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Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon (Switch) Review

by Neal Ronaghan - December 12, 2021, 9:00 am EST
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9

Shovel Knight’s Wario’s Woods.

Puzzle games have, for better or worse, settled into being assumed to be lower-tier, cheaper games. That’s not to knock the quality of the genre, but oftentimes they skew towards being free-to-play mobile titles or no-frills and no-nonsense console affairs. Whenever there is some expansive puzzle game, usually Tetris has to be involved to make it happen. That’s why I was blown away by how deep and intricate Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon is. Yacht Club Games and Vine basically came together to make a puzzle game as expansive as the platformer it’s spun off from, and the results are magnificent.

The basic gameplay reminds me a ton of the ‘90s Nintendo puzzler Wario’s Woods. You control a character on a falling-block puzzle grid and move around to try to chain together blocks of the same type to avoid the stage from filling up. The twist is that the blocks are, for the most part, all enemies; instead of moving them around as Toad in Wario’s Woods, you fight them as characters from Shovel Knight. It takes some getting used to because when you run into an enemy, you do damage to each other. By default, Shovel Knight does one damage to the group of enemies he runs into, and typically, most enemies do one damage in return. Thankfully, the grid also has potions strewn about, and running into them can restore the health you lose from combat. Losing all your hearts results in dropping some of your gems, much like when you die in Shovel Knight proper.

The going gets tough very quickly, as new enemies are introduced every level and boss battles show up throughout the game. Bosses still all take place on a grid, but they have unique mechanics and patterns and usually some kind of larger set piece. The overall structure is a run-based design evocative of roguelikes. By default, you go through a set of levels similar to the basic narrative of the original Shovel Knight and can pick at the outset to play it in roguelike style, where one death kicks you back to the beginning, or puzzle style, where you can die as many times as you like but will have to restart if the puzzle board fills up. Each style is challenging, but that isn’t where the difficulty customization ends. You can tweak how many lives you have, change how many hit points you start with, and also the damage enemies do to you. It’s extremely flexible even if it’s potentially harsh when you first boot it up.

Even on a run-by-run basis, you can boost your abilities with Relics that give your hero more hit points or different abilities or buffs. Keys can be found frequently, which in turn unlock treasure chests on the puzzle board so you can trigger screen-clearing bombs or powerful limited-use items that increase your offense or defense. The variety in runs is vast, especially since you can earn gems every run to purchase more Relics for the future. If you want to get wild, you can even make it so the order of the stages is randomized, which can sometimes get diabolical as starting with the later stages is a bear.

All of this is already fulfilling before you get to the fact that Pocket Dungeon has many more playable characters than just Shovel Knight. You begin with the title character, but as you beat bosses and uncover other secrets, you can unlock more than 10 other playable characters, including Shield Knight and familiar foes from the Order of No Quarter. All of them control the same, but they each have their own unique abilities that can completely alter your strategies. For a lot of my initial runs, I mained Shovel Knight, but after reaching the credits for the first time, I started experimenting more with other characters and realized how ridiculously you can bend the rules of the game.

For example, Specter Knight earns two hit points every time he slays an enemy, but potions do damage to him, so you often play keepaway from potions while trying to time your combos more deliberately to regain health. Mole Knight can burrow around the map, swapping locations quickly and giving you much more mobility. Treasure Knight inflicts more damage on enemies from below, so you’re encouraged to hang out more near the bottom of the board. Those are just some of the ones you encounter relatively early on. It gets wilder as you get deeper.

Some people might be satisfied by reaching the credits once, which will only take you a few hours depending on your abilities. However, Pocket Dungeon is littered with secrets as you can try to find items that unlock a different ending and work your way through the game with every character. I’ve spent a dozen hours and counting with the game and I’m still finding new twists and striving to unlock and defeat everything.

In addition to the main adventure, Pocket Dungeon also has a few extra modes. The Daily Challenge is a good way to compete with online rankings and see how long you can last on a single life. The Vs. mode is something I haven’t been able to get too deep into, but my time with it has given me a rush of promising competitive puzzle game vibes. On top of all of this, Yacht Club is set to release three DLC packs in the future. Who knows what, when, and how much that will all be, but if you get into this style, you should be set for a long time.

The soundtrack, from series mainstay Jake Kaufman, is incredible, building on the now-classic themes from the past games and adding excellent new jams. This is also a visually beautiful pixel art game that definitely is in the same ballpark as the source material, but is distinct enough to feel like its own world. Humorously, the fact it’s like that is even commented on in the overall narrative, which isn’t as powerful as the original but still is well-written and enjoyable.

I came into Pocket Dungeon with high hopes. I am one of the few people who adores Wario’s Woods. What I found in the final package was something bigger and bolder than I anticipated. You might be able to draw a dotted line back to the retro puzzler, but at the end of the day, Yacht Club and Vine just went and took the idea and ethos of Shovel Knight and paired it with the puzzle style that would make for the deepest experience. This isn’t a square peg fitting into a round hole like some puzzle game spin-offs. Instead, Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon just feels like an extension of the original game. Much like the inspiration, it’s challenging, but it’s also forgiving enough to not dissuade frustrated players. I didn’t think I’d see the day when someone did Wario’s Woods as a conceptual idea justice, but dang, they did it. Pocket Dungeon is incredible.

Summary

Pros
  • Deep puzzle gameplay
  • Excellent soundtrack and visuals
  • Flexible difficulty and modes
  • So many secrets and unlockable characters
  • Two-player battle mode
Cons
  • A lot of repetition
  • Can get frustrating

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Game Profile

Genre Action
Developer
Players1 - 2

Worldwide Releases

na: Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
Release Dec 13, 2021
PublisherYacht Club Games
RatingEveryone
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