Idle Digging - Shovel Knight

[dartmonkey]

Must be about 75% through by now. Really enjoying it.

I came across the eurogamer review for it the other day which got me to thinking about what we expect from game reviewers. The writer made no reference to any of the influences beyond 'retro 16-bit games' and made a couple of errors in the text. My instant reaction was 'where did they find this monkey to write for them' but then I realise he was probably just a kid. Then I thought 'hang on, miscategorising 8-bit as 16-bit probably means he's not familiar with 16-bit either which means he may be one of the Playstation generation, or even the PS2 generation! Poor mite'. Then I got sad. Then I thought 'no, he's a reviewer and even if his first console was a 360 he should have an appreciation and broad knowledge of the medium's history and seminal games, especially with the internet providing access to so much info'. Then I had a cup of tea.

Is it too much to expect of a reviewer that they have this knowledge? Is it wrong to think the guy shouldn't be writing because he doesn't have what I consider a foundation level grasp of 8-bit video games? I assume he's just young, but is that an excuse? It wouldn't fly in film reviews - certainly not in a dedicated publication.

Basically, am I an arsehole for getting rankled by it?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-26-shovel-knight-review

[Sno]

When i came to the conclusion that video games were probably going to continue being an important part of my life into the forseeable future, i made an effort to familiarize myself not just with the games that were coming out at the time or the games that i had played in my own youth, but the games that came before that as well.

I would expect the same of anybody else who claims to be able to present an authoritative and informed opinion about the medium.

 

As you note, the information is certainly out there. It's easier to obtain now than ever before.

So no, i don't think you're being an arsehole at all, unless we're both arseholes.

That said, everybody's gotta start somewhere.

[Patrick R]

Just beat it today. Started the New Game+ and I can't see what's harder about it. If anything, my huge swath of abilities makes it easier.

[Korax]

Enemies deal twice as much damage, almost all food platters have bombs in them instead of food, and I think it cuts out some of the checkpoints.

 

I have a NG+ save at the boss rush level, and bashed my head against it for a while before putting it on the back burner. I had enough problems with that part on normal difficulty, and the increased damage + reduced healing just exacerbated it.

[Sno]

Same thing happened to me, i stone-walled at the NG+ bossrush.

[SiN]

lol, that "young" "kid" is Simon Parkin. It's not that he doesn't know his history (look him up), it's that he doesn't care. Why does it even matter whether it's a faux 8- or 16-bit game? It's irrelevant to a reviewer telling you their opinion of a game.

[dartmonkey]

But is it irrelevant? Surely it's important, especially to this game? It's like reading a review of The Artist that says it's black and white like old films from the seventies and the characters didn't talk and the screen was all square like an old TV. Is it not a reviewer's job to provide some context for design decisions before judging their merit? 'Not caring' just isn't cricket.

Edit. It appears the writer's in his mid-30s and writes for the New Yorker and Guardian, etc, which makes this review stand out as a bit sloppy. I dunno. Nothing to get mad about, it just jumped out at me.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I don't think you can expect the reviewer to care more than they do. If the reviewer cared they'd do more research and rigorous fact checking. The semantics aren't going to massively misrepresent the game. (though I'm not entirely sure what the wrong facts were, maybe there was something that was actually off?) Online reviewers aren't that well paid, they're mostly doing it because they like games as a medium. They're going to inevitably discuss what does or doesn't capture them in the game rather than looking into exact details of stuff that they just glossed over.

[Ninety-Three]

I think expecting the reviewer to be informed about gaming history depends on what you want out of the review. If the purpose of a review is to be a consumer guide that simply informs buying decisions, then gaming history doesn't matter. Anyone can pick up a game and say "Here are the parts I found fun, and here are the things I didn't like, overall I think you should buy it if that appeals to you". However if you want reviews to be "Games are art" thinkpieces, I agree with dartmonkey, just like in movie reviews it's important to understand the medium itself, not just the particular game you're reviewing.

 

I think there's room for both kinds of reviews to exist, but the review in question seemed to be entirely a consumer recommendation, which excuses the writer's ignorance. 

