maybe one day, but for right now it’s at my top spot. Hello reader, my name is An Nguyen and welcome to a website called Review On. It’s a sight dedicated to talking about the games I like and why you should play them. I’ll be doing as much as I can to analyze a game and point out what it does wrong, but ultimately I want to recommend games that a lot of people can enjoy. For our first post I’ve decided to start with the best. A game I have no complaints about and choose as one of the best examples of how to do a video game. Today I'll be talking about Shovel Knight and why it deserves your attention. So put on that helmet, loot all the treasure you can find, and steal thy shovel and fight for hope.
Story
There were once two great adventurers who roamed across the land and were praised as some of the kindest heroes people have ever seen. The goofy yet loyal Shovel Knight, and the respectable and highly skilled Shield Knight. They embarked on epic adventures, collecting whatever treasure they could find, and told their tales to whoever they knew. They sometimes even sat around the campfire and talked about how they felt on each journey. They were not just friends. They were best friends and nothing could separate them apart. Their most recent journey was to the Tower of Fate, a place guarded by shadowy figures and possessed an amulet at the top. The amulet had immense amounts of power and could give its beholder whatever they wanted. Shovel Knight and Shield Knight venture into the tower, but once stumbling upon the amulet it’s curse magic bursts into a wild force. The two are then knocked out and everything fades into black. Shovel Knight then wakes up to find the tower sealed and that he was left in a lonely field to lie. He tries to look for Shield Knight, but all he could find was her helmet dented beyond belief. Whatever the amulet did could have killed Shield Knight, and Shovel Knight didn’t do anything to stop her. He has felt sad ever since that day and believes his best friend will never return.
Several months pass and Shovel Knight has retired from his adventuring career and decided to become a farmer. Plowing his fields and digging turnips from the ground. However, chaos begins to spread throughout the land. The Tower of Fate has been unsealed and a mysterious woman known as the Enchantress appears. She has constructed a group of trained warriors known as the Order of No Quarter and sent them out to terrorize the land. King Knight who had overthrown King Pridemoor and lies at the top of Pridemoor Keep. The ghoulish Specter Knight who is capable of raising the dead. Plague Knight is a mad scientist who can brew any potion, explosive, or poison. Treasure Knight who has stolen all the wealth in the land. Mole Knight who just kinda accepted the offer but halted the mining process of a flaming cave. Polar Knight, another knight with a shovel who also just kinda accepted the offer. Tinker Knight, a mad mechanic who makes machines built to destroy. And finally Propeller Knight, a skilled musketeer who controls a fleet of airships.
Each of the eight knights occupy a section of the land and they won’t stop until they are defeated. Shovel Knight sets out not only to stop each of the eight knights, but to make his way back to the Tower of Fate. Maybe Shield Knight is still alive and that she wasn’t obliterated months ago. During his journey, Shovel Knight encounters Black Knight who was also a close friend of Shield Knight. He warns Shovel Knight that Shield Knight is no longer around and that the journey ahead is dangerous. Shovel Knight ignores his statement and carries on after a fierce battle. Will Shovel Knight find his best friend after all this time? Well, hope is on his side.
Gameplay
Shovel Knight borrows a lot of design choices from old school platformers to make one of the most well designed and fair levels I’ve seen from a game. The goal is very simple. Navigate through each stage, avoid hazards, and fight a boss at the end. Once the boss is defeated you can move onward. Levels are chosen from an overworld and some sections can’t be accessed unless you defeat the knights of a particular region. Shovel Knight has a variety of moves to defend himself from enemies and access whatever areas he wants to. The first level does a great job at showing how Shovel Knight works and how to activate certain abilities. He has a simple shovel attack that can hurt enemies and break dirt blocks apart. It has a short range, is very slow, and leaves Shovel Knight heavily exposed. However, he has an incredibly useful maneuver that allows him to chain damage while also moving around very freely. Shovel Knight has a very high jump height and when falling towards the ground he can transition into a shovel drop by holding down on the left joystick. If you land on an enemy while performing the shovel drop you will bounce off them. This ability can be used to damage enemies without having to be risky and get in front of them, and if used correctly it can be used to reach higher areas.
There is treasure scattered throughout each level and music sheets for you to collect. Music sheets can be traded to a character known as the Bard and he will give you more treasure in exchange. Treasure is important, because it’s your main currency. Sometimes there will be hidden outcoves or strikable surfaces containing treasure and music notes, so look carefully if you want to reap the most rewards before the end of a level. If your health reaches zero or you fall into a pit you lose a fraction of your treasure and are sent back to your previous checkpoint. The checkpoints can be smashed to obtain more treasure, but will be no longer usable so you’ll be sent back to a further checkpoint. The money you lost will be held within flying money bags and you have the ability to retrieve it back. If you die before you can collect them you lose even more money, and the money lost before is gone for good. It’s the game's way of punishing the player for not learning from their mistakes. The developers said they borrowed this idea from Dark Souls, which is a game I haven’t played so I don’t know how it works.
