Edit: you know what? 5 stars mate
Basically 4 amazing games in one package, the culmination of an indie studio's dedication and passion over the course of several years of development. Add on top of that a fantastic co-op mode, platform fighter mode and loads more extra content and secrets and you have the recipe for a near perfect game.
'Retro' platformer games were never really my thing but shovel knight takes all the best parts of what made the classics beloved and amplifies them to just pure, unadulterated fun. There's still hints of classic design philosophy that I can sometimes find a challenge to navigate, like constant instant death pits and a few occasions where the dedicated old school style conflicted with my ability to translate what was happening onscreen. However, these are so minor and shovel knight does a lot to be fair and even generous to the player - with its dynamic, high utility signature moves that can allow you to quickly escape an undesirable situation, insanely useful (and at times even overpowered) relics / items & level design that really accommodates playfulness and expressiveness in your movement and actions, moreso than i've ever really found in a video game of its style.
What's really interesting about Shovel Knight's platforming and level design across its 4 different campaigns, is how they feel like they're designed in an almost puzzle like fashion without sacrificing the natural flow and forward momentum of classic platformer game design. When moving to a new 'screen' in shovel knight, you're presented with well thought out placements of obstacles and enemies to overcome and to me the fun came from trying to navigate these in the most efficient ways possible - and each knight has a very different approach when confronted with the same set of obstacles. There's also some really cleverly placed secrets and rewards scattered about stages that encourage you to take risks and try new paths.
Shovel Knight bounces with his shovel drop, so the majority of the time you're trying to find the most optimal movement to bounce from one platform or enemy to the next. He also has the largest variety and some of the strongest options in his relics. What you see is what you get with Shovel Knight and he's a great introduction to the more complex characters in the campaigns that follow. Plague Knight is definitely the most difficult to control and has a much steeper learning curve than any other controllable character in the game, but once you master his unique set of actions, it's great fun to zip across stages and blast over enemies with ease. Plague Knight's inherent design definitely lends itself to speedrunning and creativity in expression with movement, as well as expression with his different bomb combinations. Where lots of effort clearly went into Plague Knight's complex movement options with bomb burst, Spectre Knight on the other hand feels much more simple and streamlined in design. Specter Knight's stages are built around his moves really well, and it is always clear what routes you're supposed to take. Combining wall running and dash slashes make Specter Knight feel like a ninja, with tight combos and movement windows, his animations and visuals also make his different states really clear, like when your wall run has reached its peak or when your dash slash will take you on an up or down trajectory. I found Specter's Knight's stages particularly easy to breeze through because of the clear limitations in his options, but the lengths they go to to make his stages feel unique and interesting is seriously impressive. Ultimately I think Specter ends up having some of the coolest levels in the game. Then there's King Knight, with his very clear nintendo inspirations. He has wario's bash attack and mario's spin from super mario world, as well as shorter stages and a general higher level of focus on just pure platforming than navigation or taking out enemies. But there's still that puzzle element to him and his stages that seep their way into every campaign of shovel knight, like working out exactly what walls you can bash into, how you can chain your bashes in the air and how you can bounce yourself between different platforms with his spin. The devs find clever use out of his bash attack too, I particularly liked the explodatorium stages where you bash into test tubes to get the corks to explode out, creating platforms. I also love the axolongl alcove level, where you use the bash attack to play 'snake' with the axolongls, changing up the platform layout - genuinely really smart and not something i've ever seen before.
The core gameplay of shovel knight, then, is incredibly well thought out and an absolute blast to play. There's maybe a couple of occasions where instead of just feeling challenging, the platforming could feel awkward, like the changing winds of propellor knight's stages or the fact that Plague Knight can sometimes feel like you're on ice and the burst move’s trajectory can be a pain to accurately judge, but aside from this rare occasion, it is spot on. I think it is great that shovel knight does away with a lives system, often a staple of the games it is directly influenced by, and instead uses a much more player friendly punishment system for dying where you lose a decent sum of your money which you can retrieve from the spot where you died. This puts emphasis on just having a good time trying to navigate the levels rather than having to constantly restart, and it also encouraged me to take more risks when attempting to recover my lost earnings from the spot where I last died.
Another huge feat for this game is its general aesthetics. The pixel art style is an absolute treat, it took a bit of time to get used to but the detail put into this game's huge array of sprites, backgrounds and user interfaces is astonishing, especially when given its ambitions. Every level has a unique aesthetic that is wonderfully translated into the art design, enemy design, the music and the level design. There's an alchemical lab with lotions and potions scattered all around and a myriad of wild colour combinations, there's a massive mechanical factory with tons of moving parts and an absolutely wild mecha boss fight and then there's the tower of fate with its luscious black and green motifs. The use of shadows in the lich yard and the ascent up the tower of fate are so cool, if very tricky to navigate sometimes. There is so much CHARACTER in shovel knight too, each of the different knights have so much personality and I love all of them (but my favourite is definitely plague :)). The character designs are bursting with flair and the dialogue serves up this game's simply brilliant sense of humour. For the most part, shovel knight is a silly game with wacky characters, enemies and setpieces, but it also knows when to get serious sometimes. The Black Knight and Specter of Torment's tragic stories are honestly written really well and are very interesting. There's even some hints of vulnerability in its characters, shovel knight misses his long lost love, plague knight seems indifferent to everyone but actually harbours feelings and insecurities, specter knight harbours regret and feels he must make up for his past mistakes and king knight - well, king knight is just a bit of a dick hahaha.
