Shovel Knight is, thankfully, not shovelware!

This is a platforming gaming with old school flair.
You are Shovel Knight, on his quest towards the Tower of Fate, to save your friend Shield Knight from danger.
But to get there, you must first brawl and dig your way through the "Order of No Quarter", a group of knights in service of the Enchantress...


I have the distinct feeling that the creator´s favourite game was Mega Man 2, the platforming action and feel of the controls mostly remind me of that game. That´s a good thing. :-)
There are also traces of Mario in there.
But fear not, the game is far from a clone, it brings enough of its own to the table, while paying homage to the classics.
Everything is tied together with an upbeat chiptune soundtrack, which I quite enjoyed.


I would say the difficulty is medium. While I mentioned Mega Man 2 earlier, this is far easier. While there are some tricky platforming sections, frustration is kept low. The boss fights range from easy (King Knight) to fairly punishing (Plague Knight!).
By gather gold and gems you can afford items and permanent upgrades to your life and magic to make things easier.

Death sets you back to the last checkpoint, which are fairly spaced out. You also lose a portion of your gold, which is left floating at the place where you fell, to recollect.


The game took me about 6-7 hours to complete. After that, there is a New Game Plus mode, which has you starting with all of your gear, but increased difficulty (mostly less health pickups and more damaging enemies).
I have not completed it yet, but it is noticably harder than the first round.

There is also a number of "feats" (achievements) to be gained, and a lot of secret rooms to find.

Heartilty recommended if you like classic platformers from the NES era.
I guess the game is rather kid friendly, there is no actual violence, the Shovel Knight gives his adverseries a sound spanking, but nobody is killed.

Also: The Shovel Knight´s deadly sin is Greed, seriously, hoarding all that gold.. ;-)