This game is DENSE. I didn’t used to like Joustus, but it’s a genuinely well made card game, and optional if you wish to ignore it, but rewarding if you engage. I appreciate smaller stages from a collectible PoV because you’re not punished for missing something by replaying giant stages, and that’s huge. The WarioLand esque control scheme and relic selection are so fun here too, I found myself using the flame sword a ton. If I had to needle a flaw down, there’s a pretty severe grind. 50k for all of the cosmetics, which aren’t armor, necessary for the game to consider you fully upgraded is WILD. It’s cool to get, but you do need to grind. And trying to get every Joustus card is RNG, which also necessitates a grind. The story here is genuinely excellent as a prequel. While a comedy, it is a tragic one, as you see how widespread the impacts of King Knight’s folly and treachery are. A peaceful kingdom descends into one with a deposed king, Cooper goes from sailing around in the Glidewing to having a limp after being betrayed, the Troupple King is forced to hide, etc. Specter of Torment tells a personal tragedy, but King of Cards tells the tragedy that befalls the world, how the arrogance of a people’s champ spits in the face of them all, leading to the state of the world in Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows. And yet, this is a tragic comedy, filled with witty dialogue and ample opportunity to laugh at King Knight’s buffoonery. It’s fun to laugh at the misadventures of such a manchild, but that manchild’s mistakes fall on everyone, not only himself. It’s what makes the ending, where after losing the support of his mother, the only person besides himself King Knight can muster care for, the game ends right before Shovel Knight gives him his pummeling, so satisfying. We watch one manchild’s descent into villainy, dragging the world to squalor with him. And though we know he’ll be deposed, that makes such an ending all the more satisfying.