[Griddlelol]

Does anyone else not like Shovel Knight? I know that it's clearly a well-made game, but the levels are incredibly long for their level of difficulty and I just find the whole experience tedious.

 

Me! I have to give a week or so between each level because I can't play in one long sitting. If the check points mid-level saved when you exited the game, I think my experience with it would be completely different. 

[Twig]

Re: The importance of distinction between 8-bit and 16-bit:

 

Considering the effort the developer put into making the game look and feel as much like an NES game as possible (with some liberties taken here and there), I'd say...

 

nah who gives a fuck but that young kid sure is dumb as butt, eh?

[SiN]

Considering the effort the developer put into making the game look and feel as much like an NES game as possible (with some liberties taken here and there), I'd say...

 

nah who gives a fuck but that young kid sure is dumb as butt, eh?

 

But actually, why does it matter? I'd understand if this was a novel concept (like dart brought up with The Artist), but the retro aesthetic has been done to death, especially with platformers around the same era. Does the game do anything interesting with the aesthetic? Does it challenge some assumption, or give us a fresh perspective, on NES era games?

 

And digging deeper into the game itself: why does the jumping look so stiff? Why does the game pause-and-scroll between screens? Why doesn't the game let you resume from mid-level checkpoints? (as Griddlelol asks) I suspect the answer is simply "because that's how it worked on the NES". And I just can't bring myself to care about nostalgia for the sake of it.

 

Which is not to say "old things are bad" or something. But I think a game like VVVVVV does a much more interesting job of taking an old game and re-imagining it for the modern era.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I think if the mistake was made in an article explicitly about the imposed limitations on the game, then it would absolutely matter. But in a general review that mostly says I liked/disliked this game it's not that big a deal to later just amend when it's pointed out. It feels equivalent to giving the wrong name of a new gun in CoD or something.

[Korax]

But actually, why does it matter? I'd understand if this was a novel concept (like dart brought up with The Artist), but the retro aesthetic has been done to death, especially with platformers around the same era. Does the game do anything interesting with the aesthetic? Does it challenge some assumption, or give us a fresh perspective, on NES era games?

 

Most retro aesthetic isn't made to be accurate to what it's referencing. Almost any time someone claims something is in 8- or 16-bit style, it just means "I made pixel art!" By sticking as closely as they did to NES constraints, they made something much closer to something that actually could have been on an NES. That was their stated intent.

 

I don't really have much nostalgia that they could be cashing in on. I didn't have a NES growing up, and even when I had the opportunity to play games on one, I wasn't great at platformers like Mega Man. I maybe played Mega Man 2 or 3 once. So while I can appreciate the deliberate NES style, calling back to it doesn't really matter to me. Sure, it's NES-style art, but it's still really good art! It's NES-style music, but it's still really good music! It easily became one of my favorite games of all time.

 

They also incorporated more modern things, too. Those checkpoints probably wouldn't have been in a NES game. There is no extra lives system that makes you restart the game if you die more than 3 times, you can just keep at it until you beat a level. Even the fact that you can save and have multiple save slots is a slight modernization, because you just didn't have that in early NES. You either beat it in one go or had to write down a bunch of clumsy passwords. Why do they take a bunch of mechanics from NES-era games? Because they wanted to. It's the game they wanted to make, and it was their choice to use them.

[Twig]

But actually, why does it matter?

I dunno. For the same reason any kind of art history matters? Besides, intent is important, no matter how many people cry "Death of the author!"

 

You'll also note that my second line started with "nah who gives a fuck".

[Bjorn]

They also incorporated more modern things, too. Those checkpoints probably wouldn't have been in a NES game. There is no extra lives system that makes you restart the game if you die more than 3 times, you can just keep at it until you beat a level. Even the fact that you can save and have multiple save slots is a slight modernization, because you just didn't have that in early NES. You either beat it in one go or had to write down a bunch of clumsy passwords. Why do they take a bunch of mechanics from NES-era games? Because they wanted to. It's the game they wanted to make, and it was their choice to use them.

