Shovel Knight Review

Shovel Knight is a pixel side-scrolling action game — my favorite genre, pixel art excluded. The Chinese name for it is “铲子骑士” (Shovel Knight), which says it all: the hero fights with a shovel. Your attacks include the standard swing, a jump-and-down-thrust with the shovel, and a bunch of other fun moves.

So why play this instead of the so-called big titles? Because they’re not fun — to me, anyway. These days, what they call AAA games keep chasing “immersion” and “cinematic experiences,” and what that actually delivers is a whole lot of boring, monotonous combat hidden behind some story. There are always people who mock me: “You keep playing those Gal games where you can’t even hit anyone, just endless yapping — how is that even a game?” But honestly, strip away the graphics, the story, and the cutscenes from most AAA titles on the market, and the combat and gameplay itself isn’t fun at all. I’d say it’s worse than games from 10 years ago — at least those didn’t have all the yapping and cutscenes, or those god-awful “tutorial guides,” or the endless grind like walking a dog. Oh, sure, some hardcore gamer will tell you that XXX big title shows you such and such a great story and scenery, with grand exploration and blah blah blah.

If I want to see grand scenery, why not just watch a movie? If I want a great story, why not go back and play a Gal game? Sure, simulation games have benefited from better graphics and gotten a huge boost in experience, and I’ve seen plenty of talented studios that still know what they’re doing — there just aren’t nearly enough of those great games.

The visual progress in games over the years is obvious, but it’s just progress, not a breakthrough. Game design is still the same old thing: shooters still shoot, climbers still climb, dodgers still dodge. And even more stupidly, we get boring QWE-style mechanics. When I force myself through a game and realize that underneath it’s just a rehash of something I played in middle school, disappointment swallows me whole.

What’s funnier is that the same people who mock Gal players for “playing something with no gameplay, just story” turn around and discuss AAA games in terms of story and plot. That logic is laughable — it’s like Galgame players sitting around discussing choice branches.

Oh, and don’t get me started on games with endless random quests and infinite grinding. More boring than World of Warcraft. I genuinely can’t understand why anyone would want to sink into that.

I’ve gone off track. Let me get back to the original question: “Why play this game?”

Because it’s fun. That’s it.

Shovel Knight was originally a crowdfunding project. The creator is probably a side-scrolling action fan like me, so I keep spotting familiar elements everywhere: breaking bricks and boxes with the shovel, attacking upward off enemies’ heads, collecting relics to unlock magic abilities, trading and stat upgrades in town, different equipment enhancing special abilities, and so on.

When you customize your character, the game doesn’t give you mindless stat boosts — it forces trade-offs. The different armors each have their uses, and getting relics isn’t simple either: you need to find specific NPCs in specific stages on specific maps to trade for them. Oh, and the way relics work is similar to the Castlevania series — or rather, the Scythe Knight in this game is basically Death from Castlevania.

The game is packed with hidden content. If you’re a completionist, you might suffer — some gems and music sheets are obtained in ways that cost you more than they’re worth. As a “beat-the-main-story” player, I finished the main campaign and found I’d only cleared about 20% of the content, which shows how much more there is to dig into.

The difficulty is average — genuinely average. Honestly, it’s quite a bit easier than Ori and the Blind Forest. Checkpoints are dense, death only costs you money rather than some limited resource, and you can pick up the money you dropped after respawning. Many level elements, including timed parkour sections and boss fights, aren’t even in the same league as Ori — I mean, Ori is harder. Though I don’t think Ori is particularly hard either.

There is a story: Shovel Knight sets out to save Shield Knight, meeting various former comrades along the way — Scythe Knight, Tinker Knight, and all sorts of other Knights — who are all controlled by an evil witch. Our hero breaks through and confronts the witch, only to discover the witch is actually Shield Knight corrupted by evil. After a fight, Shield Knight is saved, and the final boss, the source of the witch, is destroyed. Shield Knight is badly hurt saving the protagonist, but the two end up together anyway.

After clearing the game, you unlock Plague Knight’s combat scenario. Honestly, he’s not fun to play. He’s a ranged caster, but the controls are incredibly awkward, and the combat route is just a rerun with a new character.

Shield Knight is a very good game: simple, interesting, fun, easy to pick up. It also rekindled my enthusiasm for action games. Maybe I should speed up my plan to buy Mario Maker.