I should probably talk a bit about 'joustus' - the card game that you play in king knight's 'king of cards' campaign. At first, I wasn't sure what to make of it but was also somewhat put off by its perceived similarities to final fantasy 9's 'tetra master'. I'd only recently finished ff9 and ff9 forces you to have to play tetra master to finish the game and it sucks. But unlike tetra master, joustus is actually fun and doesn't have random bullshit mathematics involved! It is fair and easy to learn and gets pretty damn creative with its different card skills, different board layouts and obstacles and variety of cool mini boss fights. The mini boss fights in which you challenge different characters to a game of joustus are really cool because they all seem to have different decks, strategies and win conditions that you need to overcome. Figuring out what their game is and overcoming it also means you can take their cards, usually you want to take their signature card which is usually a card of themselves, I really did end up enjoying beating all of these different characters and adding their signature cards to my ever expanding deck! While its definitely pretty simple and doesn't go as deep as some card games, it has just the right level of depth for what it is going for and the type of game in which it appears, so I think its actually pretty darn good!
Finally, the music. I really like the shantae games, they're simple and not the most groundbreaking titles, but they have a great sense of humour and some absolute banging tunes by Jake Kaufman. Kaufman would then go on to compose for this game and boy does he go all out. The 8 bit chiptune style music does so much to drive this game's feeling of fantasy and adventure and harks back to many of the classics. While there's definitely a lot of familiarity and nothing drastically new to be found, there's a certain meticulousness to the music arrangements in shovel knight that serve its different levels and aesthetics so perfectly. There's a couple of grating tracks but almost all of them hit and they hit hard, like with the shattering bit crusher percussion of tinker knight's stages that sounds like clanking gears and machinery or the floaty, whistful and downright motivating 'high above the land' that accompanies propellor knight's stages. These are some of the hardest stages in the game but this music is seriously like, really encouraging.
Overall a fantastic experience and a lot of fun, i'd played shovel of hope in co-op before but something just really made me want to come back to this and try it out again along with the new campaigns. If you like retro style 2D platformers this is just a must play, it's also like, really important to the history of indie games and stuff. Alongside undertale it is among the most important indie games ever, a shining example of what a kickstarter backed project can achieve, and I just know that it has and will continue to inspire video game devs and video game enjoyers alike!
Basically 4 amazing games in one package, the culmination of an indie studio's dedication and passion over the course of several years of development. Add on top of that a fantastic co-op mode, platform fighter mode and loads more extra content and secrets and you have the recipe for a near perfect game.
'Retro' platformer games were never really my thing but shovel knight takes all the best parts of what made the classics beloved and amplifies them to just pure, unadulterated fun. There's still hints of classic design philosophy that I can sometimes find a challenge to navigate, like constant instant death pits and a few occasions where the dedicated old school style conflicted with my ability to translate what was happening onscreen. However, these are so minor and shovel knight does a lot to be fair and even generous to the player - with its dynamic, high utility signature moves that can allow you to quickly escape an undesirable situation, insanely useful (and at times even overpowered) relics / items & level design that really accommodates playfulness and expressiveness in your movement and actions, moreso than i've ever really found in a video game of its style.
What's really interesting about Shovel Knight's platforming and level design across its 4 different campaigns, is how they feel like they're designed in an almost puzzle like fashion without sacrificing the natural flow and forward momentum of classic platformer game design. When moving to a new 'screen' in shovel knight, you're presented with well thought out placements of obstacles and enemies to overcome and to me the fun came from trying to navigate these in the most efficient ways possible - and each knight has a very different approach when confronted with the same set of obstacles. There's also some really cleverly placed secrets and rewards scattered about stages that encourage you to take risks and try new paths.
Shovel Knight bounces with his shovel drop, so the majority of the time you're trying to find the most optimal movement to bounce from one platform or enemy to the next. He also has the largest variety and some of the strongest options in his relics. What you see is what you get with Shovel Knight and he's a great introduction to the more complex characters in the campaigns that follow. Plague Knight is definitely the most difficult to control and has a much steeper learning curve than any other controllable character in the game, but once you master his unique set of actions, it's great fun to zip across stages and blast over enemies with ease. Plague Knight's inherent design definitely lends itself to speedrunning and creativity in expression with movement, as well as expression with his different bomb combinations. Where lots of effort clearly went into Plague Knight's complex movement options with bomb burst, Spectre Knight on the other hand feels much more simple and streamlined in design. Specter Knight's stages are built around his moves really well, and it is always clear what routes you're supposed to take. Combining wall running and dash slashes make Specter Knight feel like a ninja, with tight combos and movement windows, his animations and visuals also make his different states really clear, like when your wall run has reached its peak or when your dash slash will take you on an up or down trajectory. I found Specter's Knight's stages particularly easy to breeze through because of the clear limitations in his options, but the lengths they go to to make his stages feel unique and interesting is seriously impressive. Ultimately I think Specter ends up having some of the coolest levels in the game. Then there's King Knight, with his very clear nintendo inspirations. He has wario's bash attack and mario's spin from super mario world, as well as shorter stages and a general higher level of focus on just pure platforming than navigation or taking out enemies. But there's still that puzzle element to him and his stages that seep their way into every campaign of shovel knight, like working out exactly what walls you can bash into, how you can chain your bashes in the air and how you can bounce yourself between different platforms with his spin. The devs find clever use out of his bash attack too, I particularly liked the explodatorium stages where you bash into test tubes to get the corks to explode out, creating platforms. I also love the axolongl alcove level, where you use the bash attack to play 'snake' with the axolongls, changing up the platform layout - genuinely really smart and not something i've ever seen before.
