Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Shovel Knight is a side scrolling action adventure platform game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. It has been a long journey for Shovel Knight from March 15th 2013 when the game hit Kickstarter looking for crowd funding. This was so successful in how it was received by audiences that it did not just fund the game, but also all of the accompanying stretch goals for more platforms and features to be supported as the initial figure of $75,000 was by far surpassed with a funding total of $311,502 from a total of 14,749 backers. This level of crowd funding success certainly speaks volumes about just how much of a place there still is for retro experiences in the videogame industry considering that the games entire premise revolves around being an 8 bit throwback to a classic generation of games, but is Shovel Knight as classic and authentic as the games of yesteryear from the 8 bit generation?

The story revolves around a small knight who has two major missions to defeat the evil Enchantress and save someone who is very close to his heart, although these two missions expand into a giant quest as there are a group of villainous knights called The Order of No Quarter who are unleashed to protect the evil Enchantress from preventing Shovel Knight from ever being able to make it that far in his quest.

Feats revolve around utilising a relic or an item in a particular way, spending a certain amount of gold or finishing the game with particular statistics as part of a total of 45 feats which closely reflect upon the trophy list, but stands collectively as its own feature as it has some additional requirements.

Collecting treasure and gold is important as it enables players to purchase relics, equipment and upgrades with everything naturally having a variation in pricing. Relics are also known as sub-weapons as they are items of magical origin which can be found if searched hard enough or alternatively purchased in the village. Relics include Flare Wand which produces a fast fireball useful for enemy combat from a distance; a Fishing Rod provides the opportunity for an alternative form of attack against enemies situated beneath the charecter and is also a method for collecting gold and treasure from previously out of reach places; Dust Knuckles allow the player to punch through softer density materials such as blocks of sand, rock and ice, although multiple blocks can be negotiated with repeated punches of the Dust Knuckles; amongst a variety of other relics.

Equipment and upgrades are of equal importance to relics as they prepare the hero for the journey which lies ahead with general, armour and shovel upgrades. General upgrades include meal tickets which increase maximum health and seven tiers of Mana upgrades which increase maximum magic, while potentially reducing the defensive capabilities of certain armour.

Armour upgrades include Final Guard which is red armour that reduces the amount of gold lost upon death by half; Dynamo Mail is a dark grey special armour which has the capability of producing a charge slash by performing two successive downward strikes; while Armour of Chaos is exclusive to the PlayStation versions as a reward for defeating Kratos which is most certainly heavily influenced by the God of War games as it changes the attack style to a three hit combo in the same vein as Kratos with food changed into green chaos orbs and defeating enemies provides blue and red orbs which will provide a charged flaming projectile attack which can inflict a great amount of damage and even pass through walls; alongside many more armour upgrades. Shovel upgrades include the Charge Handle which produces the ability for a powerful slash attack, damaging enemies even through shields, although players will not be able to move fast while charging the attack; Trench Blade allows a pile of dirt to be unearthed in a single scoop which helps in collecting gold and treasure faster; and the Drop Spark which sends a spark along the ground towards enemies and is useful for long ranged combat without relics, but players must have full health to be able to use this ability

New Game Plus becomes available after completing the game as an incentive to experience the entire game a second time with all of the feats, music sheets, relics, equipment and upgrades carrying over into the New Game Plus mode, although the usage of such items is counteracted by enemies becoming harder to overcome.

The lead character is an heroic knight armed with just a shovel and a set of armour to protect him, while the enemy design is quite varied from very early on and throughout the game with crabs, skeletons, dragons, jumping blobs of goo, flying dragons, opposing knights, alongside environmental hazards such as dangerous bubbles and spikes. The PlayStation platform versions of Shovel Knight features the formidable Kratos; lead character of the popular God of War series as an enemy boss which provides the biggest secret in the game as players can only fight Kratos when they have discovered a double secret contained within the Hall of Champions.

The environment design is varied as there are secret areas to be found and explored by using the shovel in the appropriate direction of the rock which will sometimes reveal a hollow core with rewards to collect. The puzzles mostly comprise of timing jumps accordingly to progress to the other side beyond a moving platform and to sometimes prevent from falling into an environmental hazard positioned beneath the moving platform, while the length of jumps have to be judged accurately so as not to fall into spikes just ahead with another scenario involving timing an attacking jump correctly in order to not be hurt by dangerous bubbles.

There is plenty of free post-launch support as part of the funding achieved from the Kickstarter campaign including a Challenge Mode to provide a variety of tough challenges and mini-quests such as defeating the enemies or reaching the goal within a set time limit and more; three playable boss campaigns including King Knight, Plague Knight and Specter Knight allowing players to experience the game from a new point of view with a range of remixed game content via a Gender Swap Mode for the male characters to become female and vice versa in order to appeal to players of both genders.

