Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, the masterpiece that redefined indie

 

Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight originally came to PC, as well as Nintendo's two consoles at the time: Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, then to all Sony consoles: PS3, PS Vita, and PS4 a year later, and then to Xbox One a year later. In 2017, it finally arrived on Nintendo Switch. The game has had four more expansions that could be considered separate games and that can even be purchased separately: Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment, King of Cards, and Shovel Knight Showdown.

The Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove bundle has been released in digital and physical formats for all platforms (except PS3 and Xbox 360). It includes all the expansions, and that's what we're going to analyze today in its Nintendo Switch version. We hope it will make you consider purchasing this great bundle that includes a lot of content for only €25 digitally and €35-40 physically. Without further ado, let's begin the adventure:

Story

King of Cards is a prequel to everything else, where King Knight embarks on an adventure to become king of a new card game called Joustus, where three judges control it. King Knight will embark on an adventure to not only defeat the judges, but also to build his own kingdom by swallowing the others. This kingdom will feature many of the characters we met in the other three expansions. Still, the Sorceress will play an important role in Joustus, along with Specter Knight and his servant. However, the knights won't play as much of a role in this story, but rather other characters like the other kings and citizens. In fact, even Shovel Knight doesn't appear in the story, and we can skip all the knights to finish the story.

This story could be defined in a few words as "moral," as we clearly see how King Knight creates his great kingdom with his citizens supporting him thanks to Joustus. During the adventure, he will have to make unorthodox decisions that will ultimately prove that King Knight is not a hero like the other knights.

Specter of Torment is the prequel that takes place shortly before Specter of Torment. In this story, we meet Donovan and Luan, two adventurers who are searching for an amulet in the Tower of Fate. During their adventure, it is revealed that Luan is the father of Reize, an adventurer who appears in the other expansions and in this one. They reach their destination. At that destination, they meet Shield Knight, who had arrived at the tower with Shovel Knight and who knows that obtaining the amulet would be a mistake. Donovan destroys the tower, and that is the moment when, thanks to the amulet, Shield Knight becomes something more, and Donovan dies.

Some time later, the Enchantress, an evil witch, revives Donovan thanks to the amulet and turns him into Specter Knight, ordering him to recruit six other knights for the Order of No Quarter, promising him that during this adventure he would regain his memories as Donovan. Specter Knight sets out to recruit Plague Knight, Treasure Knight, Mole Knight, Tinker Knight, Propeller Knight, and Polar Knight based in the Tower of Fate itself.

I would define this story in several words as "family and memories," since Specter Knight's adventure begins with a mistake, a mistake that this knight wants to fix throughout his adventure, even though he does things that aren't right. When the adventure ends and he remembers, we see that even with his own curse, Specter Knight will take care of what's left of his family, that is, Reize, fighting even with the person who revived him, and will try by all means to save what's left of his family, even more so when he discovers who the Sorceress is.

Right at the end of Specter of Torment, the Showdown mini-story happens before the final battle of that expansion, where Specter Knight's allies try to use the magic mirror that transported us in Specter of Torment to trap the Sorceress, but everything goes wrong. The mirror breaks and traps all the knights and several citizens of the different kingdoms. Inside, the knights will have to fight to get out of the mirror. For example, it is here where Shovel Knight discovers that Shield Knight is still alive. They are very short stories about each character, but interesting.

Plague of Shadows begins shortly before Shovel of Hope and aligns with the other story. In this story, Plague Knight needs the essence of the other eight knights to create the ultimate potion. To do so, he will have the help of his greatest ally, Mona, and other allies like the brave horse Percy. In this adventure, we will see the battle for Plague Knight's betrayal of the Sorceress, as he was already affiliated with The Order of No Quarter, and the reason why Plague Knight wants that potion. We will also see the battles against Shovel Knight and the multiple battle in the Tower of Fate in Shovel of Hope. Both have the same ending: Shovel Knight wins, but we still achieve our goal.

This story could be defined in one word as "love," as this adventure of Plague Knight is driven by the love he feels for Mona. Thinking that Mona doesn't love him, he learns things to make her love him. He wants the potion to become so strong that Mona will truly love him.

Ironically, we have the final adventure that started it all: the original Shovel Knight, called Shovel of Hope. When the other expansions arrived, in this story, Shovel Knight begins his adventure to save the kingdom from the Sorceress and try to rescue Shield Knight, who was trapped when Shovel Knight and he went to the Tower of Fate (which is the same time Shield Knight met Donovan and Luan), but only Shovel Knight managed to "survive." In the adventure, we'll meet many characters, not to mention almost all of those who appear in the other expansions, and we'll discover many secrets that will surprise us.

I would define this story in several words as "a hero's adventure," since of all the knights, Shovel Knight is literally the only hero who, although he does this to find out if Shield Knight is really still alive, primarily does it to save the kingdom from the power of the Sorceress. This is something you see not only as a player but also many characters, including rivals, like Black Knight.

