Shovel Knight - PlayStation Consoles - 60 Second Maxi-Geek Review

Shovel Knight is another of those Kickstarter successes, not because they were funded on Kickstarter, but they released their games on time. Now almost 12 months after its initial release, the game has made its way over to the PlayStation family of consoles.

The gameplay of Shovel Knight is very similar to those of the old classic 8-bit side scrollers, but with more adventure thrown in, as you progress through the world, you will get the chance to explore many stages and fight a number of bosses, all while attempting to make your way to the Enchantress, in the hopes of defeating her.

The gameplay is solid, if you jump and fall down a pit, that is because you miss timed the jump, not because the game did something, when you fall in battle, that is purely because you rushed in; Shovel Knight takes pride in its history, in that it pulls from a lot of classics, but also refines those elements, which results in a game that is as much nostalgia and fun as it is punishing and rewarding.

Over the course of the game, you will encounter a range of bad guys, some located within stages, others roaming the world map, but as this is the PlayStation version of the game, you will find an exclusive character, if you listen to what people say. Kratos, from the God of War series can be discovered roaming the world map and if you take him head on and defeat him, then you will be rewarded with quite an upgrade.

Sadly, there is a problem on the PlayStation Vita version of the game and that is the d-pad is way to squishy for the gameplay on show here, the thumb stick is not much better either. If you have either the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 3, these issues won’t be found as the controls there are tight and precise. That is really the only issue to be found, the game plays really smoothly, the presentation as a whole is amazingly crisp, even on the smaller screen found on the Vita, the soundtrack is still as amazing as ever.

Shovel Knight was built from the ground up by a team of passionate people and it shows, each part of the game works in seamless fashion with the rest, which results in a game that is full of retro goodness but built for the modern gamer.

Thanks to Yacht Club Games for providing the game for review