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.

Reviewed on Dec 06, 2022


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