Comments on: Thoughts: Shovel Knight

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 13:13:00 +0000

Oh god no not that level. The one with the flying ship and the magic carpets. I forget what it was called.

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 15:03:34 +0000

Is the sky level in Mario 64 the one where you have to use the wing cap to gather red coins along clouds? Because there’s no fucking way Shovel Knight is going to compare to having to use the wing cap, perhaps the absolute worst Mario power-up I’ve had the displeasure to experience.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 13:20:37 +0000

Yeah, it was almost a dealbreaker for me, and it was only the game’s obvious charm that kept me playing. I don’t regret doing so because 95% of Shovel Knight is a really well-made platformer, but if semi-frequent difficulty spikes don’t sound like your kind of thing, Shovel Knight *really* isn’t going to be your kind of thing.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 13:17:31 +0000

It’s not so much that Alien Isolation is a big game – I’ve put bigger games away in a weekend — but it is most definitely *not* a game I can play for more than an hour at a time. At first this was because it was wonderfully tense. Now it’s because it’s bloody annoying. But I’ll leave that summary for the review.

As for comparison, that’s tricky because I haven’t really played that many 2D platformers since the Mega Drive/Genesis days. Difficulty spikes aside I’d put the majority of the game on par with Sonic 2 – you might die a lot, but you’ll eventually manage to faceroll it even if you’re terrible thanks to the relics and powerups. The latter stages of Mario 64 (the clock level, the sky level) are harder than most of Shovel Knight. It’s just that those difficulty spikes really do up your death count to the point of frustration.

One point of reference that might be helpful is that I apparently died 109 times while completing Shovel Knight. I am not very good at platformers (that aren’t Spelunky), but if that sounds like a lot it might not be for you.

By: Ninja Foodstuff

Ninja Foodstuff — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 14:41:21 +0000

I _almost_ was convinced to give this a try (something no other review on the game has managed to do despite all the frothing) except for “once every couple of levels I encountered a difficulty spike that would have made me ragequit the game if it wouldn’t have meant losing all of my level progress up until that point”

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:11:01 +0000

I told you Alien: Isolation would probably take longer than you realized. I think it’s a good, maybe even great game, but it’s way too long and wears out its welcome to a degree.

As for Shovel Knight, do you have any comparison points regarding the difficulty with other platformers? Donkey Kong, Rayman, etc.? Spelunky isn’t helpful since roguelikes don’t much appeal to me, but everyone’s been praising this one to the moon.