The core gameplay of shovel knight, then, is incredibly well thought out and an absolute blast to play. There's maybe a couple of occasions where instead of just feeling challenging, the platforming could feel awkward, like the changing winds of propellor knight's stages or the fact that Plague Knight can sometimes feel like you're on ice and the burst move’s trajectory can be a pain to accurately judge, but aside from this rare occasion, it is spot on. I think it is great that shovel knight does away with a lives system, often a staple of the games it is directly influenced by, and instead uses a much more player friendly punishment system for dying where you lose a decent sum of your money which you can retrieve from the spot where you died. This puts emphasis on just having a good time trying to navigate the levels rather than having to constantly restart, and it also encouraged me to take more risks when attempting to recover my lost earnings from the spot where I last died.
Another huge feat for this game is its general aesthetics. The pixel art style is an absolute treat, it took a bit of time to get used to but the detail put into this game's huge array of sprites, backgrounds and user interfaces is astonishing, especially when given its ambitions. Every level has a unique aesthetic that is wonderfully translated into the art design, enemy design, the music and the level design. There's an alchemical lab with lotions and potions scattered all around and a myriad of wild colour combinations, there's a massive mechanical factory with tons of moving parts and an absolutely wild mecha boss fight and then there's the tower of fate with its luscious black and green motifs. The use of shadows in the lich yard and the ascent up the tower of fate are so cool, if very tricky to navigate sometimes. There is so much CHARACTER in shovel knight too, each of the different knights have so much personality and I love all of them (but my favourite is definitely plague :)). The character designs are bursting with flair and the dialogue serves up this game's simply brilliant sense of humour. For the most part, shovel knight is a silly game with wacky characters, enemies and setpieces, but it also knows when to get serious sometimes. The Black Knight and Specter of Torment's tragic stories are honestly written really well and are very interesting. There's even some hints of vulnerability in its characters, shovel knight misses his long lost love, plague knight seems indifferent to everyone but actually harbours feelings and insecurities, specter knight harbours regret and feels he must make up for his past mistakes and king knight - well, king knight is just a bit of a dick hahaha.
I should probably talk a bit about 'joustus' - the card game that you play in king knight's 'king of cards' campaign. At first, I wasn't sure what to make of it but was also somewhat put off by its perceived similarities to final fantasy 9's 'tetra master'. I'd only recently finished ff9 and ff9 forces you to have to play tetra master to finish the game and it sucks. But unlike tetra master, joustus is actually fun and doesn't have random bullshit mathematics involved! It is fair and easy to learn and gets pretty damn creative with its different card skills, different board layouts and obstacles and variety of cool mini boss fights. The mini boss fights in which you challenge different characters to a game of joustus are really cool because they all seem to have different decks, strategies and win conditions that you need to overcome. Figuring out what their game is and overcoming it also means you can take their cards, usually you want to take their signature card which is usually a card of themselves, I really did end up enjoying beating all of these different characters and adding their signature cards to my ever expanding deck! While its definitely pretty simple and doesn't go as deep as some card games, it has just the right level of depth for what it is going for and the type of game in which it appears, so I think its actually pretty darn good!
Finally, the music. I really like the shantae games, they're simple and not the most groundbreaking titles, but they have a great sense of humour and some absolute banging tunes by Jake Kaufman. Kaufman would then go on to compose for this game and boy does he go all out. The 8 bit chiptune style music does so much to drive this game's feeling of fantasy and adventure and harks back to many of the classics. While there's definitely a lot of familiarity and nothing drastically new to be found, there's a certain meticulousness to the music arrangements in shovel knight that serve its different levels and aesthetics so perfectly. There's a couple of grating tracks but almost all of them hit and they hit hard, like with the shattering bit crusher percussion of tinker knight's stages that sounds like clanking gears and machinery or the floaty, whistful and downright motivating 'high above the land' that accompanies propellor knight's stages. These are some of the hardest stages in the game but this music is seriously like, really encouraging.
Overall a fantastic experience and a lot of fun, i'd played shovel of hope in co-op before but something just really made me want to come back to this and try it out again along with the new campaigns. If you like retro style 2D platformers this is just a must play, it's also like, really important to the history of indie games and stuff. Alongside undertale it is among the most important indie games ever, a shining example of what a kickstarter backed project can achieve, and I just know that it has and will continue to inspire video game devs and video game enjoyers alike!
The mad lads really said "Let's make the best platformer of all time four times in a row"
I've reviewed each of the four main games separately already, so I'll just say this.
Shovel Knight Treasure Trove is the best game to come out of Kickstarter. It is the best retro pixel art game ever made. It is quite possibly the greatest 2D platformer of all time. Yacht Club Games have made one of the strongest debut titles from any gaming studio to ever exist.
Long live Shovel Knight.
Shovel Knight Treasure Trove is the best game to come out of Kickstarter. It is the best retro pixel art game ever made. It is quite possibly the greatest 2D platformer of all time. Yacht Club Games have made one of the strongest debut titles from any gaming studio to ever exist.
Long live Shovel Knight.
It's been said that Nintendo approaches Mario games with a typical structure found in yonkoma (four-panel manga): exposition, development, subversion and recapitulation.
Of course, it's not just a Nintendo thing - Capcom does it with Mega Man as well, and it's no surprise that Yacht Club drew from it heavily in the Shovel Knight games.
What's more interesting to me is that the four games ended up feeling somewhat like that, in of themselves.
Shovel of Hope sets the stage and context for everything else that's done with its basic framework; Plague of Shadows, like a typical panel 2, probably doesn't work as well without the context before it.
Specter of Torment is like a panel 3 with a particularly funny reaction face or line, often enjoyed on its own merits, but losing some of that original context in the process.
King of Cards isn't fully appreciable without considering everything before it, but I'm all the more glad that it exists - in some ways it feels natural and bookends-ish.
I like yonkoma a lot. I like Shovel Knight a lot too.
Just... ignore Showdown.
Of course, it's not just a Nintendo thing - Capcom does it with Mega Man as well, and it's no surprise that Yacht Club drew from it heavily in the Shovel Knight games.
