This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.
How did I do?
| Category | Completion level |
|---|---|
| Completed | Yes |
| Hours Played | 10-15ish |
| Favorite Knight | Mole Knight |
There is a bit of housekeeping that needs to be done before we get to talking about Shovel Knight. Originally I had planned to try and have 100 games ranked before the new year, and I was on pace to do so. Everything was looking right in the world and then two things happened at once. I spent all my free time finishing Dragon Quest 11 (Reviewed Here), which ate into basically all my free time and didn't allow me to play the 100th game I had picked out to celebrate such an occasion. The 2nd and more debilitating piece of the puzzle is that one of my kids and my wife tested positive for Covid. Now both of them are doing better, and are recovering, which is great, but because of that we were in quarantine for 14 days (ends on Christmas day), and that means we couldn't send the kids to daycare in order to have them run off energy. For any parent out there with young kids, you know that trying to entertain two 3-yr olds for 16 hours a day is exhausting. Not only is their attention span essentially garbage and require constant supervision to change what they are playing with or make sure they don't bust their heads, but they also want to be in your face at all times, which makes playing a video game by yourself close to impossible. Also did I mention that work, still wants me to actually work, so when the kids go to bed, if I didn't collapse from exhaustion I had to actually do my job. All of this is to say that outside of helping my 3yr old play Toad's Treasure Tracker ( a great introduction for kids to get into using both thumb-sticks), I haven't played a single new video game for myself. That means I actually don't have a 100th game completed to talk about at this point, which wouldn't be a big deal, since I need to write 96-99 first, but I don't see where I am going to have time to play games until the new year when my kids go back to daycare. I still plan on writing up a big end of the year pseudo GOTY list that I will post next week, but for now lets move to the game at hand.
On to the task at hand, we are talking about Shovel Knight Treasure Trove, which is a collection of scenarios that all take place in the Shovel Knight universe. For the uninitiated, Shovel Knight is the quintessential indie game from 2014. In it you play as the titular Shovel Knight who goes on a 2D adventure platform game reminiscent of Mega Man and maybe a dash of Castlevania in there. There is a world map that gives you some variety in what levels you want to tackle and in what order, but in order to beat the game you will need to eventually beat all of the other knights that call this land home. There is also a town aspect that allows you to buy abilities, upgrades, etc as you find collectables and bring in more money.
The most important aspect of the game is obviously how Shovel Knight handles, and I am pleased to say that he controls perfect. Making a 2D retro game can be a complicated process to nail down movement. Do you try and copy how Mario handles in terms of jumping, or how about Mega Man? Shovel Knight's jump feels heavy, but he still gets plenty of air under him and has a similar move to Link in Zelda 2, where he can point his shovel towards the ground allowing him to bounce off of enemies in order to get some additional air under him. His shovel is obviously his primary attack that he can swing at an enemy, but can also be used (if timed correctly) to reflect a lot of projectiles back at him. His shovel is nothing to scoff at, and will be the primary tool you use to beat nearly every enemy in the game.
In town you can buy items or magic spells that act a lot like the items in Castlevania. Maybe its a projectile that bounces around the screen and damages any enemy it hits, maybe its a straight fireball, or maybe its an ability to phase in and out to avoid taking damage. While these can certainly help you and make levels easier by having them, they are all optional and the game can be beaten without the use or acquiring any of them. Sure, you will be locked out of bonus areas that might require these items in order to make getting treasure, music sheets, or other relics easier, but you can beat the game from beginning to end without getting these items.
The bosses themselves remind me a lot of the bosses from Mega Man. You get to see their health meter, they all have their own unique ability and patterns that might take some getting used to before you know the best way to tackle them. Beating them does not reward you with their abilities, ala Mega Man, but it does open up some areas on the world map allowing you to progress farther and get closer to beating the game. Should you die to them or anywhere in a level, the game takes some of your hard earned money, places at where you died, and respawns you at the nearest respawn point you crossed. Similar to Dark Souls, this allows you to get back and recover the gems you lost by dying, but should you die on your way there, those gems will be lost for good. The game does offer a risk-reward system, where you can destroy any respawn point in the level to get more treasure, but obviously by doing this you are risking that if you die you will end up even farther back in the level.
So what does the Treasure Trove collection add to the game? Well quite a bit, actually. You get scenarios where you can play as 3 different knights (king Knight, Specter Knight, & Plague Knight). Each one allows you to play through a nearly identical version of the game with those characters and their unique abilities. The more time you have invested in the original game, the more obvious the changes will be in these scenarios. Something difficult that you might have had in the original, might be easy with the Specter Knights ability to air dash. I had fun with each of these scenarios, and they add life to the game, but they don't quite measure up to the original. This is not me condeming them, as I had a lot of fun with Plague Knight and Specter Knight (less with King Knight), but I would still vote the original Shovel Knight the premier version (not that I think they were trying to top them).
In addition to different scenarios, there are challenges that you can partake in that will ask you to tackle enemy rooms, or play through levels without certain abilities or in a certain time frame in order to clear. I will state that I barely touch challenge modes in games. I think they are interesting inclusions, but if I just played through the game nearly 4 times with all the different scenarios, I'm usually tapped out to do anything but a very small handful of challenges. This might just be my lack of competitive edge that I don't care how I rank on any leaderboard, or have a huge friend list that I am looking to one-up on any game. There is also an option to mix up the genders of all the Knights, which I think is a great addition to nearly any game of this ilk. You can randomize the genders or manually pick which Knights are male and which are female in order to add some variety into the game. It doesn't impact the game or story at all, but is a nice touch to just mix and match characters.
What is more interesting is that Shovel Knight has become a symbol of indie games and has shown up in plenty of other games as a bonus character, or has brought in other characters to his game (battletoads anyone?). This is more surprising to me then anything, Shovel Knight is a good game, I would dare even say a great indie game that exists, but I don't know if Shovel Knight is the kind of character I need to see across a bunch of different media. Its a very competent game, it has a great soundtrack, it plays well, and either hits you in the nostalgia zone, or just plays like a fine retro 2D game.
I didn't get a chance to try multiplayer in this game, but I hear good things about it, and I will add it to the pile of games to try when my kids get just a smidge older.
Is this the greatest game of all time?: No
Where does it rank: Shovel Knight is a great game, It is how you remember some of the games you grew up on actually playing, even though you know they are rougher then this. It will hit you differently if you grew up playing Mega Man or NES games that it cribs from. I think its worthy of a pickup on any console, and probably more so if you have someone to play with, despite not trying out the multiplayer. Of course it was more inspiration when it came out in 2014 and now it seems a lot less novel. That doesn't necessarily dock it, but its hard to talk about how unique and great it is, when a new competent 2D retro game comes out every week on all platforms nowadays. I have it ranked as the 26thgreatest game of all time out of 96 games. It is above "The Legend of Zelda (27th) and below "Super Mega Baseball 2" (25th)
Up Next *Year end Wrapup*
1. Golf Story (Switch)
2. Snipper Clips (Switch)
3. Top Spin (Xbox)
Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion). Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.
Thanks for Listening.
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