Topic: So, I noticed there's no Shovel Knight Specter of Torment thread...

[ClexYoshi]

because I want Yacht club to keep making games and I didn't feel like abusing clerical errors made in the value of pesos, I got Shovel Knight Treasure Trove for my switch! I've been playing Shovel of Hope in Body Swap mode to acclimate myself and to maybe do the achievement hunting I did on the Wii U version. I think the joycons are fine for this game and people are blowing the whole buttons for Dpad thing out of proportion. sure, it's not ideal, but it works fine, and works better than an analogue stick and has not resulted in horrible death just yet!


I want to first comment and say I'm loving Body Swap mode. I got a laugh out of Queen Knight's overhaul and Plague Knight's whole wicked witch look. She's also the one who seems to have been effected the most so far dialogue wise. Also, Specter Knight is stacked.


I made a gaffe that upset me and made the mistake of eating a death in the second enemy gauntlet that wanders the map while I was playing the game portably and it auto-saved a death, so I had to delete the file and start over... so then I checked out Specter of Torment.


And Just like with Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment is magical and how many awesome ideas they have for making the platforming interesting and challenging. in particular, there's a mini-game tucked awya that kinda has you climbing a proceedurally generated tower of various platforming challenges while a line of death chases you, and I was addicted to playing that for hours this morning, really mastering Speccy's homing attack like dash Slash and the quirks of his wall run and wall jump.

I love what they did with the soundtrack, levels, bosses... everything is amazing here. <3 Specter of Torment still has some bits and bombs that are recognizable bits from Shovel of Justice and Plague of Shadows' level design, a lot of it is so very heavily remixed (much like the AMAZING soundtrack) that I really feel like it can't be held against the game.

The remix of the bosses is where it gets really special , though. I was surprised playing Tinker Knight how DIFFERENT that was.  they really put some work into this one, and I really do think Yacht Club has earned the extra dosh I've given them to double dip on this amazing title.

[KeyBilly]

I plan for this game to be the swan song on my 3DS.  The last expansion was surprisingly good.  I may get it on Switch at some point for multiplayer.

[Soren]

I'm waiting for the Wii U version to drop, but I am very excited to play this.

[Adrock]

I'd buy Treasure Trove on Switch if Yacht Club Games would release a physical version. I don't really know what to do with this Shovel Knight Amiibo though. It looks nice, but it's functionally useless now.

[Stratos]

I'm waiting for the Wii U version to drop, but I am very excited to play this.

That's what I was doing before the Switch released, even grabbed the amiibo in a sale a while back.

I'd buy Treasure Trove on Switch if Yacht Club Games would release a physical version. I don't really know what to do with this Shovel Knight Amiibo though. It looks nice, but it's functionally useless now.

Yacht Club has stated that there will be new functionality available for amiibo in the game, so it will still have it's place.

[ClexYoshi]

Custom Knight still saves to the Amiibo if you want to run through Shovel of Justice super overpowered and with all sorts of fun stuff if you have the data saved to your shovel knight amiibo.

As far as I can tell, the only real purpose of the fairy of Shovelry is to look cute and maybe point out on screen where there is money to be had.

[lolmonade]

I went ahead and picked up Shovel Knight on Switch, as a break from Zelda since Bomerman's online is practically unplayable with its lag right now.


Played through one level, and it's pretty great.  Great animation, background, and the music is stellar.  A really neat throwback to 8-bit games. 


Question - how much harder does it get?  I was able to get through the first level without much trouble.  But i've been turned off by some of the 8-bit old school hard platformers in the past.

[ClexYoshi]

Question - how much harder does it get?  I was able to get through the first level without much trouble.  But i've been turned off by some of the 8-bit old school hard platformers in the past.

It depends on what character you're playing as and what you expect to accomplish. I'd liken Shovel knight's difficulty curve to say... a EAD Tokyo Mario 3D Platformer's, where it can be breezy like a kirby game if you're just looking to push through, or brutal if you're trying to go for achivements/break checkpoints/collect goodies/attempting to play the game with Plague Knight's Pandora's cloak.

