Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
Developer(s)Yacht Club Games
Publisher(s)Yacht Club Games
Composer(s)Jake Kaufman
Platform(s)
Nintendo Switch
Release
  • Nintendo Switch
  • March 3, 2017
  • Linux, macOS, Windows
  • April 5, 2017
  • Wii U
  • April 21, 2017
  • PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, 3DS, Xbox One
  • April 25, 2017
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment is a downloadable content (DLC) expansion for the 2014 platform game Shovel Knight, developed and published by Yacht Club Games. The expansion is a prequel to the original game, where the player takes the role of Specter Knight, an undead warrior tasked with recruiting a group of knights for his master, the Enchantress. Specter Knight can run up walls and jump off of them, and slash through enemies and objects with his scythe to move through the air. Gameplay is similar to the original Shovel Knight, but features redesigned levels and altered boss fights.

Yacht Club Games began development of Specter of Torment after finishing production of the previous DLC, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows. The developers decided to completely overhaul the levels of the original Shovel Knight, and reduced the difficulty after receiving criticism regarding it in Plague of Shadows. The team followed a formula for level design based upon Mega Man to avoid disrupting the pacing. Upon release, Specter of Torment received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised the platforming gameplay, narrative, level design, and Specter Knight's moveset, though some reviewers considered the game too short.

Gameplay

Specter Knight jumps across platforms to collect a red skull, which is used to purchase special weapons and abilities

Like Shovel Knight, Specter of Torment is a 2D side-scrolling platform game.[1][2] Players control Specter Knight, an undead warrior serving the evil Enchantress.[3] Specter Knight features a different moveset than the Shovel Knight character focused on mobility: he can run up walls, jump off of them, and attack enemies with his scythe.[1][4] Slashing an enemy or object with his scythe allows him to move forward through the air in an upward or downward direction.[1][5]

The levels and bosses in Specter of Torment are redesigned from the original Shovel Knight, and are accessed from a central hub world instead of a large map.[3][5] As with the original Shovel Knight, players can destroy checkpoints to receive a reward, but must travel through longer portions of the level to progress if they die.[1] Hidden inside levels are red skulls, which can be traded at a vendor in the hub world for special weapons and abilities called Curios.[5][4] Curios serve a similar role to Relics in Shovel Knight,[1] and are powered using a consumable "darkness" meter that is recharged by slaying enemies.[1][2] Examples of Curios include the "Green Skull" that can be used to regain health,[5] "Judgment Rush" which allows Specter Knight to teleport through walls,[3] and "Hover Plume" which permits him to temporarily float while mid-air.[1] Progressing through the game allows the player to learn Specter Knight's true identity and how he came to serve the Enchantress.[5]

Plot

Specter of Torment is a prequel to Shovel Knight.[6] At the Tower of Fate, the Enchantress instructs her undead servant Specter Knight to recruit eight knights for the Order of No Quarter, the antagonist organization of the original game.[5][7] In Specter Knight's possession is a magic locket, which grows in power as he defeats the knights. Once all of them are defeated, its magic will resurrect him as a living creature. As Specter Knight defeats his adversaries and forces them to serve the Enchantress, he recalls memories of his former life: Before dying, he was an adventurer named Donovan, who explored alongside his partner, Luan. The two scaled the Tower of Fate in search of a magical amulet to give to Luan's son. Once at the top, they ran into Shield Knight, who warned them that the amulet was cursed. Donovan fought Shield Knight against Luan's wishes, causing the floor beneath them to collapse and killing Luan. Shield Knight, having transformed into the Enchantress due to the amulet's corruption, offered to save a mortally wounded Donovan in exchange for servitude. Oblivious to the identity of the Enchantress, he accepted the offer and was transformed into Specter Knight.

