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Pardon the dust! This page includes some jargon that hasn't been added to the site's glossary yet. I'll be around to fix this later, but sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime. |
Review: Shovel Knight: King of Cards
At a Glance
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How to Save and Pause:Your progress is always saved when you complete a level. There's no way to save within a stage, though you can pause the game by bringing up the pause menu with ESC. Time needed per session:Plan on playing for at least twenty minutes at a time, as there's a lot to see and do in this prequel.
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Does this game pose issues for Christian players?
 | No - this is a great game for Christians King Knight's brat-like behavior is definitely not to be imitated, though it's never shown in a way that would encourage children to copy it. Otherwise, everything is fairly family friendly and not terribly worrisome. |
Screenshots
![[view screenshot]](../images/screenshots/shovel_knight_king_of_cards_0.jpg)
![[view screenshot]](../images/screenshots/shovel_knight_king_of_cards_1.jpg)
![[view screenshot]](../images/screenshots/shovel_knight_king_of_cards_2.jpg)
Game Overview
Like the three games that came before it, Shovel Knight: King of Cards is another platformer revolving around the misadventures of a Knight. This time, we'll be taking a trip into the not-so-distant past to focus on how King Knight went from a whining layabout to being one of the Enchantress' lapdogs.
Unlike most of the other Knights in this realm, King Knight didn't have much going on. Despite that crown and glittering armor, he never really ruled over anything other than the local rat population. He's just a dimwitted slacker who made his living sponging off other people's charity - usually his mother's, who unfortunately enabled his boisterous behavior.
This all changed when a new fad, a fanciful card game known as Joustus, spread around the world. Players were encouraged to come from miles around and gather together to test their skills against one another, and soon enough, a grand tournament was planned. Contestants were to travel the world, seek other players, and eventually face off against the three Joustus Judges. Whomever was the first to defeat the Judges would be given the Joustus Crown, naming them as the official King of Cards. This provided King Knight with a real chance of becoming an actual king of something, so he set out to challenge these mysterious Judges.
...just not at a game of cards. You see, the rules only said that the challenger had to defeat the Joustus Judges - it never said what they were to be defeated at! Being a man of brawn and very little brain, King Knight chose to try and defeat the Judges at something more suiting to his style: physical combat. Surprisingly enough, the Judges agree to these terms, giving the ruffian a fair chance at winning his crown. Meanwhile, King Knight's efforts result in him gaining a following. For starters, a famous airship captain wanted to sponsor someone in the tournament, and saw potential in the pompous Knight. Others joined in to play Joustus, find their own fortunes, or simply indulge themselves in King Knight's lavish lifestyle. Once the player defeats a Judge, they also join the growing entourage, hoping to witness King Knight's future adventures.
Gameplay wise, this game feels a lot like a game from the Warioland series. In particular, King Knight's primary attack is a dashing shoulder bash that strongly resembles the one used by Wario. But, King Knight's shoulder bash is more versatile, as landing a blow against an enemy or wall allows King Knight to bounce into the air with a spinning hop. While spinning, any enemies or breakable tiles he lands on are damaged, and he can also used this technique to drill into specific objects.
Additional moves can be gained by purchasing heirlooms in special stages or by equipping new armors. In order to pay for these unique items, you'll need to gather Merit Medals, which are a new collectible hidden in most of the stages. On average, there are three Merit Medals per stage, and the overworld map helpfully displays which ones you still need to find.
Another way to earn Merit Medals is by playing Joustus at taverns found throughout the world. As Joustus is a collectible card game, everyone has their own customized deck, and you can also build up your own using cards purchased or found along the way. To play Joustus, one or more gems are placed on the playfield, and players take turns placing cards in available spaces. You can't place a card directly on a gem, so the trick to the game is that you can slide other cards around. Each card has arrows showing how it moves other cards, so the strategy generally boils down to being able to push in the right direction at the right time.
Of course, King Knight isn't exactly the type to play fair. Aside from selling new cards, Chester also sells powerups that allow King Knight to cheat at the game. Likewise, boss characters have their own abilities that let them manipulate the board in ways that are normally illegal. Beating them will likely require some rarer cards or a handful of cheats.
That said, since King Knight is already bending the rules to their breaking point by attempting to fight the Joustus Judges in combat, most Joustus games are optional. You only need to play enough Joustus to get the airship captain's attention, and you can freely ignore the card game after that.