What's more interesting to me is that the four games ended up feeling somewhat like that, in of themselves.
Shovel of Hope sets the stage and context for everything else that's done with its basic framework; Plague of Shadows, like a typical panel 2, probably doesn't work as well without the context before it.
Specter of Torment is like a panel 3 with a particularly funny reaction face or line, often enjoyed on its own merits, but losing some of that original context in the process.
King of Cards isn't fully appreciable without considering everything before it, but I'm all the more glad that it exists - in some ways it feels natural and bookends-ish.
I like yonkoma a lot. I like Shovel Knight a lot too.
Just... ignore Showdown.
I didn't play it recently, but I was just sitting here thinking about how it's a perfect video game.
The fact that it’s a collection of 4 platformers that I got for 10 bucks because I early adopted on the Wii U, and for 25 on Switch? It’s awesome. It’s such a rewarding story to see this game succeed and be composed of a really charmingly built world and cast of characters, on top of clearly being a Mega Man homage that innovates so much in its own ways. I mean, it really is four games in one. And they’re all excellent.
Okay, so take Scrooge McDuck, Eileen the (Simp) Crow, Tony Hawk, and Wario, put em' in a game together... Mastapeece.
"A Treasure To Play"
A legendary collection of one of the greatest platforming series ever made, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove provides memorable, engaging gameplay for a discounted price. I've done minor reviews of the titles included separately, so check those out if you're interested!
Overall, this collection is an absolute steal and easily one of the best money can buy. You owe it to yourself to check out this series, as it's a refreshing look into the platforming genre which oozes with humor, charm, and love throughout! I can easily Recommend it as it's one of the best platforming series around!
Overall Final Verdict: 9/10
A legendary collection of one of the greatest platforming series ever made, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove provides memorable, engaging gameplay for a discounted price. I've done minor reviews of the titles included separately, so check those out if you're interested!
Overall, this collection is an absolute steal and easily one of the best money can buy. You owe it to yourself to check out this series, as it's a refreshing look into the platforming genre which oozes with humor, charm, and love throughout! I can easily Recommend it as it's one of the best platforming series around!
Overall Final Verdict: 9/10
One of the greatest 2D platformers ever made (specter of torment), and it even comes with three others that are pretty good too. This is easily worth $60, and the best part is that it's only $40
I don't really know how to rate this one because of how mixed my feelings are on it.
I didn't really care that much for the main campaign back when the game was new. I still don't. But now that I've come back to this and tried the new campaigns, both Plague and Specter Knight are so, so, so much more interesting and intuitive to play than Shovel Knight himself.
I'd suppose for Specter, say this is a 10/10. Plague, not so much, just because the flow of bomb switching slows the gameplay down a bit more than I'd like. It's still a really great mechanic! I just spent.... maybe more time than I needed to dropping everything to concoct the PERFECT bomb for the situation every single screen transition.
Shovel and King.... ehhhhh...... I dunno.... Shovel just felt like a weird mix of Ducktales and Castlevania that didn't control as nicely as either, and King didn't really hold my interest past the intro stage for me to think I wanted to go through the game a 4th time in a row. I probably would've been more interested in King's campaign if I didn't already play Plague and Specter's... and considering that was the last piece of content released for this game, I feel like that's a little bit disappointing for a finale.
I know they had a vote and all that but..... King Knight, man? Really? The easiest boss in the game? Not Treasure with his grappling anchors, not Propeller with his flight fencing, not Mole with his gigantic claws and furnace abilities? The majority of people didn't want to play Black Knight with the teleports and charges, or the Enchantress so that they can get a taste of what the final boss is capable of?
King Knight?
Goddamnit, dude.
Oh well.
I didn't really care that much for the main campaign back when the game was new. I still don't. But now that I've come back to this and tried the new campaigns, both Plague and Specter Knight are so, so, so much more interesting and intuitive to play than Shovel Knight himself.
I'd suppose for Specter, say this is a 10/10. Plague, not so much, just because the flow of bomb switching slows the gameplay down a bit more than I'd like. It's still a really great mechanic! I just spent.... maybe more time than I needed to dropping everything to concoct the PERFECT bomb for the situation every single screen transition.
Shovel and King.... ehhhhh...... I dunno.... Shovel just felt like a weird mix of Ducktales and Castlevania that didn't control as nicely as either, and King didn't really hold my interest past the intro stage for me to think I wanted to go through the game a 4th time in a row. I probably would've been more interested in King's campaign if I didn't already play Plague and Specter's... and considering that was the last piece of content released for this game, I feel like that's a little bit disappointing for a finale.
I know they had a vote and all that but..... King Knight, man? Really? The easiest boss in the game? Not Treasure with his grappling anchors, not Propeller with his flight fencing, not Mole with his gigantic claws and furnace abilities? The majority of people didn't want to play Black Knight with the teleports and charges, or the Enchantress so that they can get a taste of what the final boss is capable of?
King Knight?
Goddamnit, dude.
Oh well.
one of the greatest values for money you could ask for. basically 4 whole games which are all up there among my favorites plus a fighting mode with heaps of depth. my first modern recommendation for anyone wanting to get into platformers or gaming as a whole
Shovel Knight took his shovel and beat the shit out of me in real life, great video game
Shovel Knight, and all of the accompanying DLC, is amazing to say the least. While it takes a lot of skill and patience, they're all satisfying in their own ways to complete. To go through each, one by one:
Shovel of Hope:
The main campaign. You go around as the titular character, digging up gems and flippin' over stuff. While it is basic, the way it teaches you how it'll progress and how other campaigns will go forward- all having some of the same LRPG elements- is really fun. Though that being said, it is the most basic of the campaigns and I had more fun going through the other campaigns. That's not to knock on this campaign though, it is a classic indie game for a reason. There is fun to be had with Shovel of Hope and it is a great campaign to start with if you get Treasure Trove.
