Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon

Genre: Falling Block Puzzle Game / Roguelike

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

.

Review:

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, released on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2021, is a spin-off of the popular indie Platformer that brings the character to a new genre. Or rather, a new fusion of genres: Falling Block Puzzle games and Roguelikes. Players move through enclosed areas in a manner similar to traditional Roguelikes, with randomized power-ups appearing throughout a run, but rather than navigating mazes or fighting enemies in a traditional sense, players clear away enemies in a Falling Block Puzzle game.

As you might expect from a Shovel Knight game, the presentation here is solid, with the series’ iconic characters depicted in a colorful pixel art style that’s slightly more cartoony than the mainline Shovel Knight games, with characters shaking to the beat of the music (this isn’t a Music-Rhythm game per say, but blocks do fall in time with the beat, so rhythm does play a small part here). The synthesized music here is similarly decent, though not nearly as memorable as Shovel Knight’s soundtrack. In fact, at least some of the songs here are decent but not great remixes of the tunes from that game.

The gameplay here has players striking at blocks (mostly enemies) as they fall, with connecting blocks all taking damage from a strike. Enemies damage the player back though, so players must be efficient at trying to take out as big a group of enemies as possible when they attack. As enemies lower the player’s health, they must head over to the potions that fall to restore that health, alternating between taking damage in fights with enemies and clearing potions to heal that damage.

Honestly, I found this back-and-forth needlessly tedious, and it made it difficult for me to feel like I could get “in the groove” here like with some of the better Puzzle games out there. Oh, don’t get me wrong, this is still plenty of fun, and the bonuses bestowed by random pickups, the alternate playable characters, and multiplayer all add extra variety and content to be explored here, but none of it really captured me the way I want a good Puzzle game to do.

Unfortunately, while I think Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is a unique and interesting entry in its genre, and I know others may find it to be thoroughly engaging, it just did not do much for me. It’s a shame too – I love Shovel Knight, and I love a good Puzzle game, but Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon just doesn’t blend the two in a way I find compelling. However, if you’re a fan of either of those things, you may like it better than I – what’s here clearly had a lot of care and effort put into it. Unfortunately, I feel like there’s a lot of frustration here too.

tl;dr – Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon takes the popular indie game character and drops him in a fusion of the Falling Block Puzzle and Roguelike genres. The presentation here is solid, the game is polished, and the gameplay is clever and original… but some of the core elements of that gameplay feel tedious and keep this from being a truly compelling entry in the genre. Some fans of Shovel Knight, Puzzle games, and Roguelikes might enjoy it, but it just did not work for me.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, u/RamboFox, Ilya Zverev, Connor Armstrong, Eli Goodman, K.H. Kristoffer Wulff, and Stov. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}