[KeyBilly]

As someone who is not great at (or overly patient with) old school platformers, I think Shovel Knight had the perfect difficulty.  The Plague Knight expansion was similar, other than a learning curve with the new controls.  There is plenty of money to get all the helpful items and upgrades, and using them liberally prevents much frustration.  Unlike most Indie games, they clearly spent a lot of time balancing things for the average player.

[lolmonade]

Question - how much harder does it get?  I was able to get through the first level without much trouble.  But i've been turned off by some of the 8-bit old school hard platformers in the past.

It depends on what character you're playing as and what you expect to accomplish. I'd liken Shovel knight's difficulty curve to say... a EAD Tokyo Mario 3D Platformer's, where it can be breezy like a kirby game if you're just looking to push through, or brutal if you're trying to go for achivements/break checkpoints/collect goodies/attempting to play the game with Plague Knight's Pandora's cloak.

Yep, starting with Shovel Knight, sounds like a good staring point for me.

[ClexYoshi]

Okay, so I finally beat Specter of Torment mode. it took me so long because I wanted to do no death/no checkpoint body swap of shovel kngiht first to reintroduce me to the universe. will probably see about a plague of shadows playthrough, but for now...


Specter Knight. Uh... I can tell they put a lot more effort into Specter of Torment, but for all of that, I feel like Plague of shadows is still better on both the narrative and gameplay end of things. even if you spend a TON of time in pause menus in Plague of Shadows.

Specter Knight I think bothers me because his hit box is kinda ambiguous because of the way he stands and moves sometimes, and the wall climb and his homing attack take some getting used to. the homing attack in particular, while it functions as advertised with you dashing through the foe at the angle of their little spark, sometimes the window to activate is pretty razor thin and  your positioning as well as the object you're homing attacking into play a huge role in where Specter knight ends up at the end of his dash, and that sometimes lead to death. It's a very flow oriented gameplay style, and it looks INCREDIBLY Flashy when you hit a rhythm and just nail everything.

Unlike with Shovel Knight's Relics or Plague Knight's Arcana, the Curios that Specter Knight wields are almost all useful and feel powerful, and I was cycling through them regularly. standouts include the orb, the feather, and the coin for their platforming  bypassing powers, the rebounding souls for collecting money after a death, and the skull because holy **** Skeleton minion rips bosses and tough enemies to shreds and is a far more efficient tool for fighting anything that takes more than one hit than Speccy is on his own.


I appreciate what they tried doing with the story, but I feel it falls flat.

Donovan is kinda a dick and deserves everything bad that happens to him. I get that him and Luan are supposed to be these thick as thieves bros that are trying to keep Luan's kid safe, but Donovan lets his lust for treasure consume him when confronted with the amulet and attacks everyone, ignores Shield Knight's direct warning, and even attacks his own friend. He shows that he's weak willed, and perfect for the enchantress to manipulate and even toy with him using Rieze.

Speaking of that, I find the prominence of Rieze and Phantom Striker in the narrative to be a bit of a head scratcher, given that both of those characters were by-products of the 'director for a day' stretch goal. Both of these characters had no context in Shovel of Justice other than other folks who challenge shovel knight to a duel for... reasons, but they get highlighted here, with Phantom Striker being the defender of the Lich Yard and recognizing Donovan, and Reize being a central part of Donovan's backstory just feels... forced? I dunno.

I did enjoy the cameo from our favorite Zubaz-wearing street fighter reject, and Mr. Hat is at least in the credits... I could see Mr. Hat being a bigger part of King Knight mode. some of the new NPCs were neat too, but overall I felt that Specter Knight's betrayal of the enchantress being sparked on by the fact that she's Shield Knight and not the fact that the enchantress has been using Reize to **** with him a little... weird. It made it hard to grieve for what was supposed to be a show of his tragic fate of being cursed to undeath to not have the impact it should have.

the most standout thing here is the new tracks that Kauffman provided to the soundtrack. all of them are AMAZING, and quite a few outshine the original composition that appear in the other campaigns!it makes me really wish they had put the effort to do the remixed music and boss redesigns into Plague of Shadows.

