read through some reviews and saw some pretty negative comments about this game. did we play the same thing???
Pros:
+ the roguelike genre is a natural fit for Shovel Knight
+ most of the cast of the original returns in some form
+ look, sound, and feel are familiar to fans of the original game
+ one playthrough is quick and possible without too many meta-upgrades
+ choice between health and item after a stage offers tactical options
+ procedural level design rarely feels artificial
+ stages offer a lot of unique new challenges to overcome
+ many secrets to discover both within and outside of the dungeon
Cons:
- soft time limit feels manufactured and at odds with the exploratory design
- losing items after being hit leads to frequent moments of frustration
- some items are practically useless compared to movement upgrades
- collision and hit detection are wonky in the later stages
- meta-upgrades are exceedingly expensive
- level select signs are unexplained and unclear
- finishing a run is practically impossible without health upgrades
- most characters in town do not serve any function and have nothing to say
- the secret ending is almost impossible to discover on your own
Playtime: 6 hours with one ending discovered and only few additional armor and other upgrades found.
Magic Moment: Discovering that the owl is not what it seems.
Verdict:
A decent if somewhat unremarkable excursion into the roguelike genre for Shovel Knight and the team behind his creation. The soft time limit in the form of a deadly saw that follows you throughout the stage feels unnecessary and artifically inflates the difficulty, while the combat and bosses are fair and mostly fun to fight.
Take a lot at it if you want more Shovel Knight, but do not expect a deep roguelike action game.
+ the roguelike genre is a natural fit for Shovel Knight
+ most of the cast of the original returns in some form
+ look, sound, and feel are familiar to fans of the original game
+ one playthrough is quick and possible without too many meta-upgrades
+ choice between health and item after a stage offers tactical options
+ procedural level design rarely feels artificial
+ stages offer a lot of unique new challenges to overcome
+ many secrets to discover both within and outside of the dungeon
Cons:
- soft time limit feels manufactured and at odds with the exploratory design
- losing items after being hit leads to frequent moments of frustration
- some items are practically useless compared to movement upgrades
- collision and hit detection are wonky in the later stages
- meta-upgrades are exceedingly expensive
- level select signs are unexplained and unclear
- finishing a run is practically impossible without health upgrades
- most characters in town do not serve any function and have nothing to say
- the secret ending is almost impossible to discover on your own
Playtime: 6 hours with one ending discovered and only few additional armor and other upgrades found.
Magic Moment: Discovering that the owl is not what it seems.
Verdict:
A decent if somewhat unremarkable excursion into the roguelike genre for Shovel Knight and the team behind his creation. The soft time limit in the form of a deadly saw that follows you throughout the stage feels unnecessary and artifically inflates the difficulty, while the combat and bosses are fair and mostly fun to fight.
Take a lot at it if you want more Shovel Knight, but do not expect a deep roguelike action game.
Honestly, the roguelike modifiers aren’t unique or fun enough to make runs distinct, the randomized level designs are really frustrating, collision and hit detection (especially on moving dirt in Drill Knight’s castle) is janky, and the Knightmares they recently introduced are 100% unfiltered bullshit. Despite all this, I had the game 100% complete before the recent Fate and Fortune update. I don’t think I have the patience to grind through the frustration of the new content they introduced here.
playable but i hope yacht club makes something new instead of more shovel knight forever
Only beat it once so far, but will definitely be back at it later. As an introductory roguelike/lite/whatever it's great. As a new shovel knight game, it's alright.
+ Platforming focused roguelite
+ No progression outside of runs other than unlockables
+ Good bosses with high number of possible different arenas for each one
+ A lot of room variety, still seeing new generations even now
+ Loads of clever design evenly spread out across each world
+ Good Soundtrack
+ Satisfying SFX
+ Gorgeous pixel art
+ Worthwhile true ending run
- Some rooms can be frustrating / boring
- Can miss cogs due to not being able to see down far enough (happened roughly 3 times in 27 hours)
- Bouncing up after every pogo on a block gets tiring fast
Also Bosses can become pushovers with certain relics (although the game challenges you to beat it without them)
One of my favourite roguelites next to Spelunky 1 & 2.
