Shovel Knight Discussion

[Jdude330]

Talk about Shovel Knight!
Use spoilers when necessary.
Has anybody noticed that if you hit the guard in the town, he tries to block it? (but only once per visit.)

[Ceridran]

Shovel chicks really dig checkpoints.

You should be a checkpoint, yourself.

[Blutorus]

Figures this would show up.

I personally was hoping that New Game Plus would've been something different from what it was. I wanted relic/order fight locations to be a little different, instead of taking extra damage and going on a diet (food is almost nonexistent).

[LlamaHombre]

New Game + is brutal, but I finally beat my run yesterday.

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Fuck the Tower 2 boss rush on New Game +. You have to be downright perfect at points with your item consumption, and improper usage could at point spell that you have to redo the whole level. No other stage in the game is that ridiculous.

[Knux]

Necro bumping this to let all owners of the game know (if they somehow didn't know yet!) that the free expansion, Plague of Shadows, was released yesterday. I only beat Plains of Passage and visited the Village hah so far, but it's pretty damn good!

Controlling Plague Knight takes some getting used to IMO, but once you've got the basics down, it's a blast. Pun absolutely intended.  

[Korby]

I bet it yesterday after about 5-6 hours.
I really enjoy it! I think it's more fun than the base game and I love Plague's interactions with everyone.

Also I died 21 times to Propeller Knight, so there's that.

[Gumballtoid]

This is totally spoilerrific so save it for after you beat the game (unless you simply don't care).

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Well, boy howdy, this may as well have been its own game. Playing through the game from the perspective of a villain was a huge change of pace. From the minute you're ousted from the Village after the Plains of Passage, you can instantly tell what the rest of your adventure will be like. Even so, it manages to strike a fine balance of humor and storytelling, and it genuinely kept me guessing in most places.

The first thing one notices is the radically different handling. While Shovel Knight is butter smooth and a very simple character to pick up and play, Plague Knight is a case of easy to learn and difficult to master. The Plains of Passage had me dying repeatedly due to ill-timed burst jumps that landed me either in spikes or bottomless pits, and on the occasion I stuck the landing, that satisfaction was short-lived as Plague Knight takes practically double the knockback from enemy attacks and I would be cast into the depths regardless. However, after learning of these shortcomings, I began using height to my advantage and avoid getting too close to my targets. The battle against Black Knight saw me leaping around like a deranged lunatic and slinging bombs like pansy little snowballs. Being able to go nuts felt great.

In the Order stages, Plague Knight will find Relics on exclusive alternate paths (more like detours, actually), which he can trade to Chester in the traditional locations for new Arcanas. The two Arcanas I always defaulted to were the Staff of Surging and the Vat, which are extremely helpful in gaining extra height or saving yourself from disaster. The rest of them, while interesting, were extremely situational and I never got much use out of them except when necessary.

Throughout stages, Plague Knight can find up to 30 Cipher Coins, which are necessary to expand Mona's selection of upgrades or to access the Armor Outpost. Only rarely did I find them troublesome to locate, and in those instances, it was on account of underhanded placement (I'm looking at you, Tower 1). Beyond that, they were a joy to collect, and made for nice incentive to take greater risks. Collecting all 420 of them (yes, that's right) nets you a unique armor, the Pandemonium Cloak, which randomizes your bomb, burst, and Arcana combinations every few seconds. Impractical, but hilarious.

Not a whole lot else to say. Invading the Armor Outpost and Hall of Champions was hilarious, fighting Shovel Knight in the Explodatorium was largely amusing, and Plague Knight's final bosses, though really easy, threw me for a loop. I had a blast playing through and collecting everything and I'm currently on New Game+, having a much harder time. If they go on to make additional characters beyond the promised stretch goals, I sure as hell wouldn't think twice about paying for them.




Fuck Propeller Knight. Fuck him 6 ways to Sunday and then again for good measure.

