The Shovel Knight-palooza continues, but on a new console! My hands were really starting to cramp after so many hours holding the NEW 3DS XL, so decided to spring for a Switch copy of Shovel Knight to give my back and hands a rest from using the 3DS so much ^^;. It's been a little under 2 years since I last played Plague of Shadows, so it's way fresher in my mind than Shovel of Hope was. That said, it was still surprising just how much about it I'd forgotten. It took me a little over 5 hours to beat the game on normal mode and getting all the collectibles.
This is not a prequel, but an alternate story telling what Plague Knight was doing in the meanwhile of Shovel Knight's quest to rescue the kingdom from the Enchantress. He wants to brew a potion of ultimate power, and to do that he needs to steal the essence of all of his "friends" in the Order of No Quarter. Plague Knight is a really eccentric character compared to someone a bit more muted like Shovel Knight, and the wacky way he views the world and interacts with people is a fun window with which to view this sideways glance into the world of Shovel Knight. Out of all the expansions, I'd say this one has the strongest writing, as Plague Knight's quest and what the actual ultimate goal is may not be the most original story in literature, but the way its told here is a really sweet counterpart to the bittersweet twist of the original Shovel Knight.
This being the first expansion of Shovel Knight's eventual three, Plague of Shadows exists in a weird middle ground of "new but not quite that new" content. Plague Knight himself plays radically differently to Shovel Knight. Where Shovel Knight is more about pogos and jumps and slashes, Plague Knight has no use for traveling along the ground. Just as his boss fight does in Shovel of Hope, Plague Knight has all sorts of bombs he can throw to attack. More than just attacking, however, he also can charge his main attack to do a detonation on himself that sends him flying for a ton of extra distance, and that's in addition to a small double jump. This new method of platforming takes a while to get used to and can be really daunting at first, but luckily one of the first power ups you can buy is something that gives your explosive burst jump less damage power but a slow hovering fall after instead of a hard drop to the ground.
You can get all sorts of sub weapons (which this time work on a recharging mana bar rather than Shovel Knight's meter bound by mana pickups) as well as tons of different blast jump effects, fuse timers, bomb types, and explosion effects. You can also hold R to quickly freeze time and toggle between these different main attack varieties. It can be a bit of a pain doing these toggles all the time to deal with different enemies, and it would've been really nice if you could've used the ZR and ZL buttons to toggle between presets or something. However, given this had to be a game that would work on the original 3DS (which lacked such buttons), the absence of such an option is understandable though unfortunate.
All that said, the main reason I think all of these different types of weapons are at your disposal and can be swapped between at any time are as much an addition of necessity as they were a creative design choice. Plague Knight for the most part (aside from a few optional side-stages) has almost no levels crafted specifically for him. He's going through all of Shovel Knight's stages from Shovel of Hope, but with some slight changes here and there to incorporate using Plague Knight's bomb jumps. Even the bosses are largely exactly the same with only a couple new additions (although with how different Plague Knight has to fight them, that is a pretty insignificant lack of change compared to the lack of new levels). Even the music is mostly reused from Shovel of Hope, or the remixes are very similar (they seemed largely exactly the same to me).
The lack of new stages isn't entirely bad, as I dread to think just how incredibly difficult custom-crafted stages would be if they really took advantage of just how much you can do with Plague Knight's platforming abilities, and they do feel quite different to go through given how different your mode of travel is. This is yet another aspect of Treasure Trove's earlier campaigns that look bad more in retrospect than in and of themselves simply due to how much more ambitious the later two expansions were.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. It may not have changed that much from Shovel of Hope, but that doesn't ultimately matter that much. Aside from just being a free bit of content in Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove in the first place, Plague Knight's new attacking and platforming abilities breathe new life into old stages and boss fights in a way that isn't immediately obvious when you look at how little has been changed on paper. It may not be my personal favorite out of the Treasure Trove, but it's still a fantastic 2D action platformer well worth your time.
This is not a prequel, but an alternate story telling what Plague Knight was doing in the meanwhile of Shovel Knight's quest to rescue the kingdom from the Enchantress. He wants to brew a potion of ultimate power, and to do that he needs to steal the essence of all of his "friends" in the Order of No Quarter. Plague Knight is a really eccentric character compared to someone a bit more muted like Shovel Knight, and the wacky way he views the world and interacts with people is a fun window with which to view this sideways glance into the world of Shovel Knight. Out of all the expansions, I'd say this one has the strongest writing, as Plague Knight's quest and what the actual ultimate goal is may not be the most original story in literature, but the way its told here is a really sweet counterpart to the bittersweet twist of the original Shovel Knight.
This being the first expansion of Shovel Knight's eventual three, Plague of Shadows exists in a weird middle ground of "new but not quite that new" content. Plague Knight himself plays radically differently to Shovel Knight. Where Shovel Knight is more about pogos and jumps and slashes, Plague Knight has no use for traveling along the ground. Just as his boss fight does in Shovel of Hope, Plague Knight has all sorts of bombs he can throw to attack. More than just attacking, however, he also can charge his main attack to do a detonation on himself that sends him flying for a ton of extra distance, and that's in addition to a small double jump. This new method of platforming takes a while to get used to and can be really daunting at first, but luckily one of the first power ups you can buy is something that gives your explosive burst jump less damage power but a slow hovering fall after instead of a hard drop to the ground.
You can get all sorts of sub weapons (which this time work on a recharging mana bar rather than Shovel Knight's meter bound by mana pickups) as well as tons of different blast jump effects, fuse timers, bomb types, and explosion effects. You can also hold R to quickly freeze time and toggle between these different main attack varieties. It can be a bit of a pain doing these toggles all the time to deal with different enemies, and it would've been really nice if you could've used the ZR and ZL buttons to toggle between presets or something. However, given this had to be a game that would work on the original 3DS (which lacked such buttons), the absence of such an option is understandable though unfortunate.
All that said, the main reason I think all of these different types of weapons are at your disposal and can be swapped between at any time are as much an addition of necessity as they were a creative design choice. Plague Knight for the most part (aside from a few optional side-stages) has almost no levels crafted specifically for him. He's going through all of Shovel Knight's stages from Shovel of Hope, but with some slight changes here and there to incorporate using Plague Knight's bomb jumps. Even the bosses are largely exactly the same with only a couple new additions (although with how different Plague Knight has to fight them, that is a pretty insignificant lack of change compared to the lack of new levels). Even the music is mostly reused from Shovel of Hope, or the remixes are very similar (they seemed largely exactly the same to me).
The lack of new stages isn't entirely bad, as I dread to think just how incredibly difficult custom-crafted stages would be if they really took advantage of just how much you can do with Plague Knight's platforming abilities, and they do feel quite different to go through given how different your mode of travel is. This is yet another aspect of Treasure Trove's earlier campaigns that look bad more in retrospect than in and of themselves simply due to how much more ambitious the later two expansions were.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. It may not have changed that much from Shovel of Hope, but that doesn't ultimately matter that much. Aside from just being a free bit of content in Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove in the first place, Plague Knight's new attacking and platforming abilities breathe new life into old stages and boss fights in a way that isn't immediately obvious when you look at how little has been changed on paper. It may not be my personal favorite out of the Treasure Trove, but it's still a fantastic 2D action platformer well worth your time.