It’s been more than nine years since independent developer and 8-bit fanatic Sean Velasco and his studio Yacht Club Games launched their vision of an NES-inspired, pixel-packed platformer adventure with a retro-mystical style featuring a knight starring whose only weapon is a crowdfunded shovel. It’s been 8 years since Shovel Knight was released and it’s been 8 years since I’ve shown the little knight in light blue around. But yes, history repeats itself. Shovel Knight Dig was recently released on all platforms the game is available on and I’ve played it in both the arcade version from Apple on my 2021 Ipad Pro and on the Xbox Series X.
Shovel Knight Dig isn’t a classic platformer like the first game in the collection, but it calls itself a “roguelike” and works just like other games like Slay the Spire, Spelunky or, why not, Hades and I’d say I’m I’m not easily, at least not immediately, addicted to this type of subgenre that is becoming more and more popular. I’m much more into progression than grinding, training and improving within certain patterns and parts, and these types of games are getting too monotonous in my opinion. Still, I love the Shovel Knight franchise and hope to change my mind with the Yacht Club sequel. Well, that might not have happened yet, but Shovel Knight Dig is a very good game that does most things well and at times even makes you appreciate using and not using permadeath to be forced to start over . That’s because there’s no small part in the super classy design style, the perfect music, and all the upgrades you can buy on the platform before dropping the blue knight back into the underworld.
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Shovel Knight Dig starts with a brief scene where the knight is sleeping by a campfire in the woods and is awakened by a golden knight attacking some kind of huge ship that steals all its equipment and then sinks into the earth. He jumps into the same hole, ready to dig out and chase after this evil villain. There are four different mines to dig through, each with three levels, and emeralds and diamonds everywhere that can be turned into items that you can buy when you’re dead, when you’ve lost everything but gems, and then back from front start use. The levels change slightly between tries, but you can tell them apart, they’re not auto-generated. However, this means that there are several changes in each mine that you have to learn to recognize after a few tries.
This game basically just digs what obviously suits the character and their abilities. To advance you have to go all the way down into the mine level and whichever path you choose it usually ends up in a pixel chaos as enemies spawn and hunt you down with deadly gears and gigantic worms with fangs bigger than the lord himself and all that will happen at once. If you stand in one spot for too long, you die raised up. There are three golden tools on each path and if you want to buy the red suit of armor you’ll need to take all three, but that takes a bit of technique. The pace is fast, the difficulty increases by the minute, and for me, someone who doesn’t pay a lot of roguelikes, the learning level was higher and more difficult than I first thought when I installed the game.
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After all, the first Yacht Club game (which, as we said, came out in 2014) was a very deliberate attempt to emulate an NES game, while Shovel Knight Dig feels more like a classic Mega Drive adventure on par with Castle of Illusion Mickey Mouse or Quack by Donald Duck. The environments are detailed and super colorful with lots of animated elements and cute elves running around like there’s no tomorrow. Everything from the graphics menu to the info signs, enemies, traps and the knight himself is very well designed and overall it’s a very nicely finished product.
Whether you liked the 2014 original or you’re a roguelike junkie, don’t think twice. Shovel Knight Dig is an adorable, challenging pixel-adventure, and while it runs out of gas very quickly and gets a little monotonous at times, I have no qualms about giving it an 8, and that’s more than just a thumbs up.
