Shovel Knight Showdown

Solid controls and a diverse cast of characters provide entertaining matches, but the excitement is short lived

Yacht Club Games continues to impress with its support for Shovel Knight, and we’d highly recommend you experience Shovel Knight Showdown one way or another.

Shovel Knight Showdown for the Nintendo Switch continues the series' steps in this emulated 8-bit world of tough, intense gameplay, this time with the added value of a story/campaign mode. With its variety of characters and mechanics that can work for fans of brawlers and fans of party games, Shovel Knight Showdown has a perfect recipe for local multiplayer, and sadly an absence of online multiplayer.

"Show must go down."

Yacht Club Games splashes into battle with their spin on the 2D platformer brawler with Shovel Knight: Showdown.

Its quality it's not on par with the excellent campaigns, due to balancing issues and the absence of any kind of online mode, but Shovel Knight Showdon is still a very fun party game for up to four players.

Evaluating this game is pretty tricky. I certainly had fun with what I played. As far as being a versus mode of a much larger game, its a neat little novelty that some folks might play around with for a couple hours. As its own game? Hard to recommend, unless you maybe have a friend group of passionate Shovel Knight fans. Though in that case, I’d assume they would have Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove already, and thus this is just a free update. It’s $10 on its own, which certainly is a fair price. However, I’d say Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove at $40 is a better deal. With that you get Shovel Knight and three additional full campaigns, as well as Showdown. At that price, you’re basically getting Showdown as a free bonus.

Showdown gives players even more ways to play around with and lets fans beat each other up as their favorite knight or side character! It is definitely a welcome addition to the trove.

Neal: It's absolutely jam-packed with features and if you're someone who already has Shovel Knight, it's a heck of a free addition. As a solitary game, it's a much harder sell. Like you said, it's more of a curio or bonus than something that could stand solely on its own.

Although it doesn't live up to the high standard set by the premiere Shovel Knight game and its single player expansions, Shovel Knight Showdown is a fine multiplayer brawler.