+ No progression outside of runs other than unlockables
+ Good bosses with high number of possible different arenas for each one
+ A lot of room variety, still seeing new generations even now
+ Loads of clever design evenly spread out across each world
+ Good Soundtrack
+ Satisfying SFX
+ Gorgeous pixel art
+ Worthwhile true ending run
- Some rooms can be frustrating / boring
- Can miss cogs due to not being able to see down far enough (happened roughly 3 times in 27 hours)
- Bouncing up after every pogo on a block gets tiring fast
Also Bosses can become pushovers with certain relics (although the game challenges you to beat it without them)
One of my favourite roguelites next to Spelunky 1 & 2.
I started playing this in-between playing the main campaign of Shovel Knight in Co-op with my brother and ended up beating it first. It's fun but the item variety isnt great and the progression was pretty minimal for a roguelite which kinda annoyed me
Shovel Knight Dig is a fun and short Shovel Knight adventure, if you liked the original Shovel Knight then check this out! Because, unlike the other Shovel Knight spinoffs, this entry has very similar gameplay to the original. This fact is one of the game's greatest strengths as the original Shovel Knight is awesome! But, its also one of the games greatest weaknesses, as this game does not really play much like a roguelike past the surface.
The game's main structure is sort of a mix between Downwell + Mr Driller. You dig your way down whilst fighting off enemies and occasionally entering side areas for shops/secrets. This structure added with the moveset and controls of Shovel Knight are fantastic and although the game is randomly generated the chunks of level blend together well and don't just feel like pure random nonsense. The level themes are interesting enough and the soundtrack for each one (and the entire game) is kickass, although in terms of actual gameplay they don't really shake things up THAT much.
As you progress through runs you will obtain upgrades, and whilst some of them are interesting, they feel more like cheats/mini buffs rather than items for a roguelike. They don't ever change your approach to playing the game, they simply make tiny alterations. The only exception to that is the relics, which are limited-use items and again, don't really shake things up all that much.
The plot is OK, but there is far too much dialogue within the actual run, dialogue that, to me, was not even that interesting, I understood the general gist of the plot seconds after I started playing, I really didn't need to read/skip through the same dialogue boxes over and over. The story is also pretty cut and dry, it starts, and it ends, relatively quickly too which is odd for this game being a roguelike.
And with that, we begin to see the issue with this game, the replay value is minimal. Which is quite a big deal for a roguelike. Once you've beaten the game once, there is really little incentive to keep playing after you finished 1 run, and getting to the point of beating your first run is great and will take a decent amount of time. But past that, the lack of item variety, and rather samey level generation, accompanied with a story that's already over just leads you to move on to the next game.
So in conclusion, as you're making your way to completing your first run, you'll have a blast, its just more of that original Shovel Knight goodness. But past that, as a roguelike, this game has little to offer.
The game's main structure is sort of a mix between Downwell + Mr Driller. You dig your way down whilst fighting off enemies and occasionally entering side areas for shops/secrets. This structure added with the moveset and controls of Shovel Knight are fantastic and although the game is randomly generated the chunks of level blend together well and don't just feel like pure random nonsense. The level themes are interesting enough and the soundtrack for each one (and the entire game) is kickass, although in terms of actual gameplay they don't really shake things up THAT much.
As you progress through runs you will obtain upgrades, and whilst some of them are interesting, they feel more like cheats/mini buffs rather than items for a roguelike. They don't ever change your approach to playing the game, they simply make tiny alterations. The only exception to that is the relics, which are limited-use items and again, don't really shake things up all that much.
The plot is OK, but there is far too much dialogue within the actual run, dialogue that, to me, was not even that interesting, I understood the general gist of the plot seconds after I started playing, I really didn't need to read/skip through the same dialogue boxes over and over. The story is also pretty cut and dry, it starts, and it ends, relatively quickly too which is odd for this game being a roguelike.
And with that, we begin to see the issue with this game, the replay value is minimal. Which is quite a big deal for a roguelike. Once you've beaten the game once, there is really little incentive to keep playing after you finished 1 run, and getting to the point of beating your first run is great and will take a decent amount of time. But past that, the lack of item variety, and rather samey level generation, accompanied with a story that's already over just leads you to move on to the next game.
