Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon Review
Release date: Dec 13th, 2021
Developer: Yacht Club
Platforms: Steam (Reviewed), PSN, Xbox Marketplace, Switch
Price: $19.99
Yacht Club's most recent venture into the Shovel Knight universe is an interesting spin off of its other Shovel Knight games. One part rouge-like and one part puzzle game, Pocket Dungeon is both fun and challenging. There should be enough content and challenge to keep fans and newcomers interested in this game.
The core of the game has players looking at an 8 x 8 grid that slowly fills with enemies, treasure, chests, etc. Players have to attack the enemies, and by chaining enemies together players can clear them faster and build up the gems they receive. These gems can be used to unlock items back at the camp such as more health, better weapons and items. Keys will unlock chests which may contain different weapons or items with different uses such as a spear that pierces shields or a sword that does more damage.
This can be a roguelike, if players die. They go back to the camp and lose all the bought relics and progress, but players keep their gems. Players can turn on infinite stock this means if you die during a level you respawn and can keep playing but if the grid fills up with monsters and items, it's still game over and players can either go back to camp or some gems replay the area.
I thought the game played pretty well, it's fast and players have to pay attention, as the screen can get crowded fast with enemies. Music is catchy and has some fun themes to each area. The game is colorful and there are different enemies in each area. Some take more damage or knock back players, or block attacks, etc all of this feeds into the crazy frantic strategy of the game.
Boss battles are interesting, the grid can still fill up and most of the time they have special attacks and a pattern. Defeat them and players can unlock them to be used on the adventure. In the time I played I was able to unlock Specter Knight, Treasure Knight, Mole Knight and King Knight. Each has different abilities which can change the strategy for the game. There are 7 more knights to unlock. I really liked Specter Knight who can't heal from healing potions but gains health from killing enemies and Treasure Knight who does more damage when he hits enemies from below.
There are a few other game modes including Daily and Vs. Vs means playing against someone locally or a CPU. Daily is seeing how long players survive as a random character. The game is surprisingly addicting and I kept dying and coming back for more. Thanks to the publisher for letting us review this one.
Final Score 4.5/5
Pros:
Tetris meets Shovel Knight
Challenging but welcoming to new players
Unlockables and different options to play
Cons:
Short
Can be tough