Shovel Knight Dig - No Death Clear

Channel:

iconoclast

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Published on September 24, 2022 12:30:07 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HmJyu0q_MM

Game:

Shovel Knight Dig (2022)

Duration: 54:29

7,029 views

146

Shovel Knight Dig is the next platform action game in the Shovel Knight series from Yacht Club Games and Nitrome, and it was just released today on Switch, PC, and Apple Arcade (Playstation and Xbox versions are launching later). It's not a traditional level-based platform game like the original Shovel Knight, however. Instead, it has roguelike elements, with random levels and upgrades to grab in each run. It's almost like a mix of the original Shovel Knight and the puzzle spinoff, Pocket Dungeon. Regardless, it's a really fun game.

This is just a basic clear of the game. There's a bunch of secret armor recipes I haven't found yet, and I hear there's even a secret last boss, though I'm not sure what the conditions are to reach it yet. I'd like to make another video once I know how to get the true ending.

One of the most important things you need to know about the game is how important the cog wheels are. In each section, there are three cogs to find - if you grab all three, you can choose between a random powerup at the end of the area, or a full health refill. If you only get two, you get one random healing item (the weakest only restores 0.5 HP, I think) and some jewels. One cog won't give you any health back. So it's pretty important to grab all of them.

Being a roguelike, the difficulty is naturally going to vary depending on which upgrades you find. If you can stack a bunch of survivability powerups, like max HP increases, or items that revive/save you from death, it makes clearing it fairly easy. You also have the option of taking riskier paths (which have better rewards), or choosing powerups instead of health refills like I mentioned before, so you can also control the difficulty a little yourself.

The red armor I'm using reduces the damage you take and lets you carry over one powerup after dying; the downside is that it reduces the amount of jewels you find, but I honestly don't think that really matters. It's probably the best armor to use while you're learning the game.

Thanks to Yacht Club Games for sending me a key! Seeing it randomly pop up in my inbox, trying it out, and finding a really fun game is just what I needed right now to be honest. So I'd definitely recommend it to action/platform fans, as long as you also enjoy roguelikes. There are no practice or stage-skip options (as far as I know) so you'll have to start from the beginning each time you die. I can see that turning people off, but I love arcade games, so that's more of a positive than a negative to me. The randomization is well done, since everything feels intentionally designed, it's just pieced together in unpredictable chunks. I especially like how the bosses have a whole bunch of different arenas - some of them change the fights quite a bit, so you can't just robotically follow the same pattern every time.

EDIT: There actually are stage skip options. One of the NPCs in camp sells the tickets for it. Good to know!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:57 Mushroom Mines
6:46 BOSS: Spore Knight
7:48 Smeltworks
15:58 BOSS: Tinker Knight
19:05 Magic Landfill
29:32 BOSS: Scrap Knight
32:36 Drill Knight's Castle
45:31 BOSS: Drill Knight
47:09 Ending & Credits
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvMhpG1GR9sk8OYiWQMZZTgl
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvNFjpnJ59Th6N0IU1PSpD3d
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE6B3779BE759F71

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