Review | Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove

Shovel Knight’s final expansion has officially been released. Which means I can FINALLY write about the world of the Iron-clad Lad in its entirety. From its humble beginnings as a Kickstarter release, we’ve seen Shovel Knight become a global indie icon. Yacht Club Games released Shovel Knight in 2014 on the Wii U, 3DS and PC and since then, the Knight of the Ground Table has gone on to become a staple for most gaming platforms (even Fire TV for all you Amazon fans).

Shovel Knight has released four expansions over its lifetime, providing refreshing perspectives on various characters in its universe. While these extra stories aren’t necessary to understand the packed lore of Shovel Knight, they provide an invaluable amount of backstory to the characters and are great games individually or as part of the Treasure Trove bundle.

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope

You step into the boots of a depressed knight whose only weapon is their humble shovel, Shovel of Hope is the redemption story of a knight driven to a life as a farmer. After the tragic loss of his partner, our shoveling Knight (funny how that turned out) is called back into action to stop The Enchantress from spreading evil across the land.

Shovel Knight boasts a fantastic retro style with simple combat and level design that put it at the forefront of the platformer genre. Each level is filled with enemies and puzzles that test your skills, allowing you to traverse stages with a sense of progression as you master the movement and combat.

A highlight of Shovel Knight’s level design is its checkpoint system, in which each checkpoint you break awards you with some coveted gems at the cost of the checkpoint itself, which will no longer work once broken. This greatly influences the difficulty of any given level so much so that there is an achievement awarded to those who complete the game having broken all available checkpoints.

Most levels will contain at least one special ‘Relic” that you have the option to collect, these items can be used in combat at the cost of mana and each character’s campaign has its own set of unique items that you can collect to aid you on your journey. Most of these weapons are a fun way to add some style to your playthrough, and the game makes it abundantly clear that Shovel Knight can skip a few of these and still be prepared to take on the Order of No Quarter.

Many of Shovel Knight’s charming qualities come from its writing and character interactions. There is a skill in filling a game with Shakespearean dialogue while effectively delivering exposition and personality. Information is streamlined enough to clearly give you a mission objective or instructions for an item while also injecting life and depth into each character. Shovel of Hope delivers a top-shelf retro package that is incredibly hard to put down. I’ve played this game countless times solely because of how easy it is to pick up and play.

Shovel Knight is a strong contender for best video game bonfire too!

Plague of Shadows

Released on the coattails of Shovel Knight, thanks to the game’s massively successful Kickstarter, Plague of Shadows tells the story of how Plague Knight came into power under the rule of The Enchantress. This expansion keeps the glorious aesthetic of the original Shovel Knight but flips the mechanics we’ve come to know on their head. 

As is the case with all of these expansions, Plague of Shadows is the self-contained backstory of one of Shovel Knight’s foes. Plague Knight is an ambitious alchemist with the goal of crafting the ultimate potion. Sadly, I found myself caring even less about this character than when we first met them as an established Order of No Quarter veteran. Shovel of Hope introduced Plague Knight as a maniacal scientist with a spinning moral compass, it was this outlandish nature that provided a nice contrast to Shovel Knight’s stoic personality. And while satisfying to defeat in Shovel of Hope, their unpredictable personality becomes tedious in their own outing.

However, there is something to enjoy here. What Plague Knight’s journey lacks in personality, it makes up for in mechanics and level design. Plague Knight’s weapons of choice are a variety of bombs, these vials are customisable, granting a choice of approaches in combat (and traversal).  However, unlike the first game, there is a clear unspoken tier list that leaves a lot of your available arsenal untouched. Much of your arsenal in Shovel of Hope has a sense of purpose and unfortunately, Plague of Shadows does not follow this design, meaning that most of your inventory will be left untouched. 

Plague Doctors spread disease across Europe in the 14th Century and Plague concocts bombs… Maybe we should stop trusting people that prefix their profession with Plague?

That being said, the concept behind these bombs is great. Plague Knight is able to change their bomb’s properties and activate different abilities. All bombs have different trajectories, so you’ll need to adjust the arc of your jump and the positioning of projectiles to traverse each stage. Certain bombs can also move Plague Knight in the air, making them a valuable and deep maneuvering tool. 

Levels are reused but fundamentally revamped to lean into Plague Knight’s abilities.  Disappearing blocks are a new obstacle that Plague Knight can either clear to traverse the level or save to find the hidden goodies scattered across each stage. The way you tackle each level is really up to you, but I rarely found myself carefully considering my movement before spearheading a level. 

