While far from the first big hit indie, it can’t be understated the wave of attention that Shovel Knight brought about. There of course was the massively successful Kickstarter, but there’s a noticeable love and passion for platformers from older consoles. It’s crazy to think looking back that Shovel Knight released all the way back in 2014, and even though it was still an amazing game, we wouldn’t see the final form of this game until half a decade later with the release of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. This version of course incorporating all 4 of the major campaigns, the original Shovel of Hope, and the bonus Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment, and King of Cards. I first played Shovel Knight probably around early 2015, before any of the game’s additional campaigns were released, as I got it on my 3DS. Since I bought it early, that meant that I got all of the additional campaigns completely free. So every time one came out, I played them. I last played Shovel Knight sometime in 2019, around the time that the King of Cards campaign released, and I haven’t played since. So now that it’s been approximately 4 years since then, and I’m fundamentally a different person, I thought it would be a good time to revisit this game, and see what my thoughts are on it now.
Of course, since this is Shovel Knight, it makes sense to first examine Shovel of Hope. The Shovel of Hope campaign, as obvious as it is, is where you play as Shovel Knight. The best way I can describe is is that Shovel Knight, gameplay and movement-wise is the most ‘normal’ of the 4 playable characters. I really love how the game actively uses the idea of a Shovel as a main weapon extremely well. Being able to dig up treasure or soft dirt. Easily the best part of Shovel Knight’s basic abilities in the pogo. Being able to point your shovel down, and bounce off enemies or certain blocks allows for really fun movement. While this is fun in and of its own, Shovel Knight can find relics in levels that add to his list of options. Fishing for treasure in levels, shooting balls of fire, propelling yourself forward in the air with a dagger, Shovel Knight has a lot of options. Shovel Knight has some ridiculous versatility that allows him to move in practically any direction you want him to. This is not to ignore the upgrades you can get, either to your armor, or your shovel that can change how difficult levels can be. And another great thing about it all is that all of these are completely option, you can choose not to take any of these upgrades. I remember when I was younger trying to do a no-upgrade run, and while I remember being able to do it, it was extremely difficult.
The levels of Shovel of Hope are also great. A good handful of them are quite difficult, though those mostly consist of the game’s later levels. Though the game is really forgiving. Instead of having a lives system, whenever you die, you lose gold instead of losing a life. Which for a game such as Shovel Knight, where you will probably die a couple times on your first playthrough, is rather forgiving. But yet again, this is where Shovel Knight shines in how it designs its levels. Aside from 2 levels particularly, you can destroy every single checkpoint, giving you a reward of gold, though of course meaning you cant use that checkpoint for the remainder of the level. Shovel Knight has options for so many distinct ways to go through each level, which is so nice. I also enjoyed replaying each level in search of all of the major collectibles found in each level, I had a goal to go for 100% item completion for every campaign, so I had to replay a good number of levels.
The bosses of Shovel Knight are great as well. Though you don’t get much time with them, you get a real sense of the character of each member of the Order of No Quarter. Their personalities are perfectly integrated into the attacks they throw against you. Though it’s probably long forgotten muscle memory, very few of the bosses were actually challenging, as I could beat almost all of them on the first try. Another big positive I want to give to Shovel Knight is that it’s a game that makes me excited for Boss Rushes, as it does the one thing I wish other boss rushes did. That simply being, giving you a way to heal between fights. I also really love the roaming bosses that can appear, I might be wrong, but I remember hearing they were Kickstarter Rewards. Though ultimately a blip in the entire time of the Shovel of Hope campaign, they’re really nice to be there. I will say though, one particular aspect of certain bosses that made me like them less was the inclusion of death pits in them. For a game with challenging boss fights such as this, death pits at times feel like a form of artificial difficulty, and at least to me, don’t really feel fair.
The Shovel of Hope campaign is where all of Shovel Knight started, and it started at an amazing point. If this is all that there was, Shovel Knight would still be an amazing game. But this is only a quarter of what all of the Treasure Trove offers. And I’ll admit, I’m partially biased here somewhat. I am a sucker for a game featuring multiple playable characters. Allowing for different options in which characters I can play as is really fun, and full campaigns centered around these characters is just icing on the cake.
Plague of Shadows is probably the campaign I’m most conflicted about. It has some absolutely amazing aspects to it, but some unfortunate aspects as well. Though that’s in part to it being the first additional campaign to be released. What I mean by this is that where Plague of Shadows suffers most is its levels. The levels in Plague of Shadows are practically the same as Shovel of Hope’s, though with some including new sections. As you’d expect, since I went for 100% Item Completion, I had to play a number of these levels more than once, to find all of the collectibles within in each stage. I will also admit, some of the bosses are ridiculously easy when you play as Plague Knight. To me at least, a lot of the bosses are more accustomed to Shovel Knight’s movement, and not necessarily Plague Knight.
