I could be playing Mario (heck yeah, it’s pretty good) or Sonic (it’s…alright) but, alas, I have been sucked into the void of Suika Game.
Is it even possible to get two watermelons…or make them touch…maybe some day I will be good enough to find out.
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you know what’s a great game that I never see anyone talk about? grounded. I’ve been playing a ton of it this year. both solo and coop. it’s really fun! combat is surprisingly solid feeling for an obsidian game! the yard is a genuinely great open world environment to explore. the entire thing feels like it was assembled with so much love and care. play grounded if you haven’t yet. play it with friends if you can, but it’s also great to play alone!
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Shovel Knight is just not that fun. The ‘humor’ does nothing for me.And it feels like a whole bunch of references. Hey look, the down thrust from Zelda 2! Hey look, the spriters are really into Metal Slug and Derek Yu! Hey look, we’ve got a Mario 3 world map! Hey look, this level has a clockwork theme, so the design really leans into Castlevania! Hey look, here’s a stage that is directly inspired by Mega Man!
I thought I’d enjoy another sort of nostalgic platformer since I was still feeling the mojo from La Mulqna 2, but this one feels more like it’s made by people who consider “indie” a genre instead of the conditions of production.
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i really bounced off Shovel Knight hard and it made me feel insane that people were like “this is a textbook example of good 2d level design” or whatever else because in addition to the cringey epic bacon 8-bit gamer sensibility it just felt so middle of the road and derivative. one of those “i’m living in a different universe from other people” moments for me.
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Glad to know it’s not just me being curmudgeonly. It cae to me recommended by people I otherwise trust so I don’t know if it was different when it came out but I feel like I’ve given it more than enough chance.
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im a shovel knight apologist but it only really shines with the plague knight dlc. i think that’s genuinely good vs. i-just-really-like-the-music-and-vibes of the base game.
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I think Shovel Knight is fine, and there are way worse examples of reference-fest indie games out there (ZeroRanger), but to me the problem is that it was always “a Mega Man game with knights”, and I just don’t like Mega Man level pacing that much. (The King Knight DLC sort-of solves this issue by simply making each level half as long, but, well).
BTW, the pogo isn’t even from Zelda 2. It’s from DuckTales. So I’d say that particular reference is actually not as obvious as it seems.
Also agreed that Plague Knight DLC is where the actual interesting design decisions begin (starting with basic movement).
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So like… to me what summarises Shovel Knight’s design approach is how it implements the “Mega Man Wily stage boss rush”. In the original Mega Man games, this is done with a hub room full of teleporters that you must use one-by-one to enter separate boss arenas. In Shovel Knight, what happens is that you fall down a shaft and land on a banquet table (presumably the Round Table) where all the knights are seated, and then you fight them one-by-one on the table. Also, all the health powerups are food-themed, so they fittingly appear on the table after each knight as part of the “banquet”.
Basically, it’s still just “the Mega Man boss rush”, and you’re still supposed to “get it”, but it does try to be a little different in keeping with the knight theme. A lesser game would’ve just had the teleporter hub and called it a day.
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I also thought the dlc (which I got back when that was all free) was way better than the main game. I really like Specter Knight which is almost like The Messenger in how good the movement feels.
King Knight’s puzzle game baffled me.
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I don’t even like Shovel Knight, but I really must object to La-Mulana’s sequel being favorably compared to anything short of getting gut-punched by a clown who then proceeds to offer you a religious tract.
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Is that good or bad
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hard to tell what the jester’s opinion on clowns is
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Yeah at this point I would recommend just totally ignoring Shovel Knight and start with Plague of Shadows. It’s a free DLC and I don’t think you need to have seen anything in Shovel Knight to understand what’s going on (precisely because Shovel Knight is so predictable).
If you’re still not feeling it then I won’t tell you to play all of Plague Knight, it’s fairly obvious from the first few levels why it’s better. (But I would be interested to hear the “steelman” criticism of why Plague Knight is also bad if anyone holds that opinion.)
The later DLCs featuring Specter Knight and King Knight remain somewhat better than original Shovel Knight, but mostly they’re a return to following tropes in a “highly polished” manner, so ignore those too if you’re on the fence.
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That @hater jester avatar is really fabulous though. : D
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Wedged diagonal movement buttons into my silly Angband arcade stick layout.
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i liked shovel knight because it was a shameless NES pastiche, though consequently the only unforgettable parts to me were the “catch her” dream sequences and the banquet boss rush L mentioned. And the breakable checkpoints, which i thought were a cute modular difficulty complement to the Souls-style death recovery. i also just generally love themed knights as a concept
i think it helps that i have been sparing about checking out “retro revival” games for like a decade now lol, so im not burned out on an aesthetic that other people are understandably sick of. like when everyone was hyped about stuff like MegaMan 9 i just shrugged and let em sail by (this is also why im not sick of indie metroidvanias and thus my favorite is another XYZ Knight game that SB is ambivalent/negative toward)
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The King of Fighters 2000 (Dreamcast/Flycast)
Guess I just love this silly old game <3 ^ _^
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complete arcade mode as the hero team! the way the music comes in as the last image and text of the ending transitions into the credits is one of the coolest things in all of videogames.
king of fighters 2000 really is snk’s street fighter alpha 3
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wow boy replaying Resident evil 2 right after re1, i think that its opening minutes dont get talked up enough. the raccoon city streets are a alltime first level it teaches you half the lessons of the first game in a fraction of the time (how to dodge or shove away zombies, when to shoot and when to run, picking up items, using staircases lol) in a really exciting stressful scenario thats also tuned to be very fair (there are a fuckload of zombies but theyre very weak, take 3+ bites to get you below Fine health and you get like 6 boxes of bullets on the way to the police station)
and the voice acting is more professional (B+ 90s anime dub material all around) but there are still so many fun earworm lines. THAT GUYS A MANIAC… WHYD HE BITE ME!!
Claire is probably my favorite Re protagonist and her voice is right on the edge of kinda cheesy but still cool. i love the immediately smooth way she talks to Leon once theyre out of their zombie meet cute (not checking the backseat, like a couple of idiots) her line reads on “You’re a cop, right?” and “There’s a gun inside.” pop out for me as much as any jill sandwich
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I possibly haven’t played that team since 2016 but I still have the video so… Ah yeah that’s pretty slick. : ) So many cool little things in the presentation in 2000.
I’m interested in what this means, I haven’t actually played a TON of Alpha 3. To me 2000 has been where old SNK hit their peak of style and playability, but also went bust and things got weird. ^ _^