[Korby]

more spoilers to respond to gbt's spoilers

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The Pandemonium Cloak does have a few really cool benefits, though; No matter what bomb-type you have, you can always throw three of it, and all Arcana that didn't cost less than 1 bar of magic now cost 1 bar of magic.

Still, though, I defaulted to the Ward Robe since it became available. The reduced knockback is just too nice.

[Thunderono]

I'll admit I wasn't a big fan of Plague Knight.  While his mechanics were cool and satisfying, it was just plain difficult to get around that increased knockback (Especially in later levels clearly not designed with the guy in mind) and a lot of the arcana just felt useless.  That said, burst jumping and annihilating enemies with the pure destructive power that Plague Knight brings to the table is a lot of fun, and even with the problems that litter his campaign, I'd still consider it good enough to recommend.

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Nice little touch is that, once you learn to dance from the Troupple King, Plague Knight actually doesn't do it on command around Mona.  Instead, he just kind of stands around nervously.  When Mona leaves, he can dance in the main lab room again, and they even went so far as to make it so you can't dance in the final boss's presence.  I thought it was really interesting.

[Bikdark]

tbh plague of shadows should've been original game

also holy shit this is going to give me fucking arthritis

[LlamaHombre]

Fuck.

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I forgot the fucking relic in Propeller Knight's stage so I went back and died more on the revisit than I did the actual stage run ;_;
I could've just spent the cash and in hindsight that's the better option but me at the time was like "fill out that spot in the menu it will bother you if you don't"
Had a great time aside from this though. I kinda appreciate how it was more of a Sonic-Knuckles (Sonic 3K) approach to multiple characters rather than say MegaMan-TimeMan (Powered Up).
Got a lot more than I had bargained for and I can say it was worth the wait.

Looking forward to Spectre being playable. He's my favorite of the Order, and the scene with him being pissed over his stolen locket got me intrigued as to why he'd show a particular discomfort towards it being gone in comparison to everyone else.

[Knux]

I finally beat New Game + as Shovel Knight yesterday.

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Just as Llama previously stated, Tower of Fate 2 is a nightmare, but I found it rather entertaining because of it being an actual challenge. Hell though, the final boss only took me about 2 tries because of cheap pit deaths - compared to the 10 or so deaths in the boss rush. What I did was attempt the bosses first without using the chalices, right up until I got good enough to manage them efficiently, and been fortunate enough that the RNG decided to throw the toughest knights first!

For reference, King and Tinker Knight were last (in that order), and the latter got hit by the platter bomb!  

As for Plague of Shadows, I beat Specter yesterday, and...

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...got the Creep achievement. Woopee. I also beat King Knight 2 days ago. Just taking my time with this expansion, as the bomb combinations are extremely fun so far.

[CDRom11_2007]

Just finished Plague of Shadows, and, well...

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OMG, I love this expansion! The gameplay is absolutely amazing, as Knux stated, the bomb combinations are amazing and my absolute favourite part is the story. Oh, my, the story. Just love everything about this expansion and that's not even considering the fact that Plague Knight was my favourite Knight even before I knew about the expansion, so yea.

*Insert "Screw Propeller Knight" comment here*

Also, after much effort, I was able to beat all the challanges

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For some reason, I had the most hell with the first challenges for both characters. All in all, King Knight gave me the most hell for Shovel Knight and Specter Knight gave me the most hell for Plague Knight. Turns out, for King Knight, you need to barrage him with attacks when he's coming down from his second jump, and for Specter Knight, you need to barrage him with the Burst Shot. Kinda feel stupid once I realized what you needed to do to beat them quickly...

Side note, "Waltz for One" is now my second favorite song in the game, right behind "Strike the Earth".

[Bikdark]

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How the fuck are people having trouble with Propeller? Infini-jump + frost burst + vanilla bombs and you win the fight ezpz. Not even the hugeass cannonballs can do much since you can recover and keep flying after they hit you

[Korby]

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Not everyone uses a controller so they can't do the infinite jump.
I prefer a keyboard, for example.