Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows Review

by Brandon Sultana

September 27, 2015

Nintendo Wii U

 

Last year, Shovel Knight released and blew a lot of people away, myself included. I bought the game the day it came out because of all the great press it was getting, and was thoroughly impressed by what I played. While I didn’t adore it as much as a lot of people it still quickly rose to one of my favorite platformers out there (and that’s saying something because I play A LOT of platformers). Fast forward just over a year later, and Yacht Club Games are back, releasing a brand new campaign for FREE. So how does it stack up to the original?

 

 

Gameplay

While one would expect an add-on adventure for Shovel Knight to be pretty similar to the original product, Plague of Shadows is an entirely different beast, despite using the same levels. Basically now you play as Plague Knight, who has a completely different arsenal of moves and abilities than Shovel Knight. He’s incredibly fun to play as because you have so many movement options (*insert Melee joke*) . Plague Knight has a two jumps, an additional, interchangable “burst jump”, and the ability to stall in the air by throwing projectiles. While this does break levels a bit, it never gets to the point where it becomes unenjoyably easy. Leaping around and raining bombs on enemies and skipping parts of the level that used to be so challenging is consistently satisfying the whole way through. While Shovel Knight is all about precise platforming and mastering the mechanics, Plague Knight is all about using different ways to clear obstacles in fun ways. The only real complaint here is the boss battles. What were once really engaging and tough encounters are now laughably easy. Most of the time, jumping high up and throwing down a bunch of bombs will spell a quick victory. It would have been nice to give the bosses a new move here and there to make things harder, as there wasn’t a single fight that took me more than 2 tries to beat.

 

Upgrades

Plague Knight also has tons of customizable moves, more so than Shovel Knight, your basic bomb attack has 3 different parts that can each be customized, as well as a special move, and the aforementioned burst jump. The amount of different combinations are staggering, and switching between them for different situations feels rewarding. These upgrades are bought with the money you find, but to unlock more to be bought, you have to collect new coins that are scattered throughout the levels. While getting through the levels are pretty easy with all of the tools available to you, getting coins tests Plague Knight’s abilities, keeping things interesting. Lastly, there are health tonics which shake things up. Permanent health upgrades are few and far between unlike in Shovel Knight, but you can collect health tonics that add one health bubble temporarily until you die. You can use multiple at once, and it adds a nice dynamic of when to use them and when to save them for later. As you can tell you have loads of options, allowing you to really craft the perfect experience.

 

Story

Plague of Shadow’s story is interesting, as it takes place concurrently with the original game’s story, and there’s a lot of really cool tie ins that you’ll see as you play the game. For example the village people hate you as you are considered evil. So as you go underground, you can see Shovel Knight walk around on the surface. Or the fact that the game unveils just how Chester got his his hands on all of the relics. The story itself follows Plague Knight (obviously) as he looks for a way to craft the ultimate potion to make him incredibly powerful. To do so, he must retrieve the essences of all of his fellow members of the Order of No Quarter. The story isn’t ground-breaking, but it serves as a fun story that has some twists here and there, that is worked into the original game’s story fairly seamlessly. The game also introduces new story elements for few characters, all of which are really charming and funny (Recruiting Baz and the Hat Salesman fight are personal favorites). The devs did some good world building here, and I’m excited to see how they further expand with more campaigns.

 

Conclusion

Plague of Shadows is simply amazing. It keeps everything that the original game (considered a masterpiece by many) did right, but gives you a totally different play style to work with. When I bought the game, I thought the $15 price tag was a bit much, as the only real replay value was New Game+ which isn’t something I’m a huge fan of. But now with a complete second quest and challenges implemented into the game, the price tag is well worth it, and with the promise of more coming, it’s only going to get better.

 

Rating: Excellent/10

+ Satisfying play-style

+ Tons of options

+ Neat tie-ins

- Underwhelming bosses