Plague of Shadows:
the 2nd campaign and the most challenging one for casual players. Despite that, I also had some real fun with this. While you go through the same maps you did in Shovel of Hope, they're all altered in a way to make it challenging. Or at least they would be way more challenging if you weren't playing with Plague Knight, my favorite character in the game. (Fuck, I lost the game.) Plague Knight's a bit of a Wife Guy™ so I thoroughly enjoyed that and his story with Mona, his confidant. Wait a minute, this isn't Persona 5. No, Mona is not a cat though, she's a tall lady that works with Plague Knight and they have a really cute dynamic. That being said, Plague Knight's new gameplay feels awesome in the most literal definition of the word, striking awe. With the addition of potions to your arsenal, it's basically a new combat system entirely. There's also double jumping and the burst jump, which makes movement incredibly fun. If you're a speedrunner, I would highly recommend this campaign just because of the movement mechanics and all the intricate movement you can pull off.
Specter of Torment:
I will be honest with you. I cried. So much. Not because this is frustrating, but because the story really pulls you into an otherwise edgy nothing character of a boss. If you don't play anything else, you should at least play Specter of Torment for the story. Speaking of play, while Specter is a bit slower in running compared to Shovel and Plague, movement options for him are almost as plentiful as Plague Knight. You can just homing attack from across the room OR you can use your own scythe as a skate board. While speedrunners would be more enthralled with the movement of Plague, I feel more casual players would like Specter's movement because- while challenging like the rest of the game- it's not hard to pull off.
King of Cards:
It's the card game tournament one.... Yaaaaaaaaaay. I'm joking, I also had some real fun with this one. While levels are shorter in comparison to the last three campaigns, it more than makes up for it with more levels and the card game aspect. The card game is so fun, I, no joke, put more effort into that than the platforming sections. But again, like the last campaigns, the platforming sections were great. This time especially, due to levels having less content packed within them, the concepts and designs for each level were really fun. While all the other levels in campaigns are more comparable to games like Castlevania or Megaman, levels in King of Cards are more like Mario levels in a way.
Showdown:
Not too much to say about this part of the game. I most certainly had fun with it and it was cool to see how it adapted some other characters other than the campaign characters. But other than that, just not a ton to do other than the story and fighting CPUs. It would be fun playing against friends I guess, but none of my roommates are gonna want to play with me so oh well.
So, that being said, Treasure Trove is an amazing collection of games. Depending on sales and such, you basically get 5 games for $30-$40. I couldn't recommend it more. It's really an indie game classic that I feel everyone who wants to get into more indie games should have in their library.
Shovel of Hope:
The main campaign. You go around as the titular character, digging up gems and flippin' over stuff. While it is basic, the way it teaches you how it'll progress and how other campaigns will go forward- all having some of the same LRPG elements- is really fun. Though that being said, it is the most basic of the campaigns and I had more fun going through the other campaigns. That's not to knock on this campaign though, it is a classic indie game for a reason. There is fun to be had with Shovel of Hope and it is a great campaign to start with if you get Treasure Trove.
Plague of Shadows:
the 2nd campaign and the most challenging one for casual players. Despite that, I also had some real fun with this. While you go through the same maps you did in Shovel of Hope, they're all altered in a way to make it challenging. Or at least they would be way more challenging if you weren't playing with Plague Knight, my favorite character in the game. (Fuck, I lost the game.) Plague Knight's a bit of a Wife Guy™ so I thoroughly enjoyed that and his story with Mona, his confidant. Wait a minute, this isn't Persona 5. No, Mona is not a cat though, she's a tall lady that works with Plague Knight and they have a really cute dynamic. That being said, Plague Knight's new gameplay feels awesome in the most literal definition of the word, striking awe. With the addition of potions to your arsenal, it's basically a new combat system entirely. There's also double jumping and the burst jump, which makes movement incredibly fun. If you're a speedrunner, I would highly recommend this campaign just because of the movement mechanics and all the intricate movement you can pull off.
Specter of Torment:
I will be honest with you. I cried. So much. Not because this is frustrating, but because the story really pulls you into an otherwise edgy nothing character of a boss. If you don't play anything else, you should at least play Specter of Torment for the story. Speaking of play, while Specter is a bit slower in running compared to Shovel and Plague, movement options for him are almost as plentiful as Plague Knight. You can just homing attack from across the room OR you can use your own scythe as a skate board. While speedrunners would be more enthralled with the movement of Plague, I feel more casual players would like Specter's movement because- while challenging like the rest of the game- it's not hard to pull off.
King of Cards:
It's the card game tournament one.... Yaaaaaaaaaay. I'm joking, I also had some real fun with this one. While levels are shorter in comparison to the last three campaigns, it more than makes up for it with more levels and the card game aspect. The card game is so fun, I, no joke, put more effort into that than the platforming sections. But again, like the last campaigns, the platforming sections were great. This time especially, due to levels having less content packed within them, the concepts and designs for each level were really fun. While all the other levels in campaigns are more comparable to games like Castlevania or Megaman, levels in King of Cards are more like Mario levels in a way.
Showdown:
Not too much to say about this part of the game. I most certainly had fun with it and it was cool to see how it adapted some other characters other than the campaign characters. But other than that, just not a ton to do other than the story and fighting CPUs. It would be fun playing against friends I guess, but none of my roommates are gonna want to play with me so oh well.
So, that being said, Treasure Trove is an amazing collection of games. Depending on sales and such, you basically get 5 games for $30-$40. I couldn't recommend it more. It's really an indie game classic that I feel everyone who wants to get into more indie games should have in their library.
