Pattan

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Shovel Knight is a great game. Period. This game does almost everything perfect. Controls are precise, you learn them intuitively, without any prompt as it should be. The mechanics are perfectly though and the game is very very well polished. It's really easy to point what is good with this game, so I'll point what I didn't like, because it's way faster. - Game relies heavily on well established classics. To sum up, this game is Megaman + Super Mario Bros 3 + Ducktales. It's really well done but I feel it doesn't have anything on his own, it doesn't innovate (talking about base game, not DLC) - Abuse of cheap one-hit deaths by spikes. Also abuse of enemies that remove the floor, which ends in one-hit kills too. At the end of the day, in most bosses the player's Life bar doesn't mean anything as they'll mostly die falling or by a spike. - The kickstarter elements (extra bosses, the castle of portraits) are "shoved in" without any type of theming, they seem very out of place and don't add any value. - Items make the game very very easy. More in the 3DS version where you have them a tap away. You can cheese the game with the invulnerability item, which on top of all you get very early on.

I feel lucky I could get the special edition with the 3 games inside. First of all, I think this is how the game should've been from the beginning, the two (and then 3) editions stuff doesn't make sense to me. Now I've completed the Hoshido and Nohr paths (and I'm halfway Revelations) I think I can review this game properly. The gameplay is improved from Awakening, which I think it was pretty good, there is some fixes (weapons and abilities that were too broken, like Galeforce) and the fact weapons don't wear out is a great improvement in my opinion (it makes you use more weapons than the "cheapest" ones, because there is no fear of losing them, and that is a good thing). The maps are WAY better designed than in Awakening, with more objectives than just "kill all enemies" or "kill the boss". Anyway, Birthright still abuses of those objectives, but Conquest and, from what I've seen Revelations, do a better job at this. Story-wise, the game is a little step down from Awakening, even when that game didn't have a stellar writing. Child units made sense in Awakening and were an epic thing (children going back to the past to save their parents). In this game it doesn't make sense: they have a child and put it in the Dragon Ball Z training room, and then they come out all grown up. However, I find characters are lovable (design and personality-wise). The worst thing about the game is in fact the localisation. The game is heavily censored and it shows even if you didn't know about the fiasco. I've even made a test by showing conversations to people who don't know about this game, and they felt they were "off". English only audio would not be a problem if the dub wasn't so, SO BAD. Seriously, it's soul-less and even seems made in spite. I've listened to the Japanese dialogue and man, it's like day and night. It's a good and fun game, but censoship does it a weak favor. Even with that I'm enjoying it