Shovel Knight Game by Yacht Club Games Reviewed by Philip "Pocket Squirrel Knight" Wesley Size: 1217 Blocks Save: "Battery"/NINE Slots Released: 2014 Works with: 3DS/3DS XL/2DS and beyond. ESRB Rated: E Rating Descriptions: Mild Fantasy Violence Quick Opinion: Own. **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: Sometime in March of 2013, a company called Yacht Club Games sought to make a game that would be a "love letter" to the era of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yacht Club Games was formed by Sean Velasco after he, and a few other people, left Wayforward Technologies. I love Wayforward Technologies because of the talent that goes into and out of, that studio. I think Matt Bozon, Jake "Virt" Kaufman, Tomm Hulett, John Beck, Voldi Way, and practically everyone who has or is associated with that company is massively talented. When I heard about Yacht Club Games and what they wanted to do, I was thrilled. You see, Shovel Knight is one of a new breed of games that have been funded by customers through a "crowd sourcing" site called Kickstarter. The idea behind Kickstarter is that you set up a goal to reach in order to deliver a product or make a prototype of a product. Then the public donates anywhere from a dollar or more to help you reach that goal. They also set up various "stretch goals" for if or when the amount of funds they raise go over a certain amount. The people who donate are encouraged to donate at certain amounts by the promise of perks which can be anywhere from early access to the game, a special appearance in the game, art books, soundtracks, or even an envelope full of dirt. Yeah. One of the "perks" was "special dirt" and a special cheat code for the game. You had to donate $100 or more to get the special dirt. I am not kidding about that at all. Of course, you would also get an art book, soundtrack, the game, and all sorts of other goodies alongside your "special dirt." I love the internet for exactly that reason. People love or support a game idea and a company enough to pay over $100 in order to get an envelope of "special dirt" along with other goodies. For Shovel Knight, they asked for $75,000 to make the game and they raised exactly $311,502 at the end of their Kickstarter. This means that the game could feature all sorts of interesting extras. Some of those extras will be added to the 3DS game as free "downloadable content" in the future. For now, we are reviewing the title before that extra content hits and -when that content hits- feel free to add five points or something to the score. Disclosure: We always make sure we complete a game before reviewing it. We apologize if you are one of the few people waiting on our review before finally "digging in" to Shovel Knight. So, with all the weirdness around Shovel Knight's origins, was this game worth the $311,502? Is Yacht Club Games first video game title worthy of their pedigree? In the name of Shovelry, we shall bury our opinion into this review! **************************************************************************** Gameplay Description: Shovel Knight is a side scrolling platform action game that pays homage to The Legend of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, Castlevania, Disney's Ducktales, and the Mega Man series of games. Quite simply, you use the Shovel Knight's small arsenal of attacks and jumps to get through an obstacle laden area before taking on a boss character. During the course of a stage, you can uncover secret upgrades called Relics, collect treasure, find hidden items, discover hidden areas, and defeat enemies. Your character has an expandable "life bar" and "magic points" that are expended through the use of a relic. Of course, you can expand those magic points and the life bar in one of the two towns in the game. The game does not employ the use of "lives" to penalize you when you die. Instead, 25% of your treasure floats away as bags that can be retrieved from the spot where you died. Later on, you can get a "fishing pole" relic that may be useful in getting some of those bags back. If you die before you retrieve your missing treasure, that treasure is GONE FOREVER. In a way, this is a much better solution than the use of limited lives. The game has a plot presented by in game dialogue between Shovel Knight and the bosses he faces off against. The games also features a good bit of difficulty, especially when you are trying to complete the various "feats" in the game. The game has a "feat" system where you are given a checklist of challenges to overcome that range from beating the entire game in under an hour and a half, not dying through an entire stage, or things like making sure to practice good campfire safety. There are generous check points in each level that can also be destroyed to allow for even greater challenge. Each level has a number of interesting traps and challenges that match up with the theme of the "Knight of No Quarter" at the end of the stage. For example: King Knight has a stage inside of a lavish castle, Polar Knight has a stage consisting of ice and snow, and so forth. After you complete the first level, you are given a selection of stages to beat that unlock other stages and you beat these in your quest to get to the Tower of Fate. The storyline is pretty decent too with a few emotional high points. The game is pretty challenging, but fair in that you will almost always figure out what you did wrong. Bosses have patterns as well, which makes this a pretty exploitable game for people who make good use of the relics that you can find in the game. Liked: The game is challenging and fair. The relics are interesting and the sense of humor in the text works fairly well. Bosses are unique and the game is a lot of fun. Hated: Sometimes, it can be a bit frustrating and accomplishing the feats in the game does not unlock anything. **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: Shovel Knight is intended to look like an NES game, although there are instances where it looks slightly better than an older Nintendo Entertainment System in terms of graphics output. Aside from a few instances of this, the game sticks faithfully to the color palette that was available for NES games within the limitations of the device. Although they did create four colors that were not available in the original NES palette. I am not going to fault them for that little addition. The 3D effect is superb with multiple layers that stand out from each other. Everything is easy to see and there are some huge enemies in the game too. Unless you are really sick of seeing NES or Amiga style "indie games," this game looks great. The cutscenes are pretty great