So in conclusion, as you're making your way to completing your first run, you'll have a blast, its just more of that original Shovel Knight goodness. But past that, as a roguelike, this game has little to offer.
la mala econocmia arruino mi experiencia de manera increible, cuando un power up random te duplica la vida y otro hace suficiente dañom como para matar al jefe final a la primera saves que algo esta mal.
Es que hay una falta de refinamiento increible, este juego le funcionaria mejor ser lineal, que un roguelike tenga partes exactamente iguales luego de que repitas unas 5 partidas es malo.
La idea de cavar y no poder volver atras es lo que hace este juego interesante, tenemos que ser precavidos, si el hoyo que cavamos es muy profundo no podremos subir, este otorga una nueva capa de estrategia que no recuerdo antes pero hasta ahi falla por que si tienes los poderes necesarios te da igual todo.
Esto hizo que me pregunte que tan buena es la idea de las mejoras/power ups de videojuegos, si el nivel que sigue es mas dificil y yo me duplico la vida, no sentire el cambio en absoluto, lo mismo me paso con rpgs/etc.
Directamente tendrian que rehacer el juego, y pensar que era una saga sin "malos" juegos, una pena
Es que hay una falta de refinamiento increible, este juego le funcionaria mejor ser lineal, que un roguelike tenga partes exactamente iguales luego de que repitas unas 5 partidas es malo.
La idea de cavar y no poder volver atras es lo que hace este juego interesante, tenemos que ser precavidos, si el hoyo que cavamos es muy profundo no podremos subir, este otorga una nueva capa de estrategia que no recuerdo antes pero hasta ahi falla por que si tienes los poderes necesarios te da igual todo.
Esto hizo que me pregunte que tan buena es la idea de las mejoras/power ups de videojuegos, si el nivel que sigue es mas dificil y yo me duplico la vida, no sentire el cambio en absoluto, lo mismo me paso con rpgs/etc.
Directamente tendrian que rehacer el juego, y pensar que era una saga sin "malos" juegos, una pena
cool roguelike gameplay,pixelart is really beatiful and music is kinda good,it is very simple and very addicting,cool game
Shovel Knight and its subsequent campaigns account for some of my favorite 2D platformer experiences ever. The allure of that level of quality applied to a roguelike was strong enough for me to give Shovel Knight Dig a try, and while it maintains the quality of the gameplay, I think it suffers greatly in the roguelike department. In the several hours that I played this not once did I get an item or meta unlock that made me go "oh cool, that seems strong!" Which I feel like is necessary for a roguelike to keep my attention. Add onto that the fact that each zone does not have much variety, and the levels aren't as meticulously designed as the levels from the source material, and this just doesn't work for me.
Great sprites and music tho
Great sprites and music tho
I was super excited for Shovel Knight DIG since its first trailer, the graphics of this game are so pretty and the soundtrack is terrific, and the actual gameplay is pretty fun, but I think the roguelike aspect of the game isn't the greatest since there are not a lot of items and there are very few levels in this game.
This has been one of my most anticipated games ever since I became a Shovel Knight fan, so I had some high expectations.
The game nailed it on the usual aspects, like music, level design, and controls. The true ending questline is complicated and rewarding, an improvement over Pocket dungeon. I did have some issues though.
The number 1 problem in Dig is the small item pool. There are WAY too little perks, items and gear, which leads to runs feeling the same. You'll just end up equipping your favourites every time because the chance to get them is so high. It's even more frustrating when some items are wasted on just elemental resistance that only works against one or two enemies in the game.
I also wish it had a beastiary. This is the kind of game where you'd want a complete list of every enemy but it lacks it for some reason.
I also wished they had come up with a solid six new hexcavators instead of reusing Mole and Tinker from the first game. What is this, mega man and bass?
I still enjoyed the game, but I had to drop it far sooner than I'd have liked.
The game nailed it on the usual aspects, like music, level design, and controls. The true ending questline is complicated and rewarding, an improvement over Pocket dungeon. I did have some issues though.
The number 1 problem in Dig is the small item pool. There are WAY too little perks, items and gear, which leads to runs feeling the same. You'll just end up equipping your favourites every time because the chance to get them is so high. It's even more frustrating when some items are wasted on just elemental resistance that only works against one or two enemies in the game.