çMorality, family, memories, love, and the adventure of the only hero—everything we've reviewed so far shows us one thing: the story of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove takes all the necessary and possible themes and adapts them to its situations, where we can see each character's true identity. Shovel Knight is a hero, Plague Knight is a romantic, Specter Knight loves his family more than anyone, and King Knight is greedy.

We can see all of this not only in these protagonists but also in the other knights: Black Knight is an anti-hero who fights for Shield Knight's love, Treasure Knight is greedy but less so than King Knight, Mole Knight is a boss who prefers others to do the work while he rests, Tinker Knight feels so small that he creates things to make himself seem bigger, Propeller Knight is a Casanova who enchants the masses, and Polar Knight is a retired and weary warrior.

All this character development makes Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove one of the 2D platformers with a deeper story for both its setting and its characters, making you fall in love not only with the 4 protagonists but with several of the other knights like Shield Knight or Black Knight and even normal characters like Bard, Mona, Luan or King Knight's mother, to give a few examples.

The game's gameplay is simple 2D platforming but is distinguished by the character's abilities: in Shovel of Hope, Shovel Knight uses the shovel as his primary weapon and has a magic bar that he uses to use different powers like fireballs. In Plague of Shadows, Plague Knight's bar is different since the things that use more than magic are alchemy, like the boat he uses in the air. In Specter of Torment, we have the Anima bar that is used for Specter Knight's undead powers like the Dark Mirror. Finally, in King of Cards, King Knight has the same bar as Shovel Knight, which he uses to use his own magic, such as a reflective barrier.

In addition to all that, the levels are full of collectibles, from simple money to musical notes in Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows; green coins in Plague of Shadows; red skulls in Specter of Torment; or merit badges in King of Cards, all of which have different uses. For example, money is obviously used to buy things; musical notes can be given to Bardo and Oolong, respectively, to hear them. Green coins are used to add inventions to Mona's shop; red skulls are used to acquire Specter Knight's death powers; and merit badges are used to either increase mana or to acquire the character's own powers.

Finally, King of Cards has an exclusive feature, Joustus games, where the player will play a card game against another person in a fairly strategic card game where you will have to place your cards on different green gems with cards that will help you move your cards and the enemy's to each side or will block their movement. It is a great addition that our only complaint has been that even though the main function of King of Cards is platforming, it has taken away its prominence, seeming that although the Yatch Club Games team wanted to take risks, they did not want to risk too much by making an expansion with a lot or everything based on Joustus, and with almost no platforming, giving it much more prominence since although they are shorter levels, there are many more and they are more difficult and even the bosses, who are Joustus judges, do not play the card game, but make you defeat them in a platform battle. The only complaint in an expansion that stands out as one of the best.

You'll have to be very meticulous in different levels of the four expansions, as there are both secrets and non-secrets that are calculated to the millimeter so that you can pass only by being intelligent, not just by being skilled. Thus, the game forces you to adapt to each moment, thinking about how you'll pass it, with or without magical abilities, since sometimes they will even be blocked. Simply super-ingenious gameplay and a great way to turn 2D platformers on their head.

The game's graphics are retro-style with very striking colors, very colorful or very dark depending on the moment you need it, but something that adapts very well to this is the level design, which is one of the most interesting and, in some cases, most calculated 2D platform designs.

The soundtrack is a great 8-16 bit style soundtrack that adapts to each situation and battle whenever we want and since it's better to listen to it than to discuss it further, we've left a playlist here below:

Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove is like having 5 games in one and it is simply one of the most impressive 2D platformers and indie games out there, there aren't many words to describe how we have fallen in love so much with the characters, the story, the gameplay, the graphics and the soundtrack at the same time and we don't know how it has been possible that in a mere 7 years an independent company like Yatch Club Games has made not only one game, but Shovel of Hope, the original game; Plague of Shadows, a version quite derived from the same but with a new story and new features that you will fall in love with; Specter of Torment, a game with all new levels and where the story totally changes its aesthetics; King of Cards, where not only are all the levels new, but they are shortened (but made more difficult) and divided into many more and where we have a totally new game of strategic battles. And we already know that Shovel Knight appeared as a supporter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but Yacht Club set out to make their own fighting game, and that is Shovel Knight: Showdown, a great fighting game with its own aesthetic and style.

Finally, not one, but five amiibos were made for the series, with the distinction of Shovel Knight being the first amiibo outside of the Super Smash Bros. collection. Four more followed: another gold one for Shovel Knight and one for each protagonist: Plague Knight, Specter Knight, and King Knight, giving it impressive features at the time, exclusive to the Nintendo versions. Speaking of exclusive features on Sony consoles, we have cross-buy between all its platforms and a battle against Kratos, and on the Xbox One version, we have a full battle level against the Battletoads. It's undoubtedly wonderful that each version for each company has its own key differentiators.

The game is available in practically ALL stores, including physical and digital formats with separate expansions in case you're only interested in one. The 6 amiibo are also available at any store that sells them.

Shovel Knight and all its expansions are the greatest definition of if you want something with work and a lot of effort you can get it.

Score

10