Though those are the weak aspects of Plague of Shadows, I can’t help but admit I really love this campaign. It probably has my favorite cast, and I love the duo of Plague Knight and Mona. But easily my favorite aspect of Plague of Shadows is easily Plague Knight himself. He’s probably the weirdest of the four playable characters, but that’s why I love playing as him. His main attack is throwing bombs, but you can also charge up an explosive bomb jump, and leap into the air. Those are your main methods of attacking through the game, but there’s an enormous list of ways you can customize it. There’s main three ways you can adjust the bombs themselves, Casing, Powder, and Fuses. Casing impacts trajectory, Fuses impact when they explode, and Powder can determine how a bomb explodes, and how many bombs Plague Knight can throw at a time. You can also adjust what occurs when you do a bomb jump, though I always default to the Float option, as I feel it’s the best for utility. Much like Shovel Knight’s relics, Plague Knight has Arcana, which gives him optional abilities to adapt to the situation. There’s a selection of tonics that can give Plague Knight status effects, a fishing bomb, and my personal favorite, the Vat, which works as a temporary platform. Plague Knight has so much weird to him, but once you get an understanding of how he plays, he becomes really fun to play.
It's really tough to say but Specter of Torment may be my favorite campaign of the four total. It’s really unique in a lot of ways compared to the other 3 campaigns, but I think what makes it my favorite overall is the story. While Plague Knight is my favorite character to play as, Specter Knight is my favorite character story wise. Learning the truth of how he got to the point his is is amazing, and reconstructs everything that was once believed about him. One of the big things about Specter of Torment that’s unique compared to the other campaigns is the lack of a world map. You travel to each level at a portal located in a central hub, and you have complete freedom to choose the order of the levels you go through. This level of freedom is really nice, I feel. As well, I really enjoyed exploring Specter of Torment’s hub, especially as it let me get attached to a number of characters I wouldn’t have otherwise. One thing I will say, Specter of Torment would’ve been the shortest of the 4 campaigns if I didn’t try a certain platforming challenge. It took me an hour to beat, but I’m really glad I took the time in order to do so.
Specter Knight probably has the sickest movement of any of the playable characters. His main idea is dash attacks, as whenever he’s in the air, he dashes towards an enemy in the closest diagonal direction. While this is absolutely fun for combat, it’s incorporating into platforming amazingly. It’s also well combined in another major aspect of Specter Knight’s movement, which is wallrunning. He’s able to run up a wall, and jump off to walls around him, which is really fun to pull off. Akin to Relics and Arcana, Specter Knight has his own set of items he can use, those being Curios. I think of the four campaigns, Specter Knight’s curios were the ones I used the most, though that’s because there’s an easy best item for me. Specifically, there’s one that just heals you, so why not use it? I feel like Specter Knight definitely has a difficulty ceiling when it comes to learning his moveset. He’s easy to play, but hard to master, since I played that platforming challenge, I had to learn to master his moveset in order to clear it.
On top of it all as well, I also really love Specter of Torment’s levels. I don’t know how exactly to describe it, but I love the aesthetic shift they gave to Specter of Torment. Something about the noticeably darker colors used is really pleasing to the eye. The use of colors is also really well done too, for moments where Specter Knight is reminiscing, the screen is a completely Sepia, which is amazing to look at. When combined with Specter Knight’s movements, the levels and platforming you have to do is really fun. Much like Plague of Shadows, a good number of the bosses in Specter of Torment tended to be rather easy. Though at the same time, a good number of bosses were remixed, and altered to feel like completely new bosses, even if you attack them the same ways. In turn, some of the bosses that were initially easy back in Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows are noticeably more challenging in Specter of Torment. Though with that in mind, I feel like the Final Boss of Specter of Torment was by far the easiest of the 4 campaigns, which is just sort of unfortunate. Even though, the list of bosses in Specter of Torment are amazing.
King of Cards was the final campaign released, and It’s by far the longest of the 4 major campaigns. Though, yet again, that’s because I focused on getting 100% completion, so while most campaigns took between 4-5 hours, this one took me almost 10 hours total. King of Cards brings back a world map, but levels are now short bursts, instead of long levels with multiple checkpoints. It’s honestly really refreshing to see it after the past 3 campaigns, and there’s good reason to replay them too. Many levels feature secret exits can lead to different levels, and each major level has 3 collectibles to collect. There’s also some random boss fights that you can encounter through the map, which provide really fun challenges. I’ll save boss fights for later though, as I have, well, thoughts.
