I picked this up when it launced, made it to around the King Pridemoor fight, and then put it down. After picking up Shovel Knight Dig, I had an itch to go back to the franchise proper and it made perfect sense to return to the one campaign I had never finished. I can't believe what I was missing out on!
Everything about this game is firing on all cylinders. The levels are all a joy to play and manage to flip how you think about your spin-move constantly (especially some of the side areas in the Mole Knight levels). All of the new (and old) NPCs are hilarious and in particular I have to mention the step dad-like relationship King Knight has with King Pridemoor and his Mom. The music is, as usual, quite catchy and well-composed but longtime fans of the series might be disappointed to hear some direct repeats from the previous entries in the mix.
One of the main new features in this campaign is Joustus which is a card game that serves both as a welcome distraction from the action-oriented levels and also plays a prominent role in the plot. In fact, King Knight's whole reason for going on his adventure is to become the titular King of Cards. While I've really grown to love Joustus, I found it to be really frustrating when I first started. I think part of this is due to the fact that some of the nuance of the card game goes unexplained within the game and also because you are able to face off against some opponents early on when you have a deck that realistically cannot compete against them. For me, the key was to realizing that Joustus should primarily be played reactively (e.g., focusing on removing opponents cards from gems rather than on placing your own cards on gems) and that the graveyard should be really treated as an extension of the board and is crucial for creating "locks" in the board that will secure gems.
Aside from my minor grievances with how Joustus is taught to the player, I think that Shovel Knight: King of Cards is both a fantastic standalone game while also brilliantly complementing the other Shovel Knight campaigns. I would recommend this game to anyone who is fan of platformers and/or card games, period.
Everything about this game is firing on all cylinders. The levels are all a joy to play and manage to flip how you think about your spin-move constantly (especially some of the side areas in the Mole Knight levels). All of the new (and old) NPCs are hilarious and in particular I have to mention the step dad-like relationship King Knight has with King Pridemoor and his Mom. The music is, as usual, quite catchy and well-composed but longtime fans of the series might be disappointed to hear some direct repeats from the previous entries in the mix.
One of the main new features in this campaign is Joustus which is a card game that serves both as a welcome distraction from the action-oriented levels and also plays a prominent role in the plot. In fact, King Knight's whole reason for going on his adventure is to become the titular King of Cards. While I've really grown to love Joustus, I found it to be really frustrating when I first started. I think part of this is due to the fact that some of the nuance of the card game goes unexplained within the game and also because you are able to face off against some opponents early on when you have a deck that realistically cannot compete against them. For me, the key was to realizing that Joustus should primarily be played reactively (e.g., focusing on removing opponents cards from gems rather than on placing your own cards on gems) and that the graveyard should be really treated as an extension of the board and is crucial for creating "locks" in the board that will secure gems.
Aside from my minor grievances with how Joustus is taught to the player, I think that Shovel Knight: King of Cards is both a fantastic standalone game while also brilliantly complementing the other Shovel Knight campaigns. I would recommend this game to anyone who is fan of platformers and/or card games, period.