After Specter Knight assembles four of the knights, a boy named Reize breaks into the Tower of Fate hoping to defeat the evil within. Seeing his potential, the Enchantress fills him with dark energy, corrupting him despite Specter Knight's protests. Once seven knights are recruited, Specter Knight's friend Black Knight breaks in and reveals that the Enchantress is Shield Knight. Enraged, Specter Knight goes after the Enchantress through the hole that Black Knight dug into the tower. Upon his arrival, the Enchantress summons Reize and fills him with more dark energy, turning him into a powerful monster. Specter Knight defeats Reize, and the Enchantress agrees to release Specter Knight from servitude and grant the locket its remaining power. When she discloses her intention to appoint Reize as her eighth knight, Specter Knight abruptly promises to be the last knight in Reize's place, heals the boy with the locket, and returns him to his village. Now bound to serving the Enchantress for eternity, Specter Knight laments to Black Knight that the Order of No Quarter is unstoppable. In a post-credits scene, Specter Knight reminisces over the locket, which is a keepsake given to him by Luan. In a final memory, it is shown that Luan asked Donovan to protect his son, Reize.

Development

As part of the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Shovel Knight back in 2013, Yacht Club Games listed several stretch goals, additional features for the game added when the funding met a certain target. Among the stretch goals were the addition of three downloadable content (DLC) expansions based around three of the boss characters from the original Shovel Knight. The developers held a vote on which bosses would receive their own campaigns, and Specter Knight was one of the winning characters.[8]

Development of Specter of Torment began after Yacht Club Games finished production of the previous DLC, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows. The developers hoped to make a more ambitious expansion than Plague of Shadows; the previous DLC featured a character with unique movement, but had the same levels of the original Shovel Knight. The team believed that playing through the stages for another expansion would be repetitive, so they decided to redesign all of them while using the originals as blueprints. The final product was intended to be an equal combination of new and reused content, but ended up composed mostly of new features. As Specter of Torment was the third overall campaign in the series, the team desired to innovate on many of the mechanics present in the two previous games.[9]

Character Design

Yacht Club Games wanted to create a darker story centered around Specter Knight, a character that they intended to be "tragic but awesome".[10] The developers designed Specter Knight's mobility after receiving feedback on the movement of Plague Knight, the protagonist of Plague of Shadows. Players complained that Plague Knight's moveset was chaotic and difficult to control, leading Yacht Club Games to design the new protagonist with simpler controls and mechanics. The team deviated from Specter Knight's original flying movement as featured in his boss battle, believing that it would detract from the platforming.[10]

The wall jumping was inspired by 3D action games such as Prince of Persia, while the slashing movement was influenced by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Ninja Gaiden Black. The developers wanted Specter Knight's mobility to be similar to a ninja, and at one point included shurikens as part of his attack repertoire. Difficulties with the slashing movement led to Yacht Club allowing Specter Knight to fall slower, and the team added a UI element to indicate whether the player would move in upward or downward after a slash.[10] The Curios were originally designed to be earned by defeating enemies; the player could only use one at a time, and each Curio would be lost upon death. Feeling as though this system made Curios feel like power-ups rather than as new abilities, the developers allowed them to be permanently accessible through an inventory similar to the original Shovel Knight. Some of Specter Knight's boss abilities were recreated as Curios, and were designed to address specific level challenges such as invulnerable enemies or difficult platforming.[10]

Level Design

The new levels took nearly a year to create. Due to Specter Knight's increased mobility, Yacht Club Games added more walls and larger spaces inside their new stages.[9] The team utilized a level design formula taken from Mega Man, where a complete stage would feature 26 rooms and 6 secret areas, allowing players to recognize how far they had progressed, and preventing the pacing from being disrupted. The team intended for a consistent balance between platforming, combat, and exploration, and designed many of these rooms to fit one of these three aspects of gameplay. Despite each of the stages being planned out beforehand, the final placement of the rooms and enemies was changed several times.[9] Yacht Club Games spent four months revisiting and balancing each level with treasure, shortcuts, and rewards. The initial stages had a high level of difficulty which was gradually reduced as development finished.[11]

