Platform: PC
Developer: Yacht Club Games
Genre: Platformer, 2D, Action
It's time again for another quick DLC review! I backed Shovel Knight on Kickstarter, so this review may be biased accordingly.
Visuals: Lovely pixel art! This game really is beautiful to look at. From what I hear, everything in the game could have been done on the NES (since that's the goal aesthetic) except for the number of layers of parallax. It's colorful and great! The explosions from Plague Knight look pretty good and it's easy to see the hitboxes and differences in effects.
Audio: Not much has changed here from the Regular Shovel Knight soundtrack and that's not really a bad thing. If you went straight from the base game into the expansion, I could see the tracks getting old, but for the most part they're quite good. The sound effects are fitting and I can't remember disliking or being annoyed by any of the sounds in the game which says a lot about the design. I'd listen to the soundtrack in my free time.
Gameplay: The primary gimmick for Plague Knight vs. Shovel Knight is that he has a lower jump, a double jump, and attacks by changing up a potion explosion or otherwise throwing potion bottles. You can mix and match the potion parts to change the explosion, the throw arc, and the fuse type giving loads of customization. I think that this is probably the weakest part of the experience. Plague Knight feels very slippery compared to Shovel Knight which makes a lot of the more precise jumps in the game pretty tough. Adding to that is that the best potion ingredients change so frequently and the only way to change the makeup of your potion is by pausing the game, which really breaks up the flow. I think this game would have benefited greatly from a Castlevania-style quick switch between a couple different load outs to make the game more fluid or even a Super Metroid aiming toggle. Overall I approached many situations with a bad load out because I was tired of pausing the game to switch my throw arc to better handle certain enemies.
Story: This is a love story about a hero trying to win the love of a girl that already loves him. It's pretty easy to see the trope at the beginning, but the way that it's all conveyed can only be described as cute. I enjoyed it a lot and thought it was a good break from the gameplay. The writing in this game is extremely clever and full of puns which I greatly enjoyed.
Overall, I liked this! It was largely recycled from the original Shovel Knight game, but having a different character, story, and gameplay style keeps everything fresh. As far as I know the DLC is free and I would definitely say it's worth a play. It's harder than the original Shovel Knight, but still very enjoyable. I would recommend it!
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