Shovel Knight: King of Cards Reviews
Yacht Club Games has once again created a character that somehow feels familiar to play, yet fresh. The world and characters are enchanting, and the entire package is endlessly charming.
King of Cards is the triumphant end of an era.
Shovel Knight: King of Cards is a successful union of its disparate halves, existing as both a platformer with consistently inventive level design and an engaging collectible card game. Joustus and the platforming offer a well-choreographed sequence of challenges that deliver constant variation.
Shovel Knight: King of Cards is a downright classic that is on par with the other Shovel Knight games. With the inclusion of the new mini-game Joustus, King of Cards has everything you can ask for.
"You just activated my trap card."
Review in Finnish | Read full review
Other than my quibbles about the plot and Joustus, I have no huge complaints about King of Cards. The closest I can get is that some of the final stages were truly difficult and frustrating, most especially one that has you constantly warping back and forth. This is a very well made game, and had it not released after Specter of Torment, easily would have been my favorite Shovel Knight game. As it is, I got 5 and a half hours out of it for a mere $9.99, and only saw 34% of what the game had to offer. I skipped a whole 13 stages and probably some truly epic optional bosses. You won’t lack for replay value either, with many difficult achievements that are a hallmark of the series. As a fan, I did very much enjoy my time with King of Cards, even if the ending was a bit disheartening. I’m glad I got to play each part of the Shovel Knight saga, and cannot wait to see what surprises are in store for Yacht Club Games in the future.
While I haven’t formally reviewed any of the previous Shovel Knight games I’ve been a quiet fan of the series since it started...
It’s my least favourite of the Shovel Knight entries, but with the bar raised so high, that doesn’t mean that King of Cards isn’t worth your time.
Despite my misgivings with our royal protagonist’s moveset, King of Cards is an excellent cap on what’s become a downright amazing collection of games.
Yacht Club proves yet again with King of Cards that they are masters of their craft, lovingly creating games that boldly mix genres and head in directions you’d never guess a traditional platformer would go. The card game mixes things up nicely, creating breaks of challenging card-based strategy in between action platforming.
Shovel Knight: King of Cards is a master-class in platforming, design, pixel art, and much, much more. Offering a good amount of new content, as well as the all-new card mini-game, Joustus, you have an overall package that is hard not to recommend, even if good portions of this feel wholly the same as the original Shovel Knight and its successive releases.
King of Cards is the better Shovel Knight campaing yet, and a great goodbye to this wonderful series of games. We really look forward to Yacht Club Games' next work, be it Shovel Knight 2 or else.
Review in Italian | Read full review
King of Cards is another excellent addition to the Shovel Knight saga - an exciting and grand finale for the series.
For its last platformer chapter, the Shovel Knight series let us play through the Monty Python King Knight, a wanabee king travelling the world to defeat its potential adversaries. Through this lovely pixel art adventure, the players will alos discover the Joustus, a card game within the game, for ever more fun in every tavern of this grotesque world.
Review in French | Read full review
This is likely the last we’ll see of the ‘core’ Shovel Knight series for some time, and King of Cards acts as a worthy swansong for a now-legendary platformer. Bravo.
It’s incredible that Yacht Club Games has finally reached the finish line on their most popular title, but it was a worthy sendoff for the first saga of a franchise that revolutionized the indie video game space.
Like its brethren before it, Shovel Knight: King of Cards features some of the best platforming game design ever seen in a video game.
Yacht Club Games proves that their final Shovel Knight expansion, King of Cards, is no fool's gold by making their best game to date.
Shovel Knight: King of Cards continues the series' route in bringing more and more exquisite expansions to the original game. A crowning achievement of the Shovel Knight series, this expansion adds some very original new levels, a welcome new character with new mechanics and the series' trademark art style and sound environment. King of Cards is the expansion that Shovel Knight could want the most and it's recommended without any reservation to all Nintendo Switch owners.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review