All in all, this is yet another wonderful addition to the Shovel Knight series. The interactions between the manchild protagonist and everyone else is often hilarious, and the gameplay is solid (if not the best in the series), so definitely give this one a try.
Unlike most of the other Knights in this realm, King Knight didn't have much going on. Despite that crown and glittering armor, he never really ruled over anything other than the local rat population. He's just a dimwitted slacker who made his living sponging off other people's charity - usually his mother's, who unfortunately enabled his boisterous behavior.
This all changed when a new fad, a fanciful card game known as Joustus, spread around the world. Players were encouraged to come from miles around and gather together to test their skills against one another, and soon enough, a grand tournament was planned. Contestants were to travel the world, seek other players, and eventually face off against the three Joustus Judges. Whomever was the first to defeat the Judges would be given the Joustus Crown, naming them as the official King of Cards. This provided King Knight with a real chance of becoming an actual king of something, so he set out to challenge these mysterious Judges.
...just not at a game of cards. You see, the rules only said that the challenger had to defeat the Joustus Judges - it never said what they were to be defeated at! Being a man of brawn and very little brain, King Knight chose to try and defeat the Judges at something more suiting to his style: physical combat. Surprisingly enough, the Judges agree to these terms, giving the ruffian a fair chance at winning his crown. Meanwhile, King Knight's efforts result in him gaining a following. For starters, a famous airship captain wanted to sponsor someone in the tournament, and saw potential in the pompous Knight. Others joined in to play Joustus, find their own fortunes, or simply indulge themselves in King Knight's lavish lifestyle. Once the player defeats a Judge, they also join the growing entourage, hoping to witness King Knight's future adventures.
Gameplay wise, this game feels a lot like a game from the Warioland series. In particular, King Knight's primary attack is a dashing shoulder bash that strongly resembles the one used by Wario. But, King Knight's shoulder bash is more versatile, as landing a blow against an enemy or wall allows King Knight to bounce into the air with a spinning hop. While spinning, any enemies or breakable tiles he lands on are damaged, and he can also used this technique to drill into specific objects.
Additional moves can be gained by purchasing heirlooms in special stages or by equipping new armors. In order to pay for these unique items, you'll need to gather Merit Medals, which are a new collectible hidden in most of the stages. On average, there are three Merit Medals per stage, and the overworld map helpfully displays which ones you still need to find.
Another way to earn Merit Medals is by playing Joustus at taverns found throughout the world. As Joustus is a collectible card game, everyone has their own customized deck, and you can also build up your own using cards purchased or found along the way. To play Joustus, one or more gems are placed on the playfield, and players take turns placing cards in available spaces. You can't place a card directly on a gem, so the trick to the game is that you can slide other cards around. Each card has arrows showing how it moves other cards, so the strategy generally boils down to being able to push in the right direction at the right time.
Of course, King Knight isn't exactly the type to play fair. Aside from selling new cards, Chester also sells powerups that allow King Knight to cheat at the game. Likewise, boss characters have their own abilities that let them manipulate the board in ways that are normally illegal. Beating them will likely require some rarer cards or a handful of cheats.
That said, since King Knight is already bending the rules to their breaking point by attempting to fight the Joustus Judges in combat, most Joustus games are optional. You only need to play enough Joustus to get the airship captain's attention, and you can freely ignore the card game after that.
All in all, this is yet another wonderful addition to the Shovel Knight series. The interactions between the manchild protagonist and everyone else is often hilarious, and the gameplay is solid (if not the best in the series), so definitely give this one a try.
Points of Interest
Lots of hidden surprises
Games in this franchise have always hidden away some sort of collectible tokens for the player to find, and King of Cards continues the tradition by hiding Merit Medals in almost every level. These can be exchanged for heirlooms or stat increases by talking to the appropriate NPCs, and there's a bard who will give you some extra gold as your collection grows.
Another hidden secret that's new to this game is found in the levels themselves - many stages have an additional exit that opens up an alternative path on the overworld map. Finding them is often required to earn all of the Merit Medals in a level, and they sometimes allow you to access special, optional stages that can't be reached normally.
Another hidden secret that's new to this game is found in the levels themselves - many stages have an additional exit that opens up an alternative path on the overworld map. Finding them is often required to earn all of the Merit Medals in a level, and they sometimes allow you to access special, optional stages that can't be reached normally.
Entirely new areas to explore
By this point, everyone has seen most of the realm four times over. There's only so many ways these areas can be revisited before they get stale, and fortunately, the developers planned for this. This time around, we'll get to explore the Troupple King's pond, and the final area of the game is Birder Bluffs, an entirely new region that's perfectly suited to King Knight's shoulder bash and spin jump abilities.
