Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows - Opinions

While Shovel Knight is a rigid stereotype of a traditional knight (albeit one more armed for horticulture than heroism), Plague Knight is everything but. As a character, he runs contrary to all one might expect from a knight, but in actuality, he is no less deserving of the title for it. At first, Plague Knight may seem unbecoming of his moniker; he is surreptitious, chaotically destructive, and possibly outright mad: all qualities one might try to hold against Plague Knight, if he wasn't so inclined to boast about them himself.

Indeed, Plague Knight swears allegiance to himself alone. As a knight in service to no master aside from his own interests, he thus owes his loyalty to no other, and thereby reserves his trust only for those he finds deserving of it. Throughout his campaign to assemble the ultimate potion, Plague Knight discovers who those few worthy individuals are, and eventually learns of something more important to him than even the most powerful concoction imaginable.

In gameplay, Plague Knight also remains true in function as a counterpoint to Shovel Knight. Faster and more erratic, Plague Knight is much harder to control, making it easy to sabotage your own plans rather than those of your enemies'. Once you become comfortable with his odd mechanics, however, Plague Knight allows for a very expressive playstyle as you chain attacks into great leaps and combos, flying through each level far faster than Shovel Knight ever could. As you acquire more upgrades and components, you can even design your own explosives in an attempt to match how you want to play the game or perhaps to deal with a certain tricky section. For this reason, Plague Knight is easily the most flexible of the playable knights, rewarding the ingenuity of players who might also fancy themselves as mad chemists in search of more exciting means to blow things up.