What is the best shovel knight game?

[fish]

My list from worst to best is
1, Specter of Torment
2, Shovel of hope
3, Plague of shadows
4, King of cards
I don't have showdown, because i play on 3ds

[Noot Noot Time to Scoot]

IMO from Best to Worst
1. King of Cards
2. Shovel of Hope
3. Specter of Torment
4. Plague of Shadows

[LaChouette]

Listing from worst to best seems like a really weird way of doing this. From best to worst:
1. Plague of Shadows 10/10
2. Specter of Torment 9/10
3. King of Cards 8.5/10
4. Shovel of Hope 7/10

[fish]

Actually, I got it wrong, it is best to worst. Specter of Torment is awesome.

[Macario]

1- King of cards.
2- Shovel of Hope
3- Specter Of torment
.
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
4-Plague of shadows

[fish]

Really, switch King of Cards, and Plague of Shadows. Plague isn't even that fun

[Xavi-Da-Imp]

Plague of Shadows for sure. I love the story and how Plauge Knight is a selfish git that did all of this for his own agenda, not giving a deep fried crap about anyone, except Mona, and yet at the end he got all the praises for defeating the Order and the Enchantress (I love how he was knighted by the King and his name was basically Knight Plauge Knight :D) or the whole concept of journey to find something he already have or his fight with his inner demons (like you can actually skip the fight against the Plauge of Shadows - which also prayes you for not fighting it).

I loved the controlls - Now I must say when I first played this game I hated it how weird it was. But when you get used to it, get some nice Arcanas, Bursts and bomb parts then you can do such amasing stuff, like for example you can beat Properol Knight by staying in the air for the whole battle, dropping bombs on him from a range he cant get you. I LOVE IT.

[mongi]

Specter

[MightySunbro]

1st - Plague of Shadows;
2nd - Shovel of Hope;
3rd - Specter of Torment;
4th - King of Cards.

I found myself forcing to play King of Cards campaign because it was too long and also this card game is taking way too much of your attention.

Plague of Shadows I liked for the story and also controls feels good once you get used to it and bombs creating mechanic is deep and interesting to experiment with.

Shovel of Hope is what originally was and this campaign is on the second place because it was... original, somewhat new. Gameplay was alright, story not so much.

Specter of Torment just didn't do it for me. Not the story, which felt blank and boring, not gameplaywise, nor anything else in this campaign. The only reason it is above the King of Cards in my list is because it ended when it should end and wasn't prolonged more than it needed to be and didn't annoy me to play.

[Para]

imo

1.plague of shadows: hardest one by far but once you get good, its the most satisfying thing ever with awesome movement
2.shovel of hope: the original, also just pretty fun
3.King of cards: im ok with the gameplay, the reasons its number 3 is because i ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LOVE JOUSTUS ITS THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BEST
4.Specter of torment: same as the last guy, it just doesnt do it for me, he just feels too restrictive, and i dont like his movement unlike plague of shadows

(movement is very important to me)

[prudenut]

SoH > SoT > KoC > PoS >>>>>>>>> Showdown

[Pan the Sylveon]

Originally posted by Lonan:

imo

1.plague of shadows: hardest one by far but once you get good, its the most satisfying thing ever with awesome movement
2.shovel of hope: the original, also just pretty fun
3.King of cards: im ok with the gameplay, the reasons its number 3 is because i ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LOVE JOUSTUS ITS THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BEST
4.Specter of torment: same as the last guy, it just doesnt do it for me, he just feels too restrictive, and i dont like his movement unlike plague of shadows

(movement is very important to me)

Found both a rare representant of the Plague of Shadows fanbase and the only Joustus fan in existence.

[Pan the Sylveon]

I honestly am not sure, all of them have their pros and cons but I think I'd ultimately rank them like this:
1. King of Cards is the best. Joustus sucks but the platforming, mechanics and level designs is GODLY. The bosses are really good for Shovel Knight standards. The different armors and hairlooms are enjoyable to play around with. KoC is just an absolute joy to play. Also love the world maps and the massive amount of optional content (even if much of it is joustus related).

Not as confident about the rest of the rankings but here we go

2. Specter of Torment. Nice story. Mostly stellar level design. Useful and fun curios. The controls are a bit janky though.. and It sucks there is so little extra content compared to the other campaigns. The boss fights and combat are probably the 2nd best in the collection as well. The lack of content and at times obnoxious automatic wall climb lower its quality though.

3. Plague of Shadows. I like the movement and the sub weapons.. the primary weapon experimentation isn't really doing it for me. Its a bit of a hassle imo. The combat can REALLY suck when it comes to some bosses, there are fights where you can barely hit the opponent with your primary weapon half the time. Its a pain in the ass. Also Plague Knight takes the most knockback out of the 4 characters which sucks.. but at least there are ways around that.

4. Shovel of Hope. The movement is boring and it just feels too vanilla (I know that's the point because its supposed to be a homage to 80s NES games but still). In addition - most of the relics, armors and unlocks feel completely useless while the most useful ones break the game in half considering how spammy and overpowered they are. Every time you hit an enemy or boss with your shovel you get knocked back a bit, which makes combat more annoying than it should be.

[Nethiar]

1. Shovel of Hope. It's that classic NES/SNES style with all the modern QoL improvements. Well rounded and a lot of fun.
2. Plague of Shadows. A close second, Plague Knight is the perfect bonus character to breathe some new life into the game after you've gone through it a time or two. Plus all the different options for his bombs are a lot of fun to experiment with.
3. King of Cards. I admit I didn't play it much. It's obvious they were scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. That weird dash-hop move is the kind of thing you come up with after you've already used all your good ideas. I think there's some kind of card game too, but I'm just not a fan of card games in general, so I didn't bother with it much.
4. Specter of Torment. I hated this one. There are too many abilities and not enough buttons to go around. Like that dash move, it's bad enough that it's the same button as the one that attacks. On top of that sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. Sometimes it goes through enemies, sometimes it bounces off of them. There are too many variables for one button to contend with. Plus having a wall is unnecessary, a wall jump alone would have been fine.

A lot of it could be mitigated by better level design, but they crammed way too much crap onto every screen. If I didn't have to worry about pixel precise targeting on a swinging lantern with two flying enemies on top of it while I also have to dodge projectiles at the same time it wouldn't be so bad.

[Pascalbatronic]

Showdown, Pocket Dungeon and Dig: -_-

[mdesaleah]

Trick question
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw1SDQlAWmw

(although seriously, probably Specter > King > Shovel > Plague. Although King is really close to Specter.

Plague could have been really good, but as the first extra character, the stage design changes are basic in comparison)