I won't go too deep into this as I did with my Shovel Knight review but Shovel Knight Treasure Trove is an amazing upgrade to Shovel giving us the same game with more features.
Featuring 3 new story modes to play:
- Plague of Shadows (Plague Knight Story Mode)
- Specter of Torment (Specter Knight Story Mode)
- King of the Cards (King Knight Story Mode)
3 amazing story modes told from the perspectives of the 3 most popular knights. Sadly the other knights: Tinker, Polar, Treasure, Mole, Propeller, and Black Knight do not get their own story mode in terms of the base game where you traverse the world of Shovel Knight. Shame as I really would love to have played as Treasure Knight since he reminds me of Subject Delta from Bioshock or Black Knight because I love rival characters like: Meta Knight, Shadow, Knuckles, Zero, Ken, Virgil, Miles Edgeworth, etc; would have been really cool to play as Black Knight and see the story and world from his prespective.
Instead all the other Knights have a story mode in terms of the newly added fighting vs mode called "SHOWDOWN!" where you get a roster of 14 playable characters:
1. Shovel Knight
2. Plague Knight
3. Specter Knight
4. King Knight
5. Shield Knight
6. Black Knight
7. Propeller Knight
8. Mole Knight
9. Treasure Knight
10. Polar Knight
11. Tinker Knight
12. The Enchantress
13. Mona (Alchemist girl)
14. Gold Armor (this is a minor enemy that is difficult to defeat found in various stages, and because of how difficult the knight is to fight, it became a playable character)
Each with unique endings.
Shovel Knight Treasure Trove is the definitive experience for Shovel Knight and I cannot wait to experience more of Shovel Knight with Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, and Shovel Knight dig.
I absolutely recommend this definitive version of the Retro Indie Icon, Shovel Knight :D
Featuring 3 new story modes to play:
- Plague of Shadows (Plague Knight Story Mode)
- Specter of Torment (Specter Knight Story Mode)
- King of the Cards (King Knight Story Mode)
3 amazing story modes told from the perspectives of the 3 most popular knights. Sadly the other knights: Tinker, Polar, Treasure, Mole, Propeller, and Black Knight do not get their own story mode in terms of the base game where you traverse the world of Shovel Knight. Shame as I really would love to have played as Treasure Knight since he reminds me of Subject Delta from Bioshock or Black Knight because I love rival characters like: Meta Knight, Shadow, Knuckles, Zero, Ken, Virgil, Miles Edgeworth, etc; would have been really cool to play as Black Knight and see the story and world from his prespective.
Instead all the other Knights have a story mode in terms of the newly added fighting vs mode called "SHOWDOWN!" where you get a roster of 14 playable characters:
1. Shovel Knight
2. Plague Knight
3. Specter Knight
4. King Knight
5. Shield Knight
6. Black Knight
7. Propeller Knight
8. Mole Knight
9. Treasure Knight
10. Polar Knight
11. Tinker Knight
12. The Enchantress
13. Mona (Alchemist girl)
14. Gold Armor (this is a minor enemy that is difficult to defeat found in various stages, and because of how difficult the knight is to fight, it became a playable character)
Each with unique endings.
Shovel Knight Treasure Trove is the definitive experience for Shovel Knight and I cannot wait to experience more of Shovel Knight with Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, and Shovel Knight dig.
I absolutely recommend this definitive version of the Retro Indie Icon, Shovel Knight :D
I didn't feel like finishing King of Cards but this is easily the best "retro" game on the market! So much charm, character, and content. Specter Knight was easily my favorite campaign.
you know for an order of evil knights you guys are REALLY MEAN
Manlet representation baby
SpecterOfTormentcels seething over PlagueOfShadows Chads
4 fun campaigns with various gameplay styles with writing quality you wouldn't expect from such a basic looking title. The levels can sometimes drag on a bit which prevents me from giving this a full 10/10. Also includes Showdown which while fun, probably won't hold anyone's attention. Highly recommend
Super mario brothers 3, Zelda 2 the adventure of link, Castlevania, Mega man 2, what do all of these games have in common? they all suck 0/5
Shovel Knight Treasure Trove has some of the finest platformers of the 2010s with the biggest issue being Plague Of Torments lazy recycling. Despite that I'd highly reccomend it just for the other expansions, as they combined are of such high quality I can't put down the package as a whole. Really hope Mina The Hollower knocks it out of the park.
10/10
10/10
From someone who 100% this thing. Here's my ranking.
Shovel Of Hope 8/10
Plague Of Shadows. 8.5/10
Specter Of Torment 9.5/10
King Of Cards 9.5/10
Shovel Of Hope 8/10
Plague Of Shadows. 8.5/10
Specter Of Torment 9.5/10
King Of Cards 9.5/10
A complete masterclass in game design. Controls are snappy and fluid, music is bombastic and the sheer amount of items and challenges allows for endless replayability
Didn’t get a 5 Star because Specter of Torment is a bit too stiff in my opinion.
Didn’t get a 5 Star because Specter of Torment is a bit too stiff in my opinion.
This review contains spoilers
𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗟 𝗢𝗙 𝗛𝗢𝗣𝗘: All time classic. Yatch Club perfectly captured the nostalgia and charm of the 8-bit era with their first outing. Listening to the amazing retro soundtrack and seeing the beautiful pixel art gave me pure serotonin. Im usually not sold on these types of 8-bit era throwback games, because they are usually all style no substance, but shovel knight does it right and then some. I also appreciated the simple but effective story. Seeing shield knight sit beside shovel knight and then seeing ''THE END'' text gave me goose bumps:
𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗚𝗨𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗦: Great expansion to shovel of hope and the story is charming as always. Compared to other expansion Plague knight doesnt have his own levels, instead he plays through a slightly altered versions of shovel knights stages and it works surprisingly well. They are a blast to playthrough with plagues knights new bomb burst move. Since the levels werent designed to counteract this mechanic, you can fly through stages if you know what you are doing and it is amazing. I also loved how you can make your own flasks by combining different cases, powders etc. Even though this is the least innovative out of all the expansions it is also the most underrated in my opinion. I would recommend you play this right after shovel of hope since this acts more of a expanded game to that.
𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧: Oh boy here it is, the most innovative, the most unique and most importantly my favorite of them all. It expands on the original more than plague of shadows ever dared. What we have here is fully original levels designed around brand new mechanics. Specter knight has a taller stature compred to others and occupies a lot of space in the screen but his stature only adds to his power fantasy while not hindering his controls. It just feels so smooth to control with him seemlessly dashing around and wall jumping like its nothing. Your arsenal is more entriquet than ever, you can hover, heal yourself, summon skeletons, you can even slow down time. Its honestly the best in terms of gameplay and its not even a challenge. The only actual kinda downgrade i could point out here is that you have lots of options in terms how you approach fighting enemies and almost all of these options are overpowered in some shape or form. The bosses are a cakewalk because of this and even without all these options, specter knights base kit still demolishes them. The reason i wouldnt consider this a total downside because you get to play as the grimm reaper himself demolishing foes seemlessly and the power fantasy you experience is enough to justify it. The story takes a shift from plague of shadows and shovel of hopes more happy and non serious tone while still having moments that made outright laugh. The games shows you little snipets of how specter knight turned out the way he is. Blinded by greed, he killed his best friend and himself and made a deal with the enchantress in the past to return his humanity back. In the end, in a final act of selflessness he returns the humanity of his best friend's son instead of himself and lives as a slave to the enchantress. Brand new levels, brand new mechanics, and a tragic story to boot. This is game is truly amazing
𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗦: I have not much to say on this. Its again a great expansion but coming from the greatness of specter of torment, this felt a bit underwhelming. My biggiest complaint here is the bite size approach to levels. All of them are original and there are lots of them also but all of them are pretty short and feel like they dont contribute to anything. There arent even any bosses at the end of levels. You instead encounter bosses in the overworld which is fine i guess. In terms of mechanics, king knight is a character defined by his limitations more than anything. He has one shoulder bash move and everything is built around that mechanic. It never got too creative with how the levels utilise the shoulder bash but simply bashing into enemies and spinning right afterwards to bounce on stuff constantly is a addicting enough gameplay loop. I never tried out the card game so i cant comment on that. This is a innovative enough expansion with some solid levels to boot but it was obvious from the start that it was never gonna reach the high bar specter of torment set up. My least favorite expansion of them all. Doesnt mean its bad though.
𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗟: Playing these 4 games in the order of SOT > KOC > POS > SOH and experiencing the full story of shovel knight start to finish. Seeing the special message you get after finishing all the expansions. I can safely say the combined experience of shovel knight is one of the greatest 2D platformers ever, up there with the likes of hollow knight and ori. Yatch club truly knocked it out off the park and marked themselves as one of the greats in the video game industry. I truly love this game
𝓢𝓣𝓔𝓔𝓛 𝓣𝓗𝓨 𝓢𝓗𝓞𝓥𝓔𝓛!
𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗚𝗨𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗦: Great expansion to shovel of hope and the story is charming as always. Compared to other expansion Plague knight doesnt have his own levels, instead he plays through a slightly altered versions of shovel knights stages and it works surprisingly well. They are a blast to playthrough with plagues knights new bomb burst move. Since the levels werent designed to counteract this mechanic, you can fly through stages if you know what you are doing and it is amazing. I also loved how you can make your own flasks by combining different cases, powders etc. Even though this is the least innovative out of all the expansions it is also the most underrated in my opinion. I would recommend you play this right after shovel of hope since this acts more of a expanded game to that.
𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧: Oh boy here it is, the most innovative, the most unique and most importantly my favorite of them all. It expands on the original more than plague of shadows ever dared. What we have here is fully original levels designed around brand new mechanics. Specter knight has a taller stature compred to others and occupies a lot of space in the screen but his stature only adds to his power fantasy while not hindering his controls. It just feels so smooth to control with him seemlessly dashing around and wall jumping like its nothing. Your arsenal is more entriquet than ever, you can hover, heal yourself, summon skeletons, you can even slow down time. Its honestly the best in terms of gameplay and its not even a challenge. The only actual kinda downgrade i could point out here is that you have lots of options in terms how you approach fighting enemies and almost all of these options are overpowered in some shape or form. The bosses are a cakewalk because of this and even without all these options, specter knights base kit still demolishes them. The reason i wouldnt consider this a total downside because you get to play as the grimm reaper himself demolishing foes seemlessly and the power fantasy you experience is enough to justify it. The story takes a shift from plague of shadows and shovel of hopes more happy and non serious tone while still having moments that made outright laugh. The games shows you little snipets of how specter knight turned out the way he is. Blinded by greed, he killed his best friend and himself and made a deal with the enchantress in the past to return his humanity back. In the end, in a final act of selflessness he returns the humanity of his best friend's son instead of himself and lives as a slave to the enchantress. Brand new levels, brand new mechanics, and a tragic story to boot. This is game is truly amazing
𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗦: I have not much to say on this. Its again a great expansion but coming from the greatness of specter of torment, this felt a bit underwhelming. My biggiest complaint here is the bite size approach to levels. All of them are original and there are lots of them also but all of them are pretty short and feel like they dont contribute to anything. There arent even any bosses at the end of levels. You instead encounter bosses in the overworld which is fine i guess. In terms of mechanics, king knight is a character defined by his limitations more than anything. He has one shoulder bash move and everything is built around that mechanic. It never got too creative with how the levels utilise the shoulder bash but simply bashing into enemies and spinning right afterwards to bounce on stuff constantly is a addicting enough gameplay loop. I never tried out the card game so i cant comment on that. This is a innovative enough expansion with some solid levels to boot but it was obvious from the start that it was never gonna reach the high bar specter of torment set up. My least favorite expansion of them all. Doesnt mean its bad though.
𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗟: Playing these 4 games in the order of SOT > KOC > POS > SOH and experiencing the full story of shovel knight start to finish. Seeing the special message you get after finishing all the expansions. I can safely say the combined experience of shovel knight is one of the greatest 2D platformers ever, up there with the likes of hollow knight and ori. Yatch club truly knocked it out off the park and marked themselves as one of the greats in the video game industry. I truly love this game
𝓢𝓣𝓔𝓔𝓛 𝓣𝓗𝓨 𝓢𝓗𝓞𝓥𝓔𝓛!
It's hard for me to know whether to treat the four games enclosed in this package as separate works or individual pieces of a grander whole, as the reality feels somewhere halfway between those two extremes. They each largely work as their own self-contained entries, but also reflect on one another, reuse systems and content, and in one case outright reuse levels.
Broadly the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove collection is a very solid package. Most notably I love the aesthetic, visually the game harkens back to the NES capturing that 8-bit graphical style but beautifying it substantially. Similarly the music bops along like the best Mega Man tracks, though perhaps struggles to be as consistently engaging by the time you're hearing all these tracks fourth time round. This kind of speaks to an issue I have with this package in general which is that for me it struggled at points to maintain itself for the 20+ hour playtime involved in completing all four games; playing the whole collection at once now is likely a very different experience to playing one entry every couple years as they were made.
The gameplay can be more of a mixed bag, though is generally really solid. The boss fights are a highlight, and the game has a lot of creativity constantly throwing new ideas at you. I'm not really in love with how many challenges ultimately just boil down to there being insta-death surfaces, nor the extent to which enemies can sometimes only be threatening due to their ability to chip-shot you down into the abyss (this is by far at its worst with Plague Knight where many deaths just feel cheap).
I think the original Shovel Knight experience stands out as the strongest entry due to being the most balanced, and also thanks to its very charming writing. Whilst Plague of Shadows continues this charm it struggles along as the weakest entry due to Plague Knight's awkward movement, the over-complicated bomb-design options and the recycled level designs; if the writing wasn't so good the game would have fallen completely flat for me.
Specter of Torment and King of Cards both suffer a bit from feeling unbalanced; all the special abilities you can get being optional means the game can't really be designed with them in mind, so a handful of them just break the game in half and trivialise a lot of the challenges. That said these two games feature the most satisfying movement of this collection. I particularly love how King Knight's movement patterns turn getting from A to B into its own little puzzle at times and think King of Cards actually has the strongest platforming to be found here (sadly brought down by the weakest writing, and the thankfully-largely-optional card game Joustus being not-very-good).
If I was to rate each entry separately it would look something like;
Shovel Knight; 8/10
Plague of Shadows; 6/10
Specter of Torment; 7/10
King of Cards; 7/10
Broadly the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove collection is a very solid package. Most notably I love the aesthetic, visually the game harkens back to the NES capturing that 8-bit graphical style but beautifying it substantially. Similarly the music bops along like the best Mega Man tracks, though perhaps struggles to be as consistently engaging by the time you're hearing all these tracks fourth time round. This kind of speaks to an issue I have with this package in general which is that for me it struggled at points to maintain itself for the 20+ hour playtime involved in completing all four games; playing the whole collection at once now is likely a very different experience to playing one entry every couple years as they were made.
The gameplay can be more of a mixed bag, though is generally really solid. The boss fights are a highlight, and the game has a lot of creativity constantly throwing new ideas at you. I'm not really in love with how many challenges ultimately just boil down to there being insta-death surfaces, nor the extent to which enemies can sometimes only be threatening due to their ability to chip-shot you down into the abyss (this is by far at its worst with Plague Knight where many deaths just feel cheap).
I think the original Shovel Knight experience stands out as the strongest entry due to being the most balanced, and also thanks to its very charming writing. Whilst Plague of Shadows continues this charm it struggles along as the weakest entry due to Plague Knight's awkward movement, the over-complicated bomb-design options and the recycled level designs; if the writing wasn't so good the game would have fallen completely flat for me.
Specter of Torment and King of Cards both suffer a bit from feeling unbalanced; all the special abilities you can get being optional means the game can't really be designed with them in mind, so a handful of them just break the game in half and trivialise a lot of the challenges. That said these two games feature the most satisfying movement of this collection. I particularly love how King Knight's movement patterns turn getting from A to B into its own little puzzle at times and think King of Cards actually has the strongest platforming to be found here (sadly brought down by the weakest writing, and the thankfully-largely-optional card game Joustus being not-very-good).
If I was to rate each entry separately it would look something like;
Shovel Knight; 8/10
Plague of Shadows; 6/10
Specter of Torment; 7/10
King of Cards; 7/10
This is probably the only 8-bit Indie game I'll ever get into. I really enjoyed everything about this game, from the challenging platforming, music, and story, everything about this game slaps!
I’d give it a 6 stars if I could. I couldn’t put this game down. Lovely experience, I’m looking forward to revisiting in the future to explore all of the bonus content.
My dad watched me play this for like 30 minutes and when he finished he was like "shovel knight... what a silly concept!"
Some of the best platformers of all time (and plague knight), its a must-buy for its quality. There are 4 total campaigns and a little fighting game in it.
Bonzão, não tem muito o que dizer...