Plague of Shadows is an interesting twist on the Shovel Knight formula. But after the heroic aesthetic and earnest wit of Shovel Knight, I found myself really only playing this by association. Plague of Shadows was a respectable addition to the world that Shovel of Hope built, and while Yacht Club may not have hit the mark straight away, they were well on their way to finding their footing in the Shovel Knight universe.

Spectre of Torment

This is my favourite thing to come out of Shovel Knight. Period. If you’ve ever played Spectre of Torment this will be unsurprising to you, and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? Spectre of Torment sees you in the shoes of Donovan, now known as Spectre Knight, as you attempt to recruit knights into the Order of No Quarter while learning of Spectre Knight’s backstory. This villain’s quest quickly becomes an admirable journey that tugs at your heartstrings. 

Damn it… Scythes are pretty cool, I guess.

The plot revolves around Spectre Knight’s quest to recruit fellow knights, but the game will periodically dip into a flashback, showing Spectre Knight’s former self, Donovan. These flashbacks serve as a way to glean a little more of Spectre Knight’s life before they encountered The Enchantress, showing us Donovan’s transformation as well as their motivation for completing The Enchantress's quest. 

Spectre of Torment hosts a wealth of new, character-focused levels that bring back the excitement of playing classic Shovel Knight. The gimmick this time is the “Dash Slash '' mechanic and Spectre Knight’s ability to climb and jump off walls. Spectre Knight can use any combination of these moves offensively to plough through not just terrain but foes too.

You’ll come across a multitude of “Curios”, special items that can perform various abilities like spawn boomerang sickles, regain health, or summon a clone of yourself to fight in front of you. Some curios are, again, more favourable than others, but the tiers are blurrier this time around, allowing you to stick to your favourite one for the most part. 

Spectre Knight keeps the best parts of Shovel Knight’s formula while managing to be a creative revitalisation of everything that came before. One misstep and you potentially ruin what made Shovel Knight a work of art, thankfully, Yacht Club took the plunge and added another amazing chapter in their novel. Spectre Knight is a rich, intense and rewarding expansion that brings out the best of Shovel Knight.

“Ok, so one more time. You’re a King, right?”

“But also a Knight."

 King of Cards

King of Cards is the final story-based Shovel Knight expansion focusing on King Knight’s rise to fame as he joins the Order of No Quarter. Your main method of offense is the Shoulder Bash, which makes King Knight plow shoulder-first into enemies, walls and most other surfaces. This charge can also be used in the air, in which making contact with anything in front of you will send you into a spin that you can use to maneuver around each level. The Mechanic is interesting, timing your bashes and placing yourself in the right spot to reach tight angles is genuinely fun and grew on me a lot more than Plague Knight’s bombs.

The real trump card that King of Cards has up its sleeve is the charming and intricate mini-game: Joustus. Joustus is the Gwent of the Shovel Knight world, in which players collect and battle with cards on a board. The goal is to collect gems and prevent your opponent from doing the same before all tiles on the board are filled. While seeming simple at first, Joustus quickly ramps up its intricacy with clever AI opponents that will make you think about which cards you bring into battle as well as how you position them on the board. Joustus quickly became a go-to way to take a break from battles and I found myself spending a lot more time playing it than I thought I would.

Excellent Bash Acquaintances.

Shovel Knight Showdown

When I heard of a Shovel Knight inspired platform fighter, I was immediately skeptical. Something about the slow, methodical design of these characters in a fast-paced environment didn’t mesh well with me. But Showdown surprised me with its creativity and style. Yacht Club took the genre of platform fighters and injected the Shovel Knight charm wherever they could, and it shines as a multiplayer party game. The twist in Showdown is that fighting your opponent is really a secondary goal, with your main focus being on collecting various gems that appear on the stage.

Stages all differ in, and most throw a fun gimmick at you. The biggest positive to come out of Showdown is the number of playable characters at your disposal. Showdown lets you play as the faithful Shovel Knight, the entire cast of The Order of No Quarter and a host of recurring characters. Most of these characters aren’t playable in any campaign, so being able to pilot them here felt like a nod to the fans who had come to love these characters over the years. I was incredibly excited to play characters like Shield Knight and Reize, who had grown on me during their appearances in their respective campaigns, but wildcards like Baz and Mr. Hat were nice surprises considering their limited presence throughout the Treasure Trove collection.

Shovel Knight has provided a wealth of joy for me over the years, and it should come as no surprise that Yacht Club is so popular after founding a franchise with such a beloved cast of characters. At £40, the collection may seem steep for an 8-bit platformer, but if you have the spare cash then I guarantee you’ll get your money’s worth. Yacht Club has created and sustained a franchise with depth and style that you’ll enjoy when you’re playing for the first time and find yourself coming back to, picking up the shovel again and again.