King Knight is an amazing character to play as, and I love that it’s a basically balance between Dashing and Bouncing. King Knight’s main attack is a dash, but if he collides with an enemy, destructible objects, or most walls, he’ll begin to bounce. Bouncing is then his second form of attack, and as long as he bounces on a destructible object or an enemy, he’ll keep bouncing. Chaining bounces feels really good to do, especially when its on destructible objects, and gold continues to pop out. As well, after King Knight bounces off of something once, you can go into another dash. King Knight is similar to Specter Knight in this regard I feel. He’s a character whose abilities make him really easy to play, but it’s hard to master him. King Knight’s versions of Relics/Arcana/Curios are Heirlooms, and they’re probably the ones I used the least. I mainly used the Scorching Saber to get some upward elevation, but aside from that I rarely needed to use them. I think that’s because King Knight’s normal movement is already so good, I never needed them. I think a thing I’m rather uncertain about with King Knight is the fact that he fundamentally has less health in comparison to both Specter and Shovel Knight. While he has a similar amount of hearts, he doesn’t have half-hearts, so when he takes damage, a full heart goes away. Though this is balanced out by the fact that if he damages an enemy enough, they spawn a heart for him to gain health. It’s most conflicting when going into multi-stage boss fights, as that means that bosses have noticeably more health than you.
What makes King of Cards unique is the Playing Card Mini-Game the appears throughout the game, Joustus. I beat every single Joustus opponent, and I’ll be honest, I don’t fully comprehend how Joustus works. The main idea of Joustus is to push cards onto gem tiles. Cards cannot be placed on Gem Tiles, and you can only push cards with other cards, depending on which direction the arrows on the cards your placing point at. The game ends when all of the tiles on the board are filled, and the player with the most gem tiles wins. While that is the main idea of Joustus, there’s a large collection of additional mechanics that I don’t fully understand. For a lot of Joustus games, I just sort of lucked out and won. And for a lot of others, I struggled. But what makes things nice is that King of Cards is forgiving for those who aren’t good at games such as this, giving you optional cheats you can buy and use. While I don’t fully understand how exactly Joustus works, I find it really charming.
Now, a good number of bosses in King of Cards are similar to the ones that appear in Specter of Torment. Though one thing that I adore is the fact that the major story-focused boss fights are unique to King of Cards. Much like Specter of Torment though, they’re not really too much of a challenge, but that leads me into what I feel is personally my least favorite boss in the entire game. That particularly is the final boss of the King of Cards campaign. It goes back to a point I mentioned a good while ago in this review, which are the death pits. It’s a boss where it can just create death pits that never go away, and its second phase is a full death pit, with only 2 moving platforms. I really wish they used a portal mechanic that appeared a few levels prior, as the boss itself is really challenging, but the death pits feel unnecessary. The boss never killed me by bringing me to 0 health, it was always the death pits that killed me, which I feel is simply a bad design choice.
Though after all of this, I still loved my time playing through all of Shovel Knight. Getting 100% item completion in every single campaign was a fun challenge to go for, and I really feel like I learned a lot about each of the playable characters because of it. It’s a monument for a game to succeed as well as Shovel Knight, and be as good as it is. There’s stuff I haven’t even mentioned before, like the fighting game mode that the game has, all the secret codes, and the numerous achievements that you can try to get. I’m not sure if I’d every try to do every single thing this game has to offer, but I have no doubt in saying that I’ll easily replay Shovel Knight over and over again. It’s a game really deserving of its fame.

From best to worst:
King of Cards
Shovel of Hope
Specter of Torment
Plague of Shadows

King of Cards is so unbelievably good. If I wasn't grading the entire package it'd get a 10 by itself.

shovel of hope: peak
plague of shadows: peak mid
specter of torment: we are so fucking back
king of cards: it's so fucking joever
showdown: i forgot this happened

Shovel Knight is without any doubts one of the best games I have ever played. A perfect recreation of the style of all-time classics while also being an extremely fresh experience that stands out with its uniqueness. The level design is incredible, and while it's certainly challenging, it never feels unfair. The boss fights are iconic and serve as perfect culminations of what their stages have built up with their mechanics. And that's just Shovel of Hope! The extra campaigns have amazing stories, incredibly fun new gameplay mechanics that make each experience stand out and even stand on par with the first one, to the point where it's genuinely fair to choose any of them as your favorite (mine is Plague of Shadows btw). And of course you can't talk about Shovel Knight without singing the praises of the soundtrack, Jake Kaufman COOKED with this holy shit. What a fantastic game.