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