This seasoned yet sprightly adventure has charm in spades
Retro gaming can be more of a trial by ordeal than an exercise in fun. We subject ourselves to the archaic, bloodstained machinery of the classics to prove that we’ve still ‘got it’ after years of gentler fare such as Assassin’s Creed. But that isn’t the case with Shovel Knight – a fabulous homage to the giddy highs and grating lows of single-screen 8-bit platforming.
True, the game can be every bit as frustrating as the likes of Ghosts ’N Goblins. You’ll stumble into pitfalls aplenty as you go about saving Shovel Knight’s old flame, Shield Knight, from a mysterious Enchantress, who lurks at one end of the world map behind a series of dungeons, NPC villages and the odd roaming mini-boss. But there’s never the sense in the course of this five-to-ten hour yarn that you’re expected to survive on luck alone, and the old school rigour is tempered by more recent thinking, most notably in the form of checkpoint lanterns (breakable for bonus treasure, if you’re feeling brave).
Relics bought with your winnings also confer life-saving secondary skills, such as a window of invincibility or the ability to combo-punch through blocks without touching the ground. These trinkets are required for progress in places; elsewhere, they simply let you smudge the edges of challenges that might otherwise drive you nuts.
Speaking of things that might drive you nuts: a portion of Shovel Knight’s treasure remains at the site of your most recent death, flitting around as a flock of winged moneybags. It’s an irreverent nod to Dark Souls and, as in Dark Souls, there’s the vexing question of whether reclaiming the loot is worth the risk.
Personality is the game’s key asset, both in the memorable NPCs you meet and the dungeon hazards that arise from the quirks and foibles of each boss. Level templates teeter on generic – expect underwater and ice variants – but there’s always plenty of eccentricity. You’ve tackled lava levels in games before, I’m sure, but how many of them let you turn the lava into jelly?
Destructible terrain is also woven cunningly into the deployment of more familiar props such as conveyer belts – undue bouncing on the point of your shovel may get you into difficulties. Oh, the japes.
Not content with being exhilarating, Shovel Knight actually manages to be poignant, too. The tone is whimsical for the most part – there’s a frog villager who’ll shower you in awful, unforgettable puns – but every so often you’re left alone with the hero as he slumbers by a campfire, plagued by dreams of his beloved falling from the sky.
It’s an appropriately melancholic touch for a game that sets out to unearth the greatness of a bygone era, only to become a classic experience in its own right. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
VERDICT
Building puzzles to fill a single screen allows for great finesse. Every pixel has been carefully considered. A glorious, funny, occasionally touching and often maddening tribute to the 8-bit platformer – and a truly essential purchase for genre fans regardless of age.