Shovel Knight: King of Cards Review
Far more important than errands!
King of Cards is a gaudy, regal, abundant swansong for one of the greatest indie games of the last decade, if not all time. In 2014, Shovel Knight was nearly universally praised, showing everyone that video games could tickle nostalgia bones without sacrificing quality, charm and challenging adventures. Yacht Club Games might be one of the hardest working indie studios ever, with each new expansion to their 2014 darling bringing brand new adventures and a complete remix of their delightful world with a host of new challenges.
Clearly wanting to outdo their own five years of goodwill and impressive content updates, King of Cards is packed with even more new secrets, teeth grinding platforming challenges and puns than ever before. You lead the dapper, covetous King Knight in his prequel quest to defeat all three Joustus judges and become the King of Cards. The story isn’t as meaty as the last release, Specter of Torment, but it’s a who’s who of Shovel Knight history, with nearly every character big or small making an appearance like old friends at a going-away party.
Joustus is the namesake of King of Cards and calling it a mini-game doesn’t really do it… justice. It’s a fully fleshed out collectathon that works well to break up moments of platforming frustration. But the tight platforming gameplay we’ve come to know and love from the Shovel Knight series is still on grand display and loses nothing from its inclusion.
King Knight’s control works around a dash which collides with enemies or certain walls, launching him into a spin that works almost identically to Shovel Knight’s downward shovel attack. In a series as pun-laden as ever, it’s only fitting that of all of the controllable heroes (and villains), King Knight does the most dashing.
Of all three Shovel Knight remixes, King Knight is perhaps the most similar to Shovel Knight himself. But rather than digging up and reusing old ideas, each level represents the pinnacle of years of platforming development and King Knight has his own set of items and upgrades to make him feel unique. A gold plated UI doesn’t go astray either.
Levels are much shorter but more numerous than previous adventures, with most having a single checkpoint and two exits that can open different paths in the overworld. One minor inconvenience with the branching paths in levels meant that in order to open alternate paths and find every medal, the beginnings of most stages would need to be replayed multiple times. There’s more freedom to where you go and whole chunks of the overworld can be skipped if you so desire. Longer stages with boss battles are still there to really challenge you, but for the most part, you’ll dip between shorter stages and Joustus matches.
Joustus is essentially beefed-up noughts and crosses, but instead of getting a line of three you’re maneuvering your pieces on top of the majority of gems. Each ‘card’ is played one at a time on an empty square or can push another card out of the way and take its spot. Different card types are slowly introduced to add another layer of depth to Joustus, and can all be used in a variety of offensive and defensive strategies.
Each match feels more like an elaborate puzzle than a card game. Familiar faces from all over the Shovel Knight catalogue make their way into caves, towns and towers to join in the Joustus craze. Every opponent comes with cards to win and a unique board to play them on. Most games take place on a 3×3 grid with gems scattered randomly inside and ‘grave’ spaces surrounding the board, but this format is played with and shifted in multiple ways.
An especially unique match uses a common board layout, but all of the match-winning gems are tucked away in grave spaces. Pushing the opponent off the board becomes much more consequential, and you often have to reevaluate old strategies to overcome challenges like this one. Joustus matches constantly bring new challenges at a rapid pace, but the beauty is that it’s almost entirely optional. You can give your brain a break and dive right back into platforming and can bypass nearly all of Joustus if you find it isn’t your thing.
All of the extra trappings found in Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment and the original Shovel Knight like New Game+, challenges and feats all make a return. New Game+ even promises a more challenging opponent difficulty for Joustus lovers.
King of Cards continues an outstanding legacy and isn’t shortchanged by the inclusion of a new game mode. Joustus could have compromised a stunning series with a needlessly bloated mini-game but fits alongside the Shovel Knight platforming we’ve come to know and love like an alternate universe 1980 where card games were all the rage instead of 2D platformers.
Rather than rest on their well-deserved laurels, Yacht Club Games have crafted a celebration of everything Shovel Knight, and shown us all why they’re indie royalty. The fact that owners of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove get King of Cards for free is the icing on the cake.
[Reviewed on PC]