Treasure can be used to buy items from vendors. Specifically there is an NPC named Chester who hides within a blue chest hidden in each level. He will offer you a relic to use, but you can meet him back in town to buy it for a higher price. These relics will either make combat much easier or offer more traversal options. The Flare Wand will shoot fiery projectiles which are good for long distance or out of reach enemies. The Phase Locket will make you invincible for a short period of time. Making chaotic fights easier. There are the Dust Knuckles, Throwing Anchor, Propeller Dagger, Bouncing Orbs, and much more. There is even a fishing rod to collect items you wouldn’t normally be able to get. Relics will require magic and you have a limited amount, so use it widley. Your maximum health and magic can be upgraded at two specific vendors in the first town. One town will sell you upgrades for your shovel like a charge attack, and armor which can offer unique abilities or quirks.
The boss at the end of each stage will test your skills, memorization, and ability to endure. They will take multiple hits and attempts to beat, but eventually you will get their attack pattern and prevail. Besides that there isn’t anything else to talk about Shovel Knight. Well occasionally there will be a minigame where you will be dumped into a dream sequence and you have to catch Shield Knight. Other enemies will hop in to kill you and if you kill them they drop mass amounts of treasure. Collect it before you catch Shield Knight or watch her hit the ground violently. Afterwards wake up and maybe open a chest containing a meal ticket. The meal ticket can be used to upgrade your health for free. That’s all really. Shovel Knight is mostly a simple game and that’s probably a good thing. It’s easy to pick up and get into within a few minutes. Hopefully you can make it to the Tower of Fate and find Shield Knight alive.
Thoughts
Shovel Knight is an underappreciated masterpiece that more people should look into. It’s not underappreciated as in it didn’t sell as many copies as it should have. It’s underappreciated, because more people should acknowledge how well made this game is. Some people complain this game is hard and that the later levels are some of the toughest in a platformer. First off, they haven’t played Super Meat Boy. Secondly, the levels aren’t hard because they are set up in a poor way. It’s the player not learning the mechanics and rules of a level. The game sets up levels in a way where they teach you the mechanics once they are introduced and slowly scale the challenge overtime. Not too fast, but not too slow. They slowly begin to combine level mechanics so they can culminate into challenging but fair platforming sections.
The bosses I also found to be extremely fair to, because overtime you start to learn how they mechanically work as well. The pacing felt really good and the difficulty never spiked towards random directions. The pixel is nicely designed and has a wonderful blend of colors. Some people find it too colorful, but it helps the game pop out. It’s shiny like a polished gem and that gem looks good enough to eat. Don’t eat jems though. You’ll probably choke and die. The soundtrack makes me happy whenever it comes up. It’s not a big symphony, but it’s very uplifting especially with how positive the game is. All the boops and beeps combine to make some boppin tracks.
A lot of people will find the story to not be compelling, but personally this is one of my favorite stories in a video game. Shovel Knight just seems like the character to be utterly stupid, but when you actually see him talk he turns out to be this incredibly honorable knight. He won’t strike down an enemy when they aren’t looking or on their knees, and will help people no matter the cause. We get to see how he coups and how much he misses Shield Knight. While I love the relationship these two characters have, it’s not a love driven relationship. It’s a friendship. The two of them work perfectly together and seeing one of them disappear will disrupt how the other works alone. You push forward hoping to see them reunite. Hoping Shovel Knight can get his friend back. It’s a lovely game about hope and never letting go. I can see why they renamed the original campaign to Shovel of Hope.
There are tons of secrets hidden throughout each stage and the game has a high amount of replay value. I have played through this game three times. Two of those times I one hundred percent the game and another time I went through a new game plus. That’s right. There is a new game plus which makes the game harder, but allows you to keep your upgrades from before. Now, I should be mentioning the problems this game has but there are none. Some people may find some, but I don’t have anything bad to say about Shovel Knight. If your a hater, don’t like indie games, or Shovel Knight then f*ck you! You're not optimistic and Shovel Knight is a game that will put a smile on your face for how positive it is. That’s what Shovel Knight does to me. Put a big fat curving smile onto my face. I highly recommend that you pick up Shovel Knight even if you don’t like platformers. Yacht Club Games are updating the game every year by adding new content like new campaigns and modes. At this point Shovel Knight is a franchise and I loved where it has gotten today. In the end I give Shovel Knight a 10/10 for being incredible. Thank you Yacht Club for making one of my favorite games.
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