Shovel Knight supports cross-buy and cross-save between the PS4, PS3 and Vita. Cross-buy presents a superb amount of value as it means that players will be purchasing the PS4, PS3 and Vita versions of the game with just a single purchase. The cross-save functionality allows the player to sync the progression of their save file from their Vita to their PS3 or PS4 and vice versa, so they can start playing the game on the Vita on the way to and from work, sync the save game when they have returned home and then resume where they left off by loading the save game and continuing via the PS3 or PS4 version. The cross-save feature is made possible by uploading the save file to the cloud on one console and downloading it from the other console.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4, DualShock 3 and Vita as the control scheme consists of pressing X to jump; pressing square or O to attack enemies; changing the direction of the left analogue stick downwards or alternatively pressing down on the d-pad after having pressed square or O to perform an attack on an enemy from above; changing the direction of the left analogue stick or alternatively pressing left or right on the d-pad to move the character; pressing the share button takes the player to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. Tapping the touch pad produces the inventory of relics and gear currently possessed, while the light bar glows randomly with a vast variety of colours during any cutscenes; it also reflects the character’s current state of health such as green for full health and red for dead, although there is no vibration on DualShock 3 or 4 controllers which has perhaps been left out as it was not a feature of retro controllers, but it could have been utilised when finding a secret or defeating an enemy.

Graphically, Shovel Knight has a lead character, enemies and backdrops which belong in an 8 bit retro aesthetic which provides authenticity to the premise of the game looking as though it was developed for the 8 bit era which will certainly appeal to retro gamers.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, feats, options and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. There is a retro glint to how the game is presented such as the style of controller outlined on the controls screen is actually that of a NES controller rather than a DualShock 3, 4 or Vita, while the title logo and menu text are provided with an aged affect which again all ties into the 8 bit throwback vibe.

The audio is heavily 8 bit inspired with sound effects for attacking and defeating enemies, jumping and collecting treasure, although there are no voice-overs as conversations are displayed via speech bubbles, but there are sound effects as the text is displayed in the speech bubbles. The music consists of a retro stylised 8 bit soundtrack and influenced by NES games with the soundtrack composed of music by Jake “Virt” Kaufman and even includes further songs by Manami Matsumae who famously composed legendary Mega Man songs, while the soundtrack can be heard in full by visiting the Bard in the village with the ability of accessing more music by finding and collecting hidden music sheets which are spread out throughout the entire game.

If the retro themed soundtrack appeals, then players will be glad to know that it is available in its entirety on Virt’s Bandcamp as a 48 track album, while a condensed re-arranged version of the soundtrack including 18 tracks is also available with both being available in high quality audio format and at a generous price point of “name your own price”.

The trophy list includes 38 trophies with 28 bronze, 3 silver, 6 gold and 1 platinum trophy. The majority of the trophy list is hard to accomplish as it usually requires multiple phases such as collecting enough gold to purchase a relic and use it to the player’s advantage in defeating an enemy with a specific method. The hardest trophies include the Perfect Platformer gold trophy for finishing the game without falling into a bottomless pit; the Checkpointless gold trophy for destroying every possible checkpoint throughout the game which actually removes the checkpoint from the save file, so if the character dies then players must return to the start of the stage; the Impossible gold trophy for finishing the game without dying; the Hurry Up gold trophy for performing a speed run of 1 hour 30 minutes which has to be done on New Game rather than New Game Plus as New Game Plus actually adds the time of that playthrough to the first playthrough. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 15 to 20 hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, although the difficulty curve is balanced to appeal to both retro gamers and newcomers alike which is a rather hard balance to strive for as retro platform games are certainly notoriously hard compared to that of modern platform games, but it is a balance which has been impressively found and perfected to the benefit of Shovel Knight’s gameplay as it is always a joyous experience which never becomes overbearing or excessively frustrating as is possible for a retro platformer to momentarily become. The balance is struck by the New Game Plus mode being far more difficult than the original playthrough of the game with enemies providing twice as much damage, less checkpoints resulting in players having to progress further in order to save as well as some more tweaks and adjustments to increase the difficulty of the enemies faced the second time round.

Despite not launching with multiplayer; Shovel Knight will receive free post-launch support which includes a local co-operative multiplayer Battle Mode with a variety of game modes set within the arena for up to four players and the ability to choose which Knight to play as. There are no online leaderboards which could have been used to display the fastest times set for completing the entire game and the highest amount of gold accumulated.

The replayability of Shovel Knight stems from a variety of gameplay features such as a range of feats to accomplish; music sheets to find and collect; collecting gold and treasure to be able to afford purchase relics, equipment and upgrades; a New Game Plus mode which makes the enemies harder to overcome; hundreds of in-game secrets to find and unlock and even free post-launch support for the game to grow larger in regards to introducing new features such as Battle Mode, Challenge Mode, three playable boss campaigns and Gender Swap Mode which will collectively provide hours of enjoyment beyond the initial content of the game.

Overall, Shovel Knight is every bit a faithful and charming recreation of the sum of the best parts of 8 bit classics, therefore it is highly recommended for retro gamers who enjoyed genuinely challenging platform games in the 8 bit generation, although it is an exceptional game which should be played by everyone regardless of their preferred generation of gaming, while free post-launch support will only make the game flourish even further in the future.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Shovel Knight
• Developer: Yacht Club Games
• Publisher: Yacht Club Games
• System: PS4, PS3 and PS Vita
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: Yes (PS4, PS3 and PS Vita)
• Cross-Play: Yes (Cross-Save)
• Players: 1
• Hard Drive Space Required: 158.9MB