 In Shovel Knight, you are quite literally a Shovel Knight, as in a Knight with a shovel for a weapon. You dig stuff, fight stuff, clear stuff out of the way, spike stuff like Scrooge McDuck, and you do it all to find your partner in crime, Shield Knight, who disappeared after encountering a cursed amulet in the Tower of Fate. A simple hero in a simple story utilizing simple gameplay through simple level design, and in this case, the simpler the better. However, this is not a simple game to review. I'm really all over the map on this one, so let me try to explain. Shovel Knight is very obviously harkening back to the days of the NES, even going so far to utilize the same color palette and sound. So if you keep your expectations in that range, it's likely you will really enjoy this game. But bear in mind, all it's really doing is replicating stuff games of the past have already done. I'm not slagging the game at all, it's just what the game is doing. For instance, the game has a decidedly Zelda 2 vibe to it. That's the game that comes to mind first and foremost in my opinion, with the downward jumping thrust, passing through villages and talking to the town folk, although I've yet to find anyone named Error. Even the number font used for points and how it floats up reminds me of Zelda 2. But yeah, it's a mishmash of tons of stuff, the music reminds me of Mega Man, the overworld map is like something out of Mario 3, the backgrounds and the overall theme are like Castlevania, the level design takes advantage of the spike thrust like DuckTales did, and so on and so forth. Now, the game does all of these things very very well, the hit detection is spot on, the music is great, reversing the towns is cool, there's magic which you get to pick and choose, and there's the spike thrust which is seriously really fun. That's by far the best part of the game, just bouncing around and fucking shit up, and the level design does some clever things taking advantage of this mechanic. Also, I do like that money has value in a video game for once, in Shovel Knight you have to pay for your screw ups, literally. You do get a chance to recover your money though, personally I wish the game were a little less forgiving than that because you basically have unlimited lives, there's money freaking everywhere. But whatever, unlimited lives means there's no excuse but to experience the entire game, and that's cool. The levels are long and there are several checkpoints, and there is of course a boss fight at the end of every level where the game turns its focus to a one on one battle, and those are really well done. There are lots of nice touches here and there, like how certain text twitches around for emphasis, and the dialogue is actually kind of funny sometimes. I know I described the story as simple earlier, but it does get more detailed the further you play. You can tell the developers really put a lot of thought and effort into this game, and this definitely is not your throw away generic nostalgic cash grab. This game has soul for a lack of a better word. However, there's really nothing new here. I don't want to sound harsh because I like this game quite a bit, but really it's a big melting pot of like 6 or 7 NES titles. And that's cool and all really, but we've already been down that road. I just wish this game were a little more ambitious and took a few chances. I really like this game for what it is, so I'm not going to dislike it for what it's not because that's dumb. But I do feel like Shovel Knight may have been somewhat of a missed opportunity. Look, all I'm really saying is that Shovel Knight is a very good game, but just don't expect it to be an enhanced version of the NES platformers you loved. It'd be easy to assume that because it's made in 2014, but that's not what it is. So just make sure to keep your expectations in check. Shovel Knight is awesome for what it is, and I can definitely respect that.