How do you guys feel about Showdown?

[SonicBoomNFA]

I originally planned on playing the crap out of it since I want to get 100% of the achievements in the game, but after beating it on normal mode with Shovel Knight and attempting to get the achievement for 100,000 points in the target game just to get it out of the way (failed, btw), I sort of feel "eh" about the whole thing. Did it take anyone else a while to get into it too? Anything you love about it in particular?

[Macario]

I consider it quite entertaining, my main problem is the story mode, it is very random, sometimes you are doomed to lose because of the simple fact that I play a fight with frankly unfair conditions. And how random the CPU is, sometimes they are invensible monsters that block each of your attacks, and other times they are idiots and kill themselves, or they just don't know how to respond projectiles, but the mechanics are very solid, very fun, and the truth playing with friends is very fun even in coop, it is great to play with unplayable characters in the main campaigns, and the characters in the campaigns are so familiar, they have the mechanics of their games intact.

[EdgarAllenSwole]

Couldn't get into it. I'm sure it shines in multiplayer but story mode is a chaotic mess. They went overboard with arena hazards and made the CPUs too erratic to approach. All you can do is play keep-away while praying gems spawn in safe spots. Not exactly what I look for in a fighting game.

King of Cards was amazing so I can't complain about the expansion. I've already made peace with losing 100% completion.

[SonicBoomNFA]

Originally posted by EdgarAllenSwole:

Couldn't get into it. I'm sure it shines in multiplayer but story mode is a chaotic mess. They went overboard with arena hazards and made the CPUs too erratic to approach. All you can do is play keep-away while praying gems spawn in safe spots. Not exactly what I look for in a fighting game.

King of Cards was amazing so I can't complain about the expansion. I've already made peace with losing 100% completion.

Damn, hate to hear it. I can't complain too much either though since I didn't even realize that Showdown was a thing until I saw it in the main menu, but not having that 100% on one of my favorite games kinda sucks. Oh well.

[Noot Noot Time to Scoot]

Its the only way to play as Propeller Knight, so Ill take it

[Timerlane]

I like it a lot more than I originally thought I would. I'm sure it's certainly not 'perfect', but it is neat to see how they integrated so many of the boss fight mechanics into actually playable characters, and I appreciate the extra glimpses into the backstory.

FWIW, everything eventually unlocks by itself if you play Showdown for long enough(Battle, Story, whatever), though you don't get the achievement connected to the unlock.

Even Fish Head Shovel Knight, which is supposed to be the final reward for getting all achievements.

[IMPERSONATED_STAFF]

I'm not into it, especially the single player mode. We already have stellar single player modes with the campaigns, so the Showdown single player seem lackluster in comparison. Oddly I expected less from it. I would have been happy with the four playable campaign characters along with Black Knight and maybe one or two more character that could be easily implemented. Pitch a few simple stages to it and I would have called it a nice side game.

But Showdown feels odd and bloated- like too much for it to be simple fun but too little for it have much depth. This is game with 20 characters, 29 stages, 6 game modes, and a few items, yet all I want to do is to face people online, replicating the thrill of boss fights in Shovel Knight.

[Hotel Security]

I ran through it once as Propeller and it was fun at times and a pain at others and some of the minigames aren't that fun but I made it through. DIdn't have much urge to keep playing. There's some feats to shoot for but they're mostly "beat it as every character" which would get very old but I'm very pleased they didn't put any trophies behind them. I will give the game credit for having some cute story segments for each.

[Saffron]

I thoroughly enjoy the multiplayer aspects and getting to play as the different knights, but going for achievements and grinding through story mode can be a hassle.

Admittedly, I wish that the unlockables didn't count as Steam achievements, but I like Showdown enough on its own.

[RΔSHID]

Originally posted by SonicBoomNFA:

I originally planned on playing the crap out of it since I want to get 100% of the achievements in the game, but after beating it on normal mode with Shovel Knight and attempting to get the achievement for 100,000 points in the target game just to get it out of the way (failed, btw), I sort of feel "eh" about the whole thing. Did it take anyone else a while to get into it too? Anything you love about it in particular?

I'm trying to 100%, I thought I'd suffer with showdown, but it's not too bad. The only issue so far is beating hard mode, will eventually beat it.

The 100,000 thing took me a while, I picked Shovel Knight and I thought it was the easiest.

[hazydistance]

Eh, I regard it as a silly goofing-off mode, and feel sorry for anyone who buys the standalone version. As for 100%, I got all the achievements except beating Hard Mode with a lot of help from my very passive friend "Player 2". And I frankly can't even play the damn thing.

Maybe there's some fun to be had if you have like friends or whatever. I wouldn't know.

[Deuterium the Sentient Mattress]

I'm personally not keen on Showdown's single-player mode. It has a fair few issues with difficulty ("Easy" mode is hard enough)

[Ninja ZombieYoshi]

I have only played Story Mode, and only on hard, but Playing story mode feels brutal: If you melee attack a CPU, even with a shovel-drop from Shovel Knight, which appears the INSTANT you press down... The CPU can still (and will OFTEN) parry your attack.
Projectiles? Not really. They are pretty good at countering melee attacks but anything resembling a flare wand dunks them.
Specter Knight is terrifying when he starts to dash towards you, especially as plague knight.
The best way to win gem matches is to avoid every enemy and just grab gems, which would feel impossible if the CPUs thought the same way.

And that annoying final boss, ugh! It can grab gems through it's mirror buddies (scary), through it's stupid gem-snatching beam(super annoying), or INSTANTLY WHILE REPLACING SAID GEM WITH A SUPER-BOMB! (infuriating) And between the superbombs, the constant reinforcements you can't fight with all those projectiles in the way, and the 2 gems you drop after dying, when you need 15, and the mirror is already grabbing EVERYTHING... Yeesh. It's way too easy to both lose 3 lives and lose 15 gems to the mirror. Honestly the three lives feels kinda pointless, considering you'd likely never be able to recover the gems you lost once it gets that hectic.
Oh and did I mention the mirror copies can still parry any melee attack you throw at them yeah thats fun right you dont need to kill them or anything
AND THE MIRROR COPIES DON'T EVEN DROP GEMS! ARGH!

TLDR: Melee attacks sucks in story mode, mirror final boss throws too much nonsense at you

[wafflekitty]

CPU players are definitely ridiculous at parrying and do it way too often to fee fun or fair. Even going to battle mode and playing against a lvl 1 CPU, they still parry constantly.