Life On The Grid

Early boss fights are not too challenging. This changes quickly.

Shovel Knight will bring back fond memories for anyone who has played NES games.  It’s part Duck Tales, part CastleVania, part Mario and part Mega Man featuring common tropes from all of these series and renders them all in a highly believable retro graphical style that is so convincing that if you were to boot it up and tell someone it was an old NES game, those unfamiliar with it would be hard pressed to tell you otherwise.  Shovel Knight tells the tale of the titular knight who wields a shovel instead of a sword and his lady friend, Shield Knight who is named that for the same reason.  They are warrior champions of their land until one day, something rather unfortunate happens to Shield Knight and Shovel Knight must travel the land to save her.

“New-old feel”

This involves travelling across a world map shockingly reminiscent of Super Mario Bros. 3 to visit a number of stages and then defeat each stages resident boss before being able to move on.  These stages are quite reminiscent of Mega Man in that you must complete various platforming challenges and mini bosses along the way to each area’s master.  And just like Mega Man, these challenges start off manageable enough but quite promptly and size-ably ramp up reaching quite maddening levels of difficulty in the levels towards the end.  The greatest challenges usually seemed to come from the platform negotiation in the levels rather than the bosses which are quite manageable if you have taken precautions before-hand.

The ‘story’ is told in classic 8-bit slideshow style

This combat is both simple to learn but hard to master as all games should be.  Shovel Knight’s shovel weapon allows both traditional swings to lamp enemies in the head as well as a downward plunge attack that can bounce off enemies and blocks a la Duck Tales’ Scrooge McDuck’s bouncing cane weapon.  This allows for multiple approaches of attack and when mixed in with other various weapons you can collect (referred to as relics) such as fireball spells and sliding fist attacks make for very interesting battles and different strategies.

“It’s Game Over for Game Over screens”

One major way it differs from actual 8-bit games is that you do not have a limited number of lives.  Death simply puts you back to the last checkpoint you hit and you drop 1/3 of the cash you had which can be recovered if you reach it again.  This means death is not entirely inconsequential but also removes the antiquated limited lives system and game over screen.  Again following in 8-bit game tradition, there are many things to do outside of the main levels such as shops to upgrade your powers and equipment, townsfolk to talk to, side-quests to partake in and optional side-bosses who wander the world map like the Hammer Bros. in Super Mario Bros. 3.  All of this provides plenty more to do should you want to carry on once the main campaign is finished.  There is also a New Game Plus that will ramp up the difficulty should you want more challenge.

The levels themselves quickly become more difficult than the bosses

In summary

From start to finish Shovel Knight oozes retro charm and it has clearly been crafted by those who had great love for the games of the NES era.  What they have created with this game is something truly special that should appeal to gamers of all ages but especially those with fond memories of days gone by.

Final Score: 4/5