Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove

Introduction

If you have never heard of this game, you may be asking yourself, what is Shovel Knight. Well, here’s a bit of background on the game. Basically, Shovel Knight was a kickstarter project created by Yacht Club Games, an indie video game company founded by the former WayForward Technologies Director, Sean Velasco, for a nostalgic game that looked, played, sounded and felt like an old NES game. Yacht Club’s kickstarter campaign was a huge success and the game we know as Shovel Knight was completed and made available to the public in 2014. It was also announced that there would be four DLC campaigns for the game and about a year later, Yacht Club came out with the first DLC campaign called Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows. Plague of Shadows follows one of the Boss characters from the main campaign, named Plague Knight, in an alternate adventure that takes place at the same time as the main campaign. The second campaign, which was released a few months ago, is called Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment, which is a prequel to the main campaign starring Spectre Knight. At the same time Spectre of Torment was released, there were changes to the actual game itself. Shovel Knight became Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove as all the campaigns were made available to be bought without having the main campaign. Treasure Trove collects all four campaigns in one. This update also gave the main Shovel Knight campaign a new name in the form of Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope.

Good now that we’ve got the history out of the way we can jump into the key factors that make this game so great. Design, story,  gameplay, and music.

Design:

The design of this game is perfect. The colors used in this game aren’t quite the same as the ones used in the NES color palette, but that doesn’t matter as this game is visually stunning. It feels epic and large, even though compared to newer games it is actually quite short, but it doesn’t feel that way. There are secret rooms, challenges, collectibles and oh so many things to do in this game, especially with the DLCs. Its replay value is also great too as each time you beat the game you can start over and make it harder for yourself with less checkpoints and less health restoration items. However, you can also increase the difficulty factor without beating the game by destroying checkpoints as you go through the levels. The DLCs have brilliant level designs too, my least favorite probably being Plague Knight’s DLC as it’s pretty much the same as Shovel Knight’s with a couple of new pitfalls added, Spectre Knight’s, however, is completely redesigned and is just as stunning if not more stunning than Shovel Knight’s.

Story:

Alright, so now I’m going to go through the story of Shovel Knight in chronological order. This also means that there are going to be HUGE spoilers, so if you want to save yourself from those spoilers skip to the gameplay section.

Shovel Knight and Shield Knight are two heroes that went on adventures together, and it’s very much implied that they’re lovers, but their travels ended at the Tower of Fate when Shovel Knight and Shield Knight came across two other adventurers, Donovan and Luan. Donovan and Luan are at the Tower of Fate because they are after an amulet that they believe will protect Luan’s son from the trouble that the boy might get into. Shovel Knight and Shield Knight, however, came to destroy the amulet as they knew it was cursed with a terrible evil. When the two parties stumble across each other, they clash and during the skirmish, the amulet releases a bit of magic, teleporting a knocked out Shovel Knight back to the entrance and making the floor collapse beneath Donovan, Shield Knight and Luan. Luan dies upon the impact of hitting the ground and as Donovan himself begins to fade, an evil woman known as The Enchantress offers him a deal. If he will find eight knights to form an order of no quarter, she will grant him new life. Donovan accepts the offer, becomes Spectre Knight, and finds seven knights. While struggling to find an eighth knight, Black Knight, Shovel Knight’s rival in literally every way you can conceive, comes to the Tower searching for Shield Knight and confronts Spectre Knight. During the confrontation, it is revealed that the amulet took Shield Knight and turned her into the Enchantress. Spectre Knight, in rage, goes after the Enchantress but fails in his attempt to kill her when she pulls out the hidden card of Luan’s son being under her power. Sacrificing himself to save Luan’s son. Spectre Knight becomes the eighth knight in the Enchantress’s order and destroys his chance of being anything more than wraith. He goes to the Lich Yard, a level in the game, and waits. Meanwhile, Shovel Knight has gone into solitude, grieving for his lost love, but after the Enchantress and her order become powerful, the gates of the Tower open once more and Shovel Knight embarks on an epic quest to destroy the order of no quarter and find Shield Knight. As Shovel Knight is on his adventure, Plague Knight is on his own quest to concoct a potion of unspeakable so that he can use it to win over the heart of his crush and lab assistant Mona. To make the potion he must collect the essence of each knight in the game as well a's the essence of the Enchantress.When he does Mona and Black Knight catch up to Plague Knight to tell him he doesn’t have to use the potion as Mona already loves him, however, their warning is too late. The power takes control and Plague Knight is forced to fight his darker self. As this is happening, Shovel Knight has now defeated each knight as well and has gone after the Enchantress, by the time Plague Knight has defeated his darker self Shield Knight has been freed and is now fighting the Enchantress’s final form by Shovel Knight’s side. Mona and Plague Knight, not knowing that Shield Knight and Shovel Knight are still inside, decide to blow up the tower. As the tower begins to fall apart around them, Shovel Knight is badly by the Enchantress and Shield Knight is left holding her off. Black Knight comes to their aid, except he’s a little too late. Shield Knight tells him to take Shovel Knight and go, Black Knight tries to argue and tell her they aren’t leaving without her but she doesn’t listen and says “I’m glad I got to see you both one last time.” Black Knight reluctantly leaves with Shovel Knight over his shoulder as the tower collapses behind them. Mona and Plague Knight go back to their base and dance, and all the other knights in the game have happy endings too. The final scene shows Black Knight setting Shovel Knight down by a campfire and telling him farewell. A few moments later, Shield Knight emerges from the shadows and cuddles up next to Shovel Knight for a good night's sleep.