Game within a game
Joustus, while optional, is a complex game of strategy. There are dozens of people to play against, and tons of ways to customize your deck for the best possible hands. Naturally enough, many of the more powerful cards are hard to find, and you may need to replay some levels in order to scrape together enough gold to buy extra cards and other items from Chester. But, if you enjoy a challenge, there's definitely one to be found here.
More forgiving that usual
Games in this series like to give the player as much of a chance as possible. Defeat has traditionally meant that the player would drop some of their on hand gold and restart from the last checkpoint. In this game, the player can sometimes use King Knight's shoulder bash to spin jump out of a pit or back to safety if they miss a jump. One of the armor upgrades also provides useful protection from mishaps, summoning some of King Knight's flying rat minions to carry him to safety if he falls to spikes or pits. He'll take a large amount of damage, but this gives him a chance to recover from mistakes that would've instantly defeated the player in the other games.
New Game+
Typical for the series, you can restart your adventure with everything you've acquired already unlocked once you beat the game for the first time. But, the trade off for this is that everything hurts twice as much, and many of the health pickups hold bombs instead, making it much harder the second time around!
Steam community features
King of Cards features 20 achievements, most of which require the player to explore out of the way places or complete unique challenges. In fact, you could complete the game several times without earning most of them! Some of the harder achievements task the player with tracking down all of the rarer Joustus cards, finishing a level without taking damage, or beating the game as quickly as possible.
There are also some Steam trading cards available, for players who are interested in those.
There are also some Steam trading cards available, for players who are interested in those.
Concerns and Issues
Magical creatures
By now, players are going to be more or less familiar with the Shovel Knight universe. It's filled with fairytale tropes, down to the griffons, ghosts, and wizards. There's even the deity-like Troupple King and the evil Enchantress. The graveyard is still full of spooks, and Birder Bluffs features some dragon knights.
Yet, there are some surprises in store, as the Enchantress actually enchants someone this time, and the final boss she creates is revealed to have several forms, including that of a frightful skull with an exposed crystalline "brain".
Yet, there are some surprises in store, as the Enchantress actually enchants someone this time, and the final boss she creates is revealed to have several forms, including that of a frightful skull with an exposed crystalline "brain".
Mild violence
None of the Shovel Knight games have ever really contained much violence. At most, defeated enemies get bounced away or disappear in a puff of smoke. Even King Knight doesn't get badly hurt, as he just falls over when defeated. That said, seeing his fake crown roll away probably hurts his ego more than any physical pain he suffered.
There is an exception to this though. A new creature, a type of flying axolotl, can be found in the Troupple King's domain. They are used as platforms by the player, and sometimes you need to bash them to make them move. They cannot be killed, but they are the first creature I've seen in these games that flinches when hit.
There is an exception to this though. A new creature, a type of flying axolotl, can be found in the Troupple King's domain. They are used as platforms by the player, and sometimes you need to bash them to make them move. They cannot be killed, but they are the first creature I've seen in these games that flinches when hit.
King Knight is far from a good example
This is another game where you're basically playing as the villain, though unlike the others, King Knight is a pathetic brat. He'll cheat or use force to get his way, and when neither work, he'll resort to whining. The latter can even be used as a way to recover some health - by pressing down on your joypad, King Knight will bawl like a kid who's dropped his ice cream cone. It would be sad if he wasn't such a jerk.
Betrayal
As stated above, King Knight tends to choose the quick and easy path, especially when it's a shortcut to something he wants. So, the Enchantress doesn't attempt to overpower him. Instead, she offers him a simple choice: either save his friends, or join her and gain a kingdom of his own. Being the fool he is, King Knight abandons his followers and joins forces with the Enchantress.
Interestingly, King Knight seems surprised that nobody, including his mother, respects him after this decision. But even after his feasts continue to go unattended, he doesn't learn. Nor does he get to keep his new found kingdom, as moments after obtaining it, Shovel Knight arrives to challenge him, signaling that the story detailed in Shovel of Hope has begun.
Interestingly, King Knight seems surprised that nobody, including his mother, respects him after this decision. But even after his feasts continue to go unattended, he doesn't learn. Nor does he get to keep his new found kingdom, as moments after obtaining it, Shovel Knight arrives to challenge him, signaling that the story detailed in Shovel of Hope has begun.