I also wish it had a beastiary. This is the kind of game where you'd want a complete list of every enemy but it lacks it for some reason.
I also wished they had come up with a solid six new hexcavators instead of reusing Mole and Tinker from the first game. What is this, mega man and bass?
I still enjoyed the game, but I had to drop it far sooner than I'd have liked.
Pretty solid rogue like game. It feels very similar to the original Shovel Knight game, and is just generally incredibly tightly made. However, I wish the meta progression were more. In general, it gets repetitive fast and nothing drove me to keep doing runs. However, the pixel art and the music is really top notch and it is enjoyable enough.
Benim tarzım değildi ama grafikler çok hoş olmuş.
Wish there was more variance in the runs. Upgrades hardly feel special. I guess it's more of a platformer than roguelike
Очень красивый пиксель-арт, но сама игра слишком унылая. И это на фоне оригинального Shovel Knight, который я считаю шедевром.
Game is fine with beautiful graphics, really good control and thoughtful attention to detail. But really flounders with progression and gets repetitive quickly. My favorite thing about roguelikes is making insane builds and skillfully using that to complete the game, but in this game there isn't any item you pick up that feels particularly broken when you combine it. Everything feels pretty weak actually. Couple that with complete lack of progression other than buying your way to the later levels. It can feel like throwing yourself at a brick wall constantly to beat the game.
Great game to play if ur looking to start on the franchise or get a nostalgia hit from the first one
(Logging ratings from glitchwave.com)
is it fair to think less of a game because getting the true ending is aggravating and you get sick of playing the game due to the tedious conditions required to achieve it?
yeah
is it fair to think less of a game because getting the true ending is aggravating and you get sick of playing the game due to the tedious conditions required to achieve it?
yeah
Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIO1SbvACKk
Shovel Knight Dig is a decent game, but it lacks that juicy hook that keeps me coming back to roguelikes. Listen, I know there’s a difference between roguelikes and roguelites but I just don’t care. They’re all roguelikes to me. Now, what I love about this genre is how it feels like you’re always making progress, even when you’re not.
Dig don’t do dat doe.
Instead, you barely get any upgrades as you ram your head in to the wall over and over. Or, in this case; in to bed of spikes. I don’t say this very often, but I think this game is too hard. At the very least, it’s difficult in the wrong ways. It just wants you to keep trying but not really have much more of a chance the next time around. Sure, you vaguely pick up on a pattern of that one enemy that keeps taking you out, but that’s 25 minutes in to the run and you might forget your new strategy by the time you attempt revenge. Also, I feel like I never just get hit once. The majority of damage I took in this game was due to me getting hit by one thing in to another thing, and then potentially in to ANOTHER thing.
Your moveset is very lackluster. It’s just not that fun to use. Even the “upgrades” you get to enhance your shovel feel weak and mostly useless. I wasn’t ever excited to get to a shop and see how I could improve my kit. The only reason I was ever happy to see a shop was so that I could heal myself.
On a positive note, the music is great. I had it stuck in my head for a couple weeks. The pixel art is lovely and I didn’t have any issues with how it performed. The boss fights are pretty fun, until you have to repeat them over and over. This really highlights your limited moveset. There isn’t much opportunity to try to take down the bosses (or any enemies for that matter) in more than 1 or 2 ways.
Going in, I thought I’d have a great time. I liked Shovel Knight a lot and I LOVE roguelikes. I just don’t think they did it justice. It’s a solid game. If you like what you see, you might enjoy it. It’s pretty much exactly what it looks like. If you can handle repetitive punishment minus the usually satisfying payoff that roguelikes provide… try it out. You may appreciate it more than I did.
Shovel Knight Dig is a decent game, but it lacks that juicy hook that keeps me coming back to roguelikes. Listen, I know there’s a difference between roguelikes and roguelites but I just don’t care. They’re all roguelikes to me. Now, what I love about this genre is how it feels like you’re always making progress, even when you’re not.
Dig don’t do dat doe.
Instead, you barely get any upgrades as you ram your head in to the wall over and over. Or, in this case; in to bed of spikes. I don’t say this very often, but I think this game is too hard. At the very least, it’s difficult in the wrong ways. It just wants you to keep trying but not really have much more of a chance the next time around. Sure, you vaguely pick up on a pattern of that one enemy that keeps taking you out, but that’s 25 minutes in to the run and you might forget your new strategy by the time you attempt revenge. Also, I feel like I never just get hit once. The majority of damage I took in this game was due to me getting hit by one thing in to another thing, and then potentially in to ANOTHER thing.