The spacing of levels was a constant concern, as the developers did not always know what possible movements that the player would take during platforming. Yacht Club Games recounted that "10 percent of our design process involves thinking up fun scenarios, and about 90 percent involves wrangling with the spacing requirements".[12] The team planned and designed the rooms using cyclical formula, where each stage would start simple and become more complex and challenging over time, before reverting back to the earlier difficulty. They felt that all the gameplay concepts should be "introduced, extrapolated upon, shuffled away, and revisited",[12] and that players could be challenged if all the mechanics were combined at the end of the level.[12]

The game includes visuals, enemies, and objects not featured in earlier Shovel Knight titles, including some taken from previously cut concepts. The developers considered Plague of Shadows and the original Shovel Knight too indistinct visually, and created new artistic themes to expand upon the concepts presented in the originals.[9] They used some of the background art to convey information about gameplay mechanics, indicate secret rooms, and further the narrative. The Nintendo 3DS version includes backgrounds with more depth perception, and allows for the viewing of art that is not visible in other ports of the game.[13]

The difficulty had to be altered to fit the new hub world, and the developers reduced the overall challenge after receiving criticism for it in Plague of Shadows.[9] The soundtrack was composed by Jake Kaufman, who created most of it while streaming on Twitch. The soundtrack features remixes of previous music from the series, as well as several new songs.[14] Specter of Torment was first announced on December 1, 2016 at The Game Awards,[15][16] and was first released for Nintendo Switch as a launch title on March 3, 2017.[17] The DLC was sold as a standalone game for Nintendo Switch, but was also available as a free update for players who had purchased the original game.[1] The game was also released for Linux, macOS, and Windows one month later on April 5.[18] A version for the Wii U was first released on April 21, and ports for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, and Xbox One were released on April 25.[18]

Reception

According to the review aggregator website Metacritic, Specter of Torment received "generally favorable reviews" for its Nintendo Switch version.[19]

Critics called Specter of Torment a worthy entry in the Shovel Knight series,[3][23] and some felt as though it built upon the merits of the original game.[1][23] GameSpot said that the game replicated much of what made the original Shovel Knight excellent,[1] while USgamer felt that it was of similar quality to both of its predecessors.[3] Shacknews felt that Specter of Torment was more appealing than the original Shovel Knight, and called it a "modernized version of the platforming games that we loved and loved to hate from childhood."[2]

Reviewers praised Specter Knight's moveset.[1][2][4] GameRevolution likened the moveset to that of a Super Smash Bros. character, saying that it was fun and helped distinguish the game from its predecessors.[4] USgamer felt that the controls and moveset helped create a unique and aggressive style of gameplay.[3] GameSpot contended that the simple controls made Specter Knight feel powerful and fun.[1]

The platforming received similar praise.[1][3][23] Nintendo Life said that the game's platforming was comparable to its predecessors, and wrote that it felt "satisfying in a way that few games manage in this day and age."[23] GameSpot found the platforming to be challenging, highlighting how Specter Knight would have to input several moves together to progress, and saying that the difficulty helped make gameplay feel rewarding.[1] GameRevolution felt that the platforming was difficult to understand because it relied upon complicated movement, and felt overall inferior to the original Shovel Knight's.[4]

The level design was positively received. GameRevolution and Nintendo Life found the levels to be similar to that of the original Shovel Knight, but liked the content additions and how the stages accommodated for Specter Knight's movement.[4][23] Nintendo World Report wrote that the game provided a new experience by redesigning old mechanics,[5] and GameSpot found the new levels to be familiar but memorable due to their mechanical changes.[1]