 

To be fair, the original Zelda had most of those features, and Metroid would have as well if the storage/battery tech would have been finalized before its release. And that all happened within the first year or so of the NES. My understanding at the time was that the only reason more games didn't have those features was the extra cost that went into cartridge production (and probably licensing the tech from Nintendo, since it was a hardware innovation at the time).

[eot]

lol, that "young" "kid" is Simon Parkin. It's not that he doesn't know his history (look him up), it's that he doesn't care. Why does it even matter whether it's a faux 8- or 16-bit game? It's irrelevant to a reviewer telling you their opinion of a game.

It matters as much as any other mistake. Being a writer and saying you don't care about using words correctly is stupid. It's okay to make mistakes, but it's also okay to point them out.

[Sno]

An interesting thing to point out about Shovel Knight is that its soundtrack was composed under the constraints of a late-famicom custom soundchip used, most famously, in Castlevania 3. (Only in the japanese version, to be clear.)

 

They tried to present the best possible version of an authentic NES experience. The soundtrack is both something that could run on real hardware* and is something styled after one of the system's high water marks. (* - Though it's noted that the size of Shovel Knight's soundtrack would actually fill up an entire Famicom cart, heh.)

 

The game is so thoughtful about what it preserves and where it breaks, that it's styled after an 8-bit game is a significant distinction.

There's the thing about how the HUD is drawn as a background element that object sprites can render in front of, they did that because they thought it was an iconic idiosyncrasy of NES games and did not detract from the gameplay. Whereas the game has no system of limited lives and instead adopts a wildly anachronistic Dark Souls-style corpse run because they think it makes more sense and makes it a better game.

Every aesthetic and gameplay design choice the game makes is framed against 8-bit hardware restrictions and design principles.

Also, with the little side conversation going on about whether or not the game is actually good, i'm throwing my hat in with it being absolutely incredible, i adore it. (I... Also felt it was actually a little too easy, except for that NG+ bossrush, fuck that.)

[Twig]

Honestly I found the boss rush pretty easy both times, since I already knew how to beat all of them. I'm good at video games, though, apparently.

 

But yes game is super duper great!

[Trip Hazard]

Virt did the soundtrack, right? SOLD

 

Edit: Haha, I mentioned this on the first page of this thread, and I still don't have this game. Need to get a job, or go beggin', or something

[tberton]

I really enjoyed the beginning of the game, thought it dragged a bit in the middle and then really enjoyed the end. So overall, I thought it was pretty great. I was disappointed with the items though. I think a Mega Man-style system would have been better.

 

I am super excited for the DLC though.

[Sno]

Virt did the soundtrack, right? SOLD

 

Manami Matsumae collaborated on a few of the tracks too, the OST is amazing.

[SiN]

I dunno. For the same reason any kind of art history matters? Besides, intent is important, no matter how many people cry "Death of the author!"

 

You'll also note that my second line started with "nah who gives a fuck".

 

(I was unable to parse your second sentence and assumed it was a joke.)

 

When I read about Shovel Knight, it's always "this game emulates the NES with love, oh and and also it's a pretty good game" whereas VVVVVV was always "this is an incredible game and also it's a great homage to the Speccy".

 

Intent matters, sure, but the final product is far more important. And history matters too, but then emulators (and the massive amount of game literature) do a perfectly good job at that. With modern work I'm much more interested in how creators can take the older work they love and reimagine it in a modern context. IMO the best work comes from there, not slavish recreations.

 

 

Also, a lot of the "this game emulates an 8-bit system with a lot of care" talk sounds *exactly* like "this game has very technically advanced graphics" talk to me.

[Twig]

Also, a lot of the "this game emulates an 8-bit system with a lot of care" talk sounds *exactly* like "this game has very technically advanced graphics" talk to me.

So? What's wrong with that? Very technically advanced graphics are interesting, and so is this.

[Sno]

I think there's a lot that can be unearthed in trying to revisit a seemingly outmoded idea, a keen design sense can not just rediscover what was great about those things, but build out on them in different ways from what brought us to where we are with games now.

There's always the risk of somebody just parroting something without really deconstructing it, but Shovel Knight is certainly not such a game, everything about it felt thoughtful and considered to me. It preserves the things it should, and pushes things that need to change in a new direction.