Your moveset is very lackluster. It’s just not that fun to use. Even the “upgrades” you get to enhance your shovel feel weak and mostly useless. I wasn’t ever excited to get to a shop and see how I could improve my kit. The only reason I was ever happy to see a shop was so that I could heal myself.
On a positive note, the music is great. I had it stuck in my head for a couple weeks. The pixel art is lovely and I didn’t have any issues with how it performed. The boss fights are pretty fun, until you have to repeat them over and over. This really highlights your limited moveset. There isn’t much opportunity to try to take down the bosses (or any enemies for that matter) in more than 1 or 2 ways.
Going in, I thought I’d have a great time. I liked Shovel Knight a lot and I LOVE roguelikes. I just don’t think they did it justice. It’s a solid game. If you like what you see, you might enjoy it. It’s pretty much exactly what it looks like. If you can handle repetitive punishment minus the usually satisfying payoff that roguelikes provide… try it out. You may appreciate it more than I did.
Shovel Knight Dig seems like a case of mistaken identity. All of the things that make Shovel Knight great don't lend well to a roguelite and all of the things that modern indie roguelites have done well haven't seemed to make their way into this game. Shovel Knight worked because its difficulty was complemented by hand-crafted level design, with all of a screen's hazard's visible at all times. Dig's procedural generation can result in frustrating enemy and trap placement that often feels unfair rather than fun. Getting hit by an offscreen obstacle or having a gem or cog destroyed right as the screen transitions is never a pleasant experience. The roguelite elements also become grating--the items seem to do mostly nothing useful, and hardly complement one another, making runs blend together instead of each being distinct. Having a large number of items that are either actively harmful or useless pollutes the already dismal loot pool, making only health upgrades useful to me personally. On top of all this, I just spectacularly sucked at this game--I don't think I'm terrible at roguelites, I've breezed through a decent number of them, but I actually had to turn on some of the accessibility options to make this one winnable for me.
It's fun, but for a roguelike there's not a whole lot to see here. Pocket Dungeon was a similar case, albeit worse off in content in comparison, but its gameplay is far more addictive than Dig's. Not a bad experience, but idk. I'd recommend just about any other roguelike over this.
The fact that this is also a mobile game really does show, but it's more shovel knight. I can't complain.
watched vinny play this day 1. at one point he was 3 pixels away from an enemies sprite and took damage. he hesitated for a moment after it happened.
I adore Shovel Knight and don't get me wrong, this game is fun! But it just feels like there's not much you can do in this game unfortunately.
Which is weird since I love roguelikes though I guess it feels like every run just kinda goes the same (unless you go for hidden ending which is a lot of work). The game is still charming though for what it is and I really love the new characters introduced! The music is also amazing.
Which is weird since I love roguelikes though I guess it feels like every run just kinda goes the same (unless you go for hidden ending which is a lot of work). The game is still charming though for what it is and I really love the new characters introduced! The music is also amazing.
Mechanically satisfying, but not quite enough variation in level choice to be fully compelling.
This game was fun. I do not need to play another roguelike for maybe another 10 years.
I hate saying this one disappointed me a bit. Maybe it isn't the game's fault because Rouge-likes are hit or miss for me, but I gave it a go anyway because Shovel Knight's one of my favorite games ever, why wouldn't I? Well, it ends up feeling a little tiresome after a while because of how often you're at the mercy of what the games gives you to build with. I can get a good run where I get a lot of Max HP sometimes, and thus have less difficulty surviving, but some runs it just doesn't give me any Max HP upgrades and I end up too fragile to reliably survive the lower parts of the dungeon.
Shovel Knight's hard level design works because fairly generous checkpointing allows you to learn the level design, and dying doesn't hurt so bad. Dying here feels awful because I'm trying to learn the mechanics of the water level's elements, only to get killed and not see the water level again for another half-hour because you start from the very beginning of the game, thus learning the level design becomes a chore. This came to a head when I got to the final level, reached a part that looked like a dead-end, couldn't find out how to progress, and then the drilling machine killed me. What did I do wrong? I'm not gonna find out until I play literally the entire game over again! It wants the Shovel Knight difficulty but still wants the perma-death of a Rogue-like.