The story was considered a highlight.[2][4][5] Nintendo World Report liked the narrative and called it "surprisingly tragic",[5] while Shacknews felt that the story helped make Specter Knight into a complex character.[2] Destructoid said that it was the best story in the series and demonstrated how Yacht Club Games had improved its writing, despite noting its short length.[22] GameRevolution felt that the narrative held more weight compared to Plague of Shadows, but that the quality of the writing ranged from impressive to comical.[4] Some critics gave attention to the boss fights.[1][3][5] GameSpot felt that some of the bosses were fun due to their changes to meet Specter Knight's new movement, but said that other were too similar to their previous incarnations.[1] USgamer considered the bosses to be easier than in previous games,[3] and Nintendo World Report said that some of the earlier boss fights were frustrating.[5] Other reviewers found the game to be too short. Shacknews said that some players would dislike the lack of scale,[2] while Nintendo Life called the DLC "short but sweet".[23] The reviewer said that the game was another entry in a great franchise, and was just as competent as the original Shovel Knight.[23]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Tran, Edmond (March 16, 2017). "Shovel Knight: Specter Of Torment Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on November 3, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Faulkner, Jason (March 10, 2017). "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment Review: To Die For". Shacknews. Archived from the original on November 2, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Williams, Mike (March 23, 2017). "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment Review". USgamer. Archived from the original on November 13, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Vacheron, Griffin (March 8, 2017). "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment Review". GameRevolution. Archived from the original on November 3, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Miller, Zachary (March 4, 2017). "Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove Review - Review". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on November 13, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  6. ↑ Reynolds, Ollie; Vogel, Mitch; Gassl, Zion (September 23, 2022). "Exclusive: When Is 'Shovel Knight Dig' Set? Here's The Official Shovel Knight Timeline". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on October 3, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  7. ↑ Frank, Allegra (December 1, 2016). "Specter of Torment is the next chapter in Shovel Knight saga". Polygon. Archived from the original on November 2, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  8. ↑ Yacht Club Games (November 29, 2019). "How Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove Went From Minor DLC to a Collection Built to Last". USgamer. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Yacht Club Games (December 2, 2019). "The Making of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, Part 1: The Plan". USgamer. Archived from the original on November 2, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 4 D'Angelo, David (July 31, 2017). "Specter Knight Mobility Design". Game Developer. Retrieved December 29, 2023.
  11. ↑ Yacht Club Games (December 4, 2019). "The Making of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, Part 3: Our Favorite Secrets and More". USgamer. Retrieved December 14, 2023.
  12. 1 2 3 Yacht Club Games (December 3, 2019). "The Making of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, Part 2: Froggy Foreshadowing". USgamer. Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
  13. ↑ Yacht Club Games (December 5, 2019). "The Making of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, Part 4: The Subtle Art of Backgrounds". USgamer. Retrieved December 14, 2023.
  14. ↑ Wilkes, Brenna (April 6, 2017). "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment OST Now Available". Original Sound Version. Retrieved December 3, 2023.
  15. ↑ Makuch, Eddie (December 1, 2016). "Shovel Knight Prequel Announced, Watch First Trailer". GameSpot. Archived from the original on November 13, 2023. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  16. ↑ Theriault, Donald (December 1, 2016). "New Details Announced For Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment - News". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on November 13, 2023. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  17. ↑ Romano, Sal (February 23, 2017). "Nintendo confirms Fast RMX, Shovel Knight for Nintendo eShop launch on Switch on March 3". Gematsu. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  18. 1 2 "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment PC, PS4, PSV, PS3, 3DS, WiiU, XONE, Switch | GRYOnline.pl". Gry Online (in Polish). Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  19. 1 2 "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment". Metacritic. Archived from the original on November 2, 2023. Retrieved October 24, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment Reviews". OpenCritic. March 20, 2017. Archived from the original on November 24, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  21. ↑ "Shovel Knight - Test, Action-Adventure". 4Players (in German). March 16, 2017. Archived from the original on November 15, 2023. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  22. 1 2 Carter, Chris (March 2, 2017). "Review: Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment". Destructoid. Archived from the original on November 24, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Bowling, Steve (March 4, 2017). "Review: Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch eShop)". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on November 21, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
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