The story of this game at first glance is a bit like Mario, but as you go on it becomes so much more than that. It becomes a tragedy, a romance, and a comedic adventure that is a bit deeper than you might think and the best part is, there’s still a quarter of it missing. Yes, that’s right there’s still one more DLC, one more adventure to add to this fun, epic story.

Gameplay:

This game is challenging to play, there’s no doubt about it. It can be fun, but it can also be frustrating. It’s definitely a satisfying experience though, so where to start? The controls. The controls are smooth and fluent. The stiffness you may find in other games isn’t here, though Plague Knight’s controls are a bit stiffer than the other two, they’re not as stiff as other game’s controls. This allows for a relaxing experience once you’ve mastered a level. None of the deaths in this game feel unfair either, you do die a lot, and I mean a lot, but it’s always because you messed up. Though it can be frustrating when you mess up, trust me I’ve yelled at the screen playing this game before, it’s not the kind of frustrating that makes you want to turn off the game. It’s the kind of frustrating that makes you want to keep going and going, just so you can beat the boss’s butt for putting through all this pain, and trust me when you beat that boss it’s more satisfying than any other game I’ve played through. Which, what is a game if it isn’t challenging? Shovel Knight plays a lot like Scrooge McDuck from the Duck Tales video game. Plague Knight, well I’m not sure what video game character he plays like, but his moves must have been taken from somewhere and finally, Spectre Knight plays a lot like Mario. Though his attack is a slash attack, one thing you find yourself doing when playing as Spectre Knight is that you have to jump around a lot more than the other two as well as perform wall jumps. Overall, the gameplay is pretty great.

The Music:

Something that has helped make many classic games enjoyable are their soundtracks. Who could forget Bloody Tears from Castlevania or the Underground theme from the Super Mario franchise? Luckily the Shovel Knight soundtrack, just like everything else about this game, is perfect. I mean seriously, this soundtrack is killer! It’s great! I’ll name off a few tracks I think you should listen to: Strike the Earth, An Underlying Problem and One Dark Knight. Each piece of music in this game just adds to the already memorable levels and makes them even more memorable. It’s probably the best video game soundtrack out there, and I do mean that.

Final Thoughts:

In conclusion, Shovel Knight is if not my favorite game, then it is definitely one of them. It hits all the right marks and is just a joy to play through. If you don’t have it then I suggest you buy it as you almost certainly won’t regret it. The story is great, the gameplay is great, the design is great, and the music is outstanding. The levels and characters are burned into my mind, that’s how good this game is.

My Rating: 10/10