Speaking of the drilling machine, I can't help but be shocked you can't turn that off in the options. Pocket Dungeon had such versatile customizable difficulty right down to removing its time limit entirely if you wanted. Why can't I do the same with Dig? The game would certainly kill me a lot less if I was allowed to take my time more.
The procedurally generated level design also rides the fine line of being sort of mish-mash, but also having whole segments that you start easily recognizing more and more. Especially in the first level, Mushroom Mines. Shovel Knight got it so right because every bit of the level design felt intentional and well thought-out, where here it's feeling a little more scattered because segments don't organically lead into one-another as well.
In the end it's still as solid as any Shovel Knight game, but this feels like a notable step down from everything else under the name. At least the pixel-art is gorgeous and the music is a banger, as usual.
Shovel Knight's hard level design works because fairly generous checkpointing allows you to learn the level design, and dying doesn't hurt so bad. Dying here feels awful because I'm trying to learn the mechanics of the water level's elements, only to get killed and not see the water level again for another half-hour because you start from the very beginning of the game, thus learning the level design becomes a chore. This came to a head when I got to the final level, reached a part that looked like a dead-end, couldn't find out how to progress, and then the drilling machine killed me. What did I do wrong? I'm not gonna find out until I play literally the entire game over again! It wants the Shovel Knight difficulty but still wants the perma-death of a Rogue-like.
Speaking of the drilling machine, I can't help but be shocked you can't turn that off in the options. Pocket Dungeon had such versatile customizable difficulty right down to removing its time limit entirely if you wanted. Why can't I do the same with Dig? The game would certainly kill me a lot less if I was allowed to take my time more.
The procedurally generated level design also rides the fine line of being sort of mish-mash, but also having whole segments that you start easily recognizing more and more. Especially in the first level, Mushroom Mines. Shovel Knight got it so right because every bit of the level design felt intentional and well thought-out, where here it's feeling a little more scattered because segments don't organically lead into one-another as well.
In the end it's still as solid as any Shovel Knight game, but this feels like a notable step down from everything else under the name. At least the pixel-art is gorgeous and the music is a banger, as usual.
Shovel Knight and Roguelites are two of my favorite things, and the combination of the two of them sounded like a match made in heaven. So you can imagine my disappointment when Shovel Knight Dig kind of sucked.
Shovel Knight Dig, at its core, has the potential to be a great game. The minute-to-minute gameplay is actually pretty fun. The issues that ruin the game are progression and platform.
I played this on mobile so I think that tainted my experience by a good amount because the touch controls are absolute garbage. Precision plus touch controls is a miserable combination. I tried this on iPhone and iPad and neither were good.
I've said this in other Roguelite reviews but I think progression makes or breaks a good roguelite. And the progression in Shovel Knight Dig sucks. The only thing you keep between runs are gems that you can spend on single-use items to help you in your next run or a new armor set.
All-in-all, it's a shame that this game kind of sucks to play because the gameplay itself had great potential.
+ Fun Downwell meets Shovel Knight gameplay.
+ More fantastic Shovel Knight music
- Miserable touch controls
- Bad sense of progression
- I'd rather just replay Shovel Knight
Shovel Knight Dig, at its core, has the potential to be a great game. The minute-to-minute gameplay is actually pretty fun. The issues that ruin the game are progression and platform.
I played this on mobile so I think that tainted my experience by a good amount because the touch controls are absolute garbage. Precision plus touch controls is a miserable combination. I tried this on iPhone and iPad and neither were good.
I've said this in other Roguelite reviews but I think progression makes or breaks a good roguelite. And the progression in Shovel Knight Dig sucks. The only thing you keep between runs are gems that you can spend on single-use items to help you in your next run or a new armor set.
All-in-all, it's a shame that this game kind of sucks to play because the gameplay itself had great potential.
+ Fun Downwell meets Shovel Knight gameplay.
+ More fantastic Shovel Knight music
- Miserable touch controls
- Bad sense of progression
- I'd rather just replay Shovel Knight