Before Shovel Knight was once a proposed product, I never actually helped kickstart a project before. This was the first game that made me feel confident enough to help invest in the project when it was still very early in development.

Many months passed, and now it's finally out. How does the finished game hold up? Astonishingly well, actually. It successfully delivers on the promise of a true old-school, NES-style game with mechanics borrowed from classics such as Mega Man, Ducktales and Zelda II. There's even a bit of Super Mario Bros 3 style overworld map and patroling enemies thrown in for good measure. Also makes the rare accomplishment of emulating the look and feel of a real NES game, whereas most modern-made retro games only manage to capture the look and feel on some level, but not quite all there.

Only critique I can give is that sometimes you might find yourself letting go of your left/right direction while trying to hit down for the downthrust attack, but the most recent update rectifies this by allowing you to remap the down key to another button, if you so wish.

I can say with confidence that I am proud to have been one of the thousands of backers that helped get this project off the ground. Absolutely fantastic game, and one that I will likely be finding myself revisiting time and time again.