Super Review: Shovel Knight
Easily the best Kickstarter game I’ve played so far and a strong contender for game of the year, Shovel Knight is a live example of what every action video game should aspire to be. Thank you, Jacht Club Games!
Yacht Club Games is a new indie developer formed by ex-members of various studios, among them WayForward, the former home of Sean Velasco, the director of Shovel Knight.
Shovel Knight is a game that walks the fine line between nostalgia and originality. It has elements taken straight out of other NES era classics like Ducktales and Super Mario Bros. 3, but it adds enough panache to its proceedings that it stands out above the rest and at the same time pays tribute to the games it borrows from
The game’s graphics are intentionally made to emulate that 8-bit old school look, but there are some effects which look way more polished thanks to us being in the year 20XX. To begin explaining why I like it so much, perhaps I should tell the story of how I got the game in the first place.
Shovel Knight was launched on june 26th for PC, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, but at the time I was traveling in Vietnam with no way to play it due to not having Windows installed in my Mac, so I decided to contact the game’s developers on Kickstarter to see if I could exchange my unused Steam key for a 3DS code.
To my surprise, the team actually said it was ok and they gave me a key to download the game on my 3DS! The problem now is that the internet at my hostel in Saigon wasn’t really good and downloading the game would be impossible. It wasn’t till August 1st, almost a week after getting back to Switzerland, that I was finally able to get the game and see what all the internet was fuzzing about for a month.
It was epic. The game brought me back to a lot of childhood memories, but at the same time it hooked me with its story about the title character and his comrade-in-arms, Shield Knight. For a simple and predictable story, the ending was very good and there were a few cool plot twists that I hope will get used if there’s ever a sequel.
Speaking about the game itself, it’s a platformer with the best learning curve I can remember. If you want to speedrun the game you can do it in less than an hour, but you’d be missing some of the more interesting aspects as well as skipping the hardest parts of levels to get those valuable relics.
My favorite level is probably Propeller Knight’s cruise ship, simply because by then I had a very clear understanding of the game rules and every good jump felt like a true accomplishment. It felt good.
Jake Kaufman composed the music for the game, which also features two original songs by Manami Matsumae, the composer from the very first Mega Man game.
The developer’s fashion for this game also transpires to the soundtrack, which is pretty good from start to finish. From the first level in the plains, with the ominous tower in the background, I felt like I was embarking on an epic quest with a purpose, my goal clear as the luster in my shovel. Almost every jam in this joint is a gem, but for my money the best of all is the one that plays when Shovel Knight enters a dream at the end of certain battles and he must catch a falling Shield Knight as you fight enemies on the ground.
It makes me feel melancholic and it works exceptionally well with the game’s plot.
Now that I’ve installed Windows on my computer, I can say without a doubt that the definitive version is the one on 3DS, simply because the game has Streetpass and the game controls seem specifically made with a Nintendo console in mind.
In short, Shovel Knight is the kind of game that plays all the right strings when it comes to style and game mechanics. Perhaps my only qualm is that it is a very brief adventure, just like the games it honors. Luckily, the Kickstarter campaign managed to reach all its stretch goals and it’s only a matter of time before the DLC fleshes out the story a bit more.
I hope a sequel is on the way at some point, but the key point here is that now I know I can expect great things from Jacht Club Games.
Super Riviú is a film, video game and comics review column. It’s purely subjective and full of weird opinions about the stuff I like. For more reviews, check out the archive.
