Ranking the Shovel Knight Games

I think plague knight is a lot better then you're giving it credit for. The challenge behind the game is thinking through each situation and taking your time, generally every situation has a bomb combination that will make it trivial provided you can figure it out. In that way I see plague knight as much more of a puzzle platformer then a traditional platformer. Thinking on the fly should be your last resort.

Everyone kinda hates on Plague of Shadows, but it's honestly more fun if you play it before Shovel of Hope. It's still my least favorite tho

Uncommon opinion maybe, but I actually love showdown personally. Being able to play all the characters is amazing, and it's actually fun unlike pocket dungeon

Also WHAT, dig over the original??? No way, it's basically Downwell with a shovel knight coat of paint

I knew showdown would be at the bottom 🤣

I loved all the main campaigns BUT king knight in order to 100% you have to do the stupid card game. Now for me 100% each game would take about 2 hours, probably a little less, for king knight it’d be around 7+. I hate the dumb card game

Your Joustus complaint sounds like a skill issue

Shovel Knight Kart is a logical future step for the series.

I played Pocket Dungeon thinking it will be ok.
But damn it's perfect

Ayy Specter of Torment is also my personal favorite.

Pocket Dungeon is my #1 so far.
Maybe i just really like those weird gimmicky experiment games.

Mine is:
1 Pocket dungeon
2 Specter of Torment
3 King of Cards
4 Dig
5 Showdown (mostly because it made me discover this wonderful franchise)
6 Shovel of Hope
7 Plague of Shadows

S.O.T. is seriously a blast of a game. Skating on the scythe is ridiculously fun and the slash dashing makes for some really quick maneuvering. I'm trying out King of Cards or w/e it's called right now and let me say, It feels SO weird. The bash to spin thing confused me so much. But I'm sure once I get used to it, it'll be pretty fun too.

Plague knight feels amazing to play. Its got a learning curve, but its so much fun once you fully understand it.

That being said, id probably rank it somewhat lowly as well. The game, as you said, recycles a lot from shovel knight. The result is that you dont have to engage with the levels as much. High level play for the other 3 campaigns involves platforming skills that seem insane to a first timer, but high level plague knight play often just involves flying over large segments of the levels and ignoring them completely. The levels just arent designed around him as well as the other 3 are designed around their respective characters.

Thanks for the help to pick which game to buy, :D

Here's my ranking of the games/campaign things (having collected everything in each one and not playing dig)

Puzzle Dungeon. As someone who plays a lot of Crypt of the Necrodancer and really enjoys puyo this kinda doesnt work. As someone who naturally tends to learn games to exploit stuff (like learning how to control your luck in rougelikes) it just is too easy to figure out and become a godlike figure in this game

Shovel of Hope. Shovel of hope is a good campaign but in reflection to the rest of the series it doesnt have nearly as much depth as the other entries

Showdown. I have put a lot of time into learning showdown for probably little reward. I wish there was an online but i fully understand how unbalanced and not great it is. Lets just say i understand how people love smb melee after really loving showdown

Plague of Shadows. Plague of shadows is an exercise in awkward level design but in a fun way. All stages are so clearly not designed for plague knight which makes it way more fun for me, your moveset is very odd but once you learn the intracies of how it interacts makes going through the game very satisfying in a sisyphean way but i fully understand why someone else wouldnt enjoy it much.

Shovel knight amiibo campaign. Far better shovel of hope with many fun things to interact with and feels personal due to customization

King of Cards. I used to not like this one very much but then i tried to speedrun the stages and i immediately fell in love. Going as fast as possible is just aaaaa, the gyro boots, turn coat and etc makes it so fun with nice tech while still being accessible. I do probably have more room in my heart for plague of shadows but this is just better

Joustus. I love joustus. Please release physical joustus trading packs i beg of you Yacht club, or at least printable pdfs, i would pay so much

Specter of Torment. Yeah its excellent, pure speed, pure intensity. Not much to say that hasnt been said. Screw will skull tho for breaking balance entirely.

dig isnt on console😓

I'll put my own ranking in as a kinda disagreed with his also I haven't played dig
6showdown
5 specter if torment
4shovel of hope
3 king of cards
2pocket dungeon
1 plague of shadows

7. Plague of shadows
6. Showdown
5. Pocket
4. Dig
3. Specter of torment
2. Original
1. King of cards

Showdown can be super fun if you get a good ruleset. I play one on one showdown matches (not with gems, those suck, I agree), a few stocks, no items, and no stage hazards (on actually good stages). If you get the ruleset right, the game can be incredibly fun. I’ve played so, so many hours of matches under those conditions, and it can be so fun like that. (Though the character roster is still wildly unbalanced tho…)

Despite having to be very selective with how you play it and the ruleset you use to have fun, and despite it’s MANY flaws, I still think it’s one of my favorite parts of Treasure Trove.

you can buy the glide explosion in plague of shadows to literally give you control of every jump,also the fact that you can make your own platforms and use the purple shoryuken to gain height the game has the best mobility but you refused to use any of it's tools

king knight's room has a mirror where you can practice joustus against people you beat, just go to the homestead and break the high secret wall on the left using bubble frog or tornado and you'll get into king knight's room

RE: Plague Knight. He’s def the least intuitive control wise but there’s certain things I do that make it easier. In you gameplay you use the double jump before the burst blast which leaves you in the crazy burst trajectory. If you save the double jump for after the burst you keep more control. In my play through I also get the Float Burst and Vat asap for more arial control (honestly a little broken but with the Phase Locket, Will Skull & Healing Tears there‘a broken stuff in all campaigns).

Totally fair ranking though because if the game didn’t get you enthused enough to test out the different upgrades then that’s a failure on the games part.

Dude plague knights combo is charge, jump, release, jump,charge and release. Ur doing it all wrong

For me, all the games are on 1-st place.

My top 7 would be:
7. Showdown
6. Dig
5. Plague of Shadows
4. Pocket Dungeon
3. Specter of Torment
2. King of Cards
1. Shovel of Hope

So wrong about Plague Knight

I just want to say that plauge knight's campaign is underrated. The challenge is no longer stage design, but your unwieldly moveset. If you can learn how to control it, stages become jokes. (unless you have the pandemonium cloak, which randomizes your loadout every so often.)

if u do not rank plague best i want my money back

edit: what the fuck

What's that waltz Music in the outro?

In my opinion, they should make a Shovel Knight 2 with 8 more knights.

Pretty good ranking! I found myself agreeing with most of the placements. One thing to note about Dig, it has a true ending that is difficult to achieve, so there's more going on than just beating Drill knight.