Retro platformers are pestilence. They’re a lighting rod for cheap nostalgia, a familiar smile with mountains of mold sandwiched between rotten teeth. That is what I would say if I were prone to over-generalizing, which I’m absolutely, positively not – except when I am. Yeah, the modern gaming landscape has more retro platformers than ye olde days back when these tropes were actually invented, but that doesn’t necessarily render all future additions redundant. Hopping is fun. It has been fun for 4389295732 years – ever since man invented legs. But something’s always been missing. Shovel Knight asserts that it was – yep – shovels the entire time. And goodness me, I have never been so delighted by crude tools used primarily for digging (well, except that one time MF Doom said, “Can you dig it like a spigot?”).

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