Replayed this after a few years. I can easily say it's one of the best campaigns in Shovel Knight, just under Specter of Torment for me. As usual, the level design is excellent, the original music is great, etc. Joustus as a card game mechanic works really well and is a lot of fun to either play legitimately or break. King Knight's playstyle is super different from the rest and is pretty challenging to master. Story is simple but pretty well done. All in all, an excellent final campaign for Treasure Trove.

It's aight. It's pretty tense a lot of the time, and it does a good job at cultivating stress. However, it has the same issue the first game has where you really only need to use one of the cameras. The worst part is how luck is factored in. It's not a huge issue in the main 5 nights, but I did get screwed over randomly while playing a few times. However, Night 6 was pretty annoying because it felt like every time I'd need to tend to one issue but it wouldn't be possible because of something else and I'd die despite playing well. Still fun overall, but a bit less fun than the first. It feels a bit overly complex in ways that don't strictly add to the experience.

I really like but also kinda despise this game. The game is all about exploring areas to find a bunch of collectibles, and on paper it works pretty well. The problem is that the levels are not consistent. The first two stages are great, full of new moves to learn and stuff to find in small, dense areas. The rest of the game is EXTREMELY mixed. Clanker's Cavern is an extremely slow water level that is just not fun at all. Other stages that are mostly fun like Gobi's Valley and Freezeezy peak have really annoying jiggies within them. It becomes especially worse when collectibles like Jinjos and notes get reset upon death, and stages like Rust Bucket Bay has instant death that are not well indicated and annoying with the game's clunky control and weird camera. But... I can't be too harsh on a 3d collectathon this early into the genre's existence. The theming is incredibly creative, and there's a decent number of collectibles that are really fun to find. What hurts it, though, is that you need almost every collectible in the game to beat it. So you can't skip anything that's annoying. Some of the worst ones come with transformations. You can turn into other animals, none of which are very fun to play as and are highly situational, and require an annoying amount of backtracking with sluggish and boring characters. The hub world isn't very fun to navigate, either. It's a jumbled mess structurally. I dunno. Game's cool. Game sucks. This review is pretty messy, but so is the game.

Probably one of the most fun arcade games I've played. It's incredibly fast, chaotic, and colorful. The constant high speed gameplay is pretty engaging and challenging. Music's alright, not anything I care much for but it suits the game well. The only major issue I take with the game is a lack of objectives. There's some achievements to go for, but they aren't particularly substantial. It's mostly just going for high scores. That's fine, but not something that keeps me personally the most engaged. Pretty good game.

One of the best co-op experiences I've had. As a narratively driven game to play with a friend, it works extremely well. The gameplay is often really fun, although a few instances are a bit too simplistic or not very co-op focused. The story is great and pretty well executed. The music suits the game quite well. It looks okay visually. The animation is a little stiff in places, but it's helped by pretty good vocal performances. If you've got a friend to sit back and play with, an easy recommendation.

A fun layton game, but it feels like a step down from the previous entries. While everything is still good here, most elements just feel lesser. The stakes are smaller, the environment and plot are less interesting, the character interaction isn't as fun, puzzles aren't as consistently great as before. However, everything here is still pretty fun. It looks good, music is great, everything you would want in a puzzle game visual novel like this is accounted for. I was a bit mixed on newcomer Emmy. I like what she adds to the group dynamic, but it felt like she was missing something to flesh out her character more. One of the things I really like about the series is the dynamic between Luke and Layton, and since this is a prequel, the dynamic isn't really there since Luke acts pretty different this time around. It doesn't make it bad or anything, just less strong than previous. I would probably rate it higher if it wasn't released after the best Layton game.