onto King of Cards yippee!! was slightly worried going into it because i knew about the collectible card game, and what if i really liked it. what if i was way into it and decided i had to collect all the cards. in fact i was a little disappointed when it made me play a few regular platforming stages in a row at first but i suppose that was for the best. but also because i'm not super into King Knight just yet, he's kinda weird to control. everything revolves around this weird shoulder bash twirl move that's weird

could quickly tell this was going to feel like the "fullest" game in the package. could be in part thanks to the world map being a thing again, and it being so much bigger than before, new stages and hidden exits oh my. why is this called Shovel Knight again. i'm already more invested in kingster's quest to catch em all and his ever-growing ragtag airship gang

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i was not expecting anything more than Triple Triad. my head was spinning when i entered the deck building menu, my brain is still in platformer mode are you kidding me with this. and it's all optional! it turns out i do not actually have to play a single round of Joustus to complete the campaign. there's a joke in there about the quest to become "King of Cards" only requiring defeating the Mega Joustus-ers, with no mention of the means by which they must be defeated. i still be playing it at every opportunity. it's only kind of fun

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there's card gacha in my shovel game. let me look up how many cards there are hang on. oh my god 148

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i'm surprised Joustus is completely optional since it's such a chunky part of the game. probably half my playtime was spent in the halls challenging people, and not for completionist purposes it just felt like the natural progression of the game. matches don't feel samey and the battle halls really feel like their own stages with lots to explore via card conquerage. in any case it's pretty easy to brute force most matches by buying cheat cards

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only part i wasn't hot on was the series of one-move puzzles needed to challenge every gym leader. there are so many moving parts to consider each move and so few possible card placements that nine times out of ten it was easier to just trial-and-error it. wish they'd added another layer of optionality for these ones, i can't see that many moves ahead dude

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but ultimately i am here to jump on things. and let me tell you there are quite a lot more things to jump on this time around, this really is the King of Expansions. stages are much more plentiful but also much shorter and usually revolve around one or two new mechanics, which i don't know if i prefer but it's different and different is often a good thing when it's your fourth of the mostly same game. and this one is definitely the least sameful of the mostly sameful games. they just got progressively more and more unsameful

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to be honest my favorite parts of the game were the chill hub stages, all da little nooksencrannies with a guy who says a secret thing and gives you a secreter thing if you do this specific secret platforming puzzle thing. also King Knight sucks and is funny to watch suck when talking to people. slowly forgot i was playing as a villain until the ending which!! bummed me out a lil. i haven't loaded up my save again yet since finishing it. i know it'll do the thing where it puts me back to right before the ending but i can't look all my friendly guys in the eye knowing the onscreen treachery i will soon commit..

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the final boss was actually somewhat difficult which is a first. whole game was a significant step-up in difficulty i felt, or maybe i was just bad at wario-bashing things. i looked up what new game+ entails for this campaign and it solidified my decision to say Whatever to attempting 100% after all. i don't know if i'm even gonna go for all the cards since i was also bad at luigi-at-the-casino-in-mario-64-DS-carding things, and having to leave and pay to reclaim all the cards i lost got annoying. i just don't care enough to get good at what amounts to a weirdly in-depth and heady diversion

that's kingocards!!! man Shovel Knight is really an all-timer. as i kept playing i kinda couldn't believe how big and consistently good and free-to-download-expansified this game is. i didn't enjoy the platforming here nearly as much as in Spectre but all the extra flavor puts it on par with it for me i think. but i am not done with Shovel & Co. just yet.... well first i gotta replay Plague of Shadows But then there's Showdown which i've only ever heard is kinda bad!! looking forward to it!!! not checking out whatever the "arby's dlc" is because i'd much prefer every arby's location in the continental united states simultaneously blew up instead

hey i'm back again sorry i got put inside the arby's dungeon for a while due to my previous comments. yeah they let me play tony hawk and gundam games in there it wasn't that bad actually, no shovel knight though unfortunately. i'm a lot like shovelguy himself where he occasionally shows up in someone else's game, i occasionally show up to play more of his game

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the only note i had left on here from when i started replaying Plague of Shadows was "did i....know i could doublejump before" which i'm sure i did. i'm pretty sure. what i'm not 100% sure i knew before, at least i didn't on this playthrough until right before the end, was that i could purchase new armor. i mean i assumed i could because every other character can but i never came across it because i don't visit the applefish generally. he dances and then spits at me and i figured that was all the purpose he served

but now that's a Plague Tale seen through once more. glad i went through with replaying it on this save because i get a little message for having them all cleared :) and a new title screen with all my favorite guys

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i've gone backenforth on wanting to 100% the entire package so many times over so long it has become a real quandary for me on where i should land. decided i really don't need to do all those challenge new game+ speedrun "complete the game without doing anything ever" runs because it's just more of the same and at the pace i've been playing it would take me until 2028 and also they're hard. i want to at least give every challenge mission a try. but they're also hard

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almost completed every challenge for Shovel of Hope and folks they are hard. saw there were a few unlockable ones at the end which i assumed meant having to complete all the others first which oh god. then i looked them up and saw they're the unlockable Battletoads challenges for which i just have to complete the secret toad level which thank god. but also oh god because there's still more i haven't done how have i never found this i've played Shovel of Hope five times