Overall, I liked this, but it disappointed me in comparison to the base game and Plague, but only slightly. I like that they took the time to rebalance bosses, even if Skeleton Minion rocks them.

Heck, Skeleton minion is the real hero of this game, not Specter Knight!

[Spak-Spang]

Well,  I personally found Plague of Shadows more engaging and fun than Shovel Knight.  I think because it played very differently than any platform game I played before.  I am hoping Specter of Torment is as good.  I am waiting for it it be released on PC.  I find it hard to go back and play as Shovel Knight...he is just kinda boring now.  I am not looking forward to King Knight's Campaign for that reason.  I really wanted a Tinker Knight campaign...or even I could even see a defensive Shield Knight campaign.

[ClexYoshi]

Well,  I personally found Plague of Shadows more engaging and fun than Shovel Knight.  I think because it played very differently than any platform game I played before.  I am hoping Specter of Torment is as good.  I am waiting for it it be released on PC.  I find it hard to go back and play as Shovel Knight...he is just kinda boring now.  I am not looking forward to King Knight's Campaign for that reason.  I really wanted a Tinker Knight campaign...or even I could even see a defensive Shield Knight campaign.

Oh my gosh, Tinker knight would be SO good, especially since I think they could like... get away with giving him SHMUP gameplay or at least something like a sunsoft game powerup system where he kinda collects scrap to gradually power up but loses some when he gets it or... oh man. <3

I also wouldn't have minded a Polar Knight campaign since him and Shovel Knight have history of some sort and I would have been entertained to see what they do with this huge, clumsy, level-wrecking character.

[Spak-Spang]

During the campaign I was so sad that King Knight and Black Knight seemed so popular.  I mean sure the design is cool, but how they were describing the campaigns it didn't sound an different than regular Shovel Knight. 

I loved Plague Knight and found his game seemed easier than Shovel Knight, but also more rewarding...you could do some crazy fun stuff with Plague Knight. 

[Spak-Spang]

Started Playing Specter Knights campaign, and I have to say it is better than Plague Knight but the controls are very frustrating.  Actually it isn't the controls it is the mechanic of the slide attack.  That should be mapped to a different button.  I would have mapped the attack jump to a different button and then let the the player still press up and attack for use of items.  As it is it is just too easy to accidentally do the wrong thing in the heat of combat.  It is a shame because the game allows you to do some really fun attacks and quick movement just like Plague Knight.  Also, I would have liked to control the direction you attacked/jumped having to wait to fall under an object makes the maneuver needless complex and difficult.

[lolmonade]

I goofed up, gotten stuck on the Spectre knight stage, getting pretty far in the level then falling off and having to start over when dying.  That's when I looked into it and came to realize these things were save points, and I had been negating their ability by destroying them for $$





Doh!

[ClexYoshi]

I mean, There's an achievement for breaking all the checkpoints, Lolmonade? XD

I actually think that if they didn't add that wrinkle of positioning to specter Knight's air dash slash, that it would WAY too much like the games that give Sonic his homing attack in 2D. there's also other little wrinkles to Speccy that makes him difficult, such as remembering that in and of itself, his jump and wall jump do damage to the surface that he's currently on, which is an important thing to know for one of the Specter Knight Challenges.

By the way, there are a LOT less Specter Knight challenges than for Shovel or Plague Knight. I wonder why that is?

I actually am in the boat of loving Plague Knight's gameplay more. there's a a solid logic to it all once it all clicks, and menuing to constantly switch bombstuff aside, it feels like Plague Knight has such a deep pool of tools at his disposal, even without upgrades that I just... prefer it. heck, I have my SHovel Knight Amiibo's Custom Knight set up with the Plague Knight stuff because it's hell afun to use the bomb burst only to shovel drop something to keep the speedy momentum going!