looking too and the game feels nostalgic without having any of the bad slowdown, excessive frame flicker, and color bleed of many actual NES games. It looks just slightly better than games like Mega Man 6 on the NES but it contains none of the flicker that games like that are plagued with. This is really nice actually. It reminds me of how we remember NES games looking and not how they "actually" looked. Liked: The graphics are nostalgic and excellent... Hated: ...unless you hate NES style graphics. **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: Some games on the Famicom (Nintendo Family Computer and the name of the NES in Japan) used special chips like the VRC6 to improve the sound, music, and animation of games like Castlevania 3. Shovel Knight takes the limitations of audio chips like the VRC6 and produces music and sound that would fit inside those limits to amazing effect. The game sounds a bit like Mega Man or the Ghosts 'N Goblins series of games. The composition is strong and the music feels like a love letter to the "rock anthem" style of chiptune music that dominated the NES during the late 1980's and early 1990's. Overall, the game has some superb, high energy music that matches up well with the action on screen. The sound effects fit correctly and it is easy to tell when you have hit something through the music. There are some catchy and superb sounds and the fact that you can find them to build an in-game sound test is pretty sweet. Liked: This is great, catchy stuff! Hated: There really isn't a truly "sad" composition and there is no mode where you can just set the music to play and just close the lid of your 3DS. Thankfully, the sound track is available online for a "name your price" option. Which is handy and excellent. **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: In order to bounce off of enemies, you have to jump and hold DOWN on the directional pad or circle pad. Once you get used to doing this, you have mastered one of the most difficult skills in the entire game. That said, this game is not a push over and will offer up a lot of interesting challenges for players to attempt to accomplish. One thing I love about the game is that you can increase the challenge by not picking up certain items or by destroying the checkpoints in the game. The confirming items with B is a bit awkward at first, but you get used to it after a while. The game controls tightly and the clever design of the levels are superb. While the game borrows a lot of design cues from games like The Legend of Zelda 2: Adventure of Link and Ducktales, the charming character design and interesting (although simple) script brings a pleasant atmosphere to this game. All of this inside of an exceptionally playable and challenging experience. Liked: The game is balanced fairly well and the use of relics and generous check points will make it a bit less frustrating for gamers. Also, you can revisit levels you completed to get more money and any relics you did not find in the levels can be purchased in the town. Hated: Without the use of relics, the difficulty curve shoots upward to a point where tempers may flare up. There is a "two player VS" arena for use with the 3DS StreetPass feature, but the times I got to use it were... lacking. The feature just does not add anything noteworthy to it. **************************************************************************** Improve: A game like Shovel Knight could be improved by adding in more levels, relics, and the use of a secondary character. I think a better use for the street pass feature -in a future game- would be a two screen "Custom Level" challenge that let you incorporate elements or enemies from levels that you have already cleared. The idea would be that you make a mini-level with a few enemies and jumps. You could also customize your Shovel Knight with different color and hat options. So, that -if a person beats your level challenge- you could greet them and give them a cash prize. The basic idea would be that you set up the two screen mini-level and than run that mini-level yourself before it is accepted for sharing. Also, these could be shared via a QR code. That would be superb. Also, I think a sequel to the game should be called Mega Shovel Knight and go after a SNES with Super FX2 Chip style. So, where do I sign up for that Kickstarter? RIYL: Mega Man, Castlevania 2/3, Legend of Zelda 2, Ducktales, Retro Style Platforming Titles, the Game Boy Color game Shantae, and that would be about it. **************************************************************************** Final Words: Not every Kickstarter has a happy ending or even creates a good product. Thankfully, Shovel Knight is a testament to how great the ability to make a game happen can be. I am grateful that more people with more money than I have were able to donate so much to the creation of this interesting and worthwhile game. The game feels like it has had a lot of love and care poured into it that would not have been possible in a fairly restrictive publishing environment. That is wonderful, although I do have a slight problem with it. That tragic problem is that Shovel Knight also makes me sad. I wish that a resource like Kickstarter had been available for games like Mythri, Hungry Are The Dead, Drymouth, and other genius Game Boy Color games that died along the way because they were not able to get a publisher to invest in them. Kickstarter is a wonderful resource that should have arrived years ago and I hope that companies do not abuse the trust of the people who will kickstart great games and projects in the future. I love Shovel Knight and I think it is completely worth your time and your money. We are blessed to be able to fund and get games like Shovel Knight. Shovel Knight is a love letter to the Nintendo Entertainment System and to the people who love the Nintendo Entertainment System. This game was an absolute joy to play through and I was pleased to discover a slightly harder New Game + option once I beat the game. This game fires on all cylinders: Music, Graphics, Challenge, and Game Play. It also helps that the character designs are adorable as well. The Shovel Knight is wonderfully retro in his design. I could easily see this game sitting on a shelf next to Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, and other great titles. I think you should go buy this game. **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: ***** Graphics: **** Sound/Music: ***** Play Control/Game Design: **** Value: ***** Star Total: 69 Personal Opinion Merit: 24 Final Score: 93% Letter Grade: A ****************************************************************************