Shovel Knight Dig Review

It's the middle of the night and we see Shovel Knight sleeping by the fire at his campsite. Suddenly, Drill Knight — Captain of the Hexcavators — and his crew appear, destroying the site and stealing his loot bag. They head down, drilling a path into the earth. Shovel Knight grabs his trusty shovel blade and plunges down into the pit after them tunnelling his way down, no one steals from him and gets away with it! 

Chances are you are familiar with the original Shovel Knight game that was released by Yacht Club Games in 2014; Shovel Knight Dig is actually a prequel to the events of the first game. Dig takes you back to the good ol’ days when Shovel Knight and Shield Knight worked together searching for treasure and fighting baddies. Instead of being a horizontal side-scrolling game, it has been flipped to vertical. This title is a modern roguelike with procedurally generated levels appearing as you dig down. If you happen to die, you can go back to the surface or dig again to start at the tunnel's beginning. If you go back to the surface, you will meet a collection of diverse characters that are just silly or will help you on your journey. They sell you valuable upgrades or items you can use on your runs. 

On the surface, you will find a leaderboard that lets you enter Daily or Weekly online competitions. You submit your highest score for the number of gems you retrieved during your run. The gems you recover aren't just for show; they are also used as currency to purchase items from the merchants you find on the surface or down in the ground as you tunnel. You can also spend gems at the Bohto Wagon that lets you select the items you want to have unlocked so that they can appear when digging down in the tunnel. On the surface, Shovel Knight also discovers the grave of Master Argus. Inscribed on the headstone is a message carved saying that if you are good with the shovel blade and complete these tasks, he will "impart vast knowledge". These tasks will teach you new techniques to perform with the shovel blade that will be incredibly helpful during your journey to find the Drill Knight.

Each run can last as short as a couple of minutes to a few hours, depending on the paths you take and how well you do against the enemies blocking your way. Sometimes you will have a choice between two routes you can take, one looks more manageable than the other, but the more difficult route has better rewards for you to collect. Be sure to keep an eye out for walls or blocks that you can break with your shovel as they can lead to new rooms and treasures you can collect. Either way, you can't take your time and go slow as an enormous drilling machine is coming from above and tunneling down towards you. This added extra pressure to each attempt! If you find you are having a difficult time, in the accessibility menu you can increase the amount of health that Shovel Knight has and the amount of damage the shovel blade deals.

You will find items and treasures as you dig down. Loot bags and treasure chests float around the level that you can hit to get gems to spend on items. Some items are temporary, and can only be used for that run until you die; others are permanent upgrades that Shovel Knight will keep for all his future runs. It is definitely worth collecting as many gems as you can and saving them to buy these permanent upgrades; as you get stronger, you will be able to dig deeper and find more power-ups hiding under the surface. Starting over can be frustrating, but Shovel Knight Dig is addicting. It's fun to go into the randomly generated levels to see what treasures and foes are waiting for you. In some of my attempts, I only lasted a few minutes before I would get stuck in a pit of spikes and die because I couldn't get out. Watch what dirt you are digging and ensure you don't get yourself trapped by taking out the block underneath you!

The 16-bit graphics and music in Shovel Knight Dig are great, just like you would expect from a Shovel Knight game. Yacht Club has done a great job making this "spin-off" game feel like it fits right in with the other games in the franchise. There are different terrains in this underground world, like the Mushroom Mine areas you first visit when you start. They are a lot of fun to play with as mushrooms are strategically placed that you can use to bounce off of to reach areas you usually wouldn't be able to reach. It's always nice when things are placed in the environment to interact with instead of everything being stationary and only in the background. The game reminded me of other titles like Spelunky or even Dig Dug with its digging mechanic. Still, it didn't feel as brutally hard as I find Spelunky to be. That game makes me frustrated and not want to come back to play more. Here you dig through four areas each with three sections, then you reach a boss battle. The bosses are impressive-looking and challenging to beat; it took me a few tries to figure out the best strategy to use against the boss so I could move on to the next area.

Shovel Knight Dig is a great title for lovers of this game series of roguelike games. With good controls, beautiful graphics, catchy music, and a lot of replayability with the daily and weekly challenges, this title will keep you busy for a long time! There are so many items and upgrades to find; every run is a fun quest to make Shovel Knight stronger for his next run. If you have a Steam Deck, this is a great title to play as it looks nice and easily runs at 60 FPS, even when I had it in my inexpensive third party dock.