Among the first wave of truly incredible indie games from the 2010s. Absolutely surpasses the vast majority of NES platformers it is inspired by and ended up inspiring even more great games after it. All the character DLCs are brilliant, they play completely separately and tell entirely different stories; Shovel Knight is the archetypal hero story with a few clever twists, Plague has a romantic comedy, Spectre is a tragedy and King is a hilarious buddy adventure.

This was the first indie game I think I played, other than Minecraft of course. So obviously I love it.