I started playing this on the 3DS and then I just kinda forgot about it!

It was neat from what I got to play. I am planning on picking it up again but uuuh...It's not my priority right now I guess.

Shovel/10. Needs more grass.

Beating this game around 2015 as a kid who dabbled with games like Castlevania III and Mega Man 2 on the Wii felt like I was finally able to get the challenge those games presented. Although nowadays I’d say this is possibly the second worst game out of all the Shovel Knight games that come with it for free now (second worst out of a collection of games I find very enjoyable), it’s a very good starting point to appreciate the games as going from “this is a unique spin on things I’ve seen in different NES games” to it’s own thing that feels fun and so refreshing that this game feels stiff which says a lot yet I can still go back to it and have fun

Retro-revivalism is no easy gambit. Look at a team like Playtonic. I genuinely find a lot to love in their games, but the Yooka-Laylee brand of revivalism is fundamentally limited. That first game is just too familiar. It takes very few strides to legitimately learn from what came before it, even finding new problems with bloat the original Banjo-Kazooie never had. The epitome of this is the quiz, a fine enough gag until you realise it's played straight. Including the least-liked level of the original game unchanged five times bares to the world Playtonic's refusal to learn lessons from its predecessors. Following on was Impossible Lair, a total delight, as good a Donkey Kong Country game as the Retro Studios reboots. So much like one of those. These are excellent modernisations of the classic DKC formula, but Playtonic hardly iterates on them. They're just doing the same kind of modernisation. The issue with Playtonic's current output is the lack of any real vision for retro-revivalism (or even just pastiche) other than extensions of classic games other people have already done. The few distinguishing features between Banjo-Kazooie and Yooka-Laylee, such as the sheer scale, are ideas borrowed from Tooie. I like their games (mainly just Impossible Lair), but on the whole, they have failed as revivalists. They have not made the old new.

This is all to say Yacht Club Games are in rarified air. As a work of throwback NES platforming, Shovel Knight is a master class. You can see sparks of Castlevania, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros and a billion other titles everywhere, but the summation is unique. They recognise what is aggravating about games of the era. They don't blindly include these, nor avoid them entirely. They work through them. Checkpoints are generous but don't remove the demanding execution. The moveset still uses a simplistic two-button layout but is its own, with tons of ability variation to accommodate a modern sensibility. Platforming is satisfyingly challenging as NES games were, but Shovel Knight moves with precision and consistency the original era never saw. Bossfights feel classic to the era but are far more complex and rich than 80s games could accommodate. The spirit is here, but the realities are far more modern than they may initially appear.

The ultimate test is this. If the retro-revival game came out in the context of its throwback, what would be said? If Yooka-Laylee had been released as Banjo 3 it would be seen as a disappointing sequel, failing to expand on its predecessor's ideas and strengths. If Shovel Knight had come out the year after Ninja Gaiden, it would be crowned the most impressive and complex platformer ever made, reaching levels of ambition and precision never before seen. But it wouldn't feel out of place. That's revivalism done right.

Except for the spikes. You can leave that shit in the basement.

Buying this for $15 back when it launched on Wii U only to get essentially 4 brand new games as free updates is still the single greatest value I've experienced in gaming. Not to mention Shovel Knight was the game that introduced me to indie games, an interest of mine that wouldn't really hit it's stride (for me) until the Switch era.

The complete package will set you back $40 now, but that's still an absolute steal!

(PS: King of Cards is the best)

I never really got the hype behind Shovel Knight. Maybe it's because I first played it in an era where indie pixel platformers were a dime a dozen, but there was never anything about it that really stood out to me compared to its 2D platforming contemporaries.

That said, it does have some neat ideas, and while I don't think they were utilized to the fullest until later expansions, I have to appreciate how it laid the groundwork. And of course, I certainly respect what it did for indie games and for the industry as a whole.