Shovel Knight Dig Review (Nad)
(18 hours played from a Family Share account) Shovel Knight Dig is a curious game to talk about, but the TL;DR is a cautious recommendation. As for details:
There are many things I genuinely enjoy about Dig! The visuals are a great, natural extension of the original's style. The character interactions are lovely, particularly getting more screen time with Shield Knight for an absolutely charming dynamic with SK. The music is fabulous as well, and the general control scheme is easy to conceptually grasp for pick up and play sessions. Getting the normal ending is pleasantly quick once you have a grasp on what the game can throw at you, and fun to do!
BUT.
The game *will* sucker punch you with its game balance from the procedural generation. Some level gimmicks across the stage biomes are straight up death sentences compared to others in the same zone, and only with time and experience will you understand either how to survive them or outright avoid them. Upgrade RNG is wildly varied, with some runs through raining down loads of useful items and health upgrades while with others you only find expendable relics or one-time heals. Enemies of certain types or configurations will ambush you before you have an honest chance to react, and only with a pessimistic play style will you avoid unnecessary damage. Often there is just a bit too much going on with enemies and hazards to coherently decipher your next correct line of play.
Importantly, the route to the true ending will test your patience, at least at this moment before the last big DLC update drops a balance patch to generation. It took me 8 hours of attempts to successfully achieve the true ending, mainly because the stage hazards and enemy groups will cause you to miss pivotal chances to progress the route and force you to begin again from scratch. If the game is aware that the true ending route flags are checked, some fixed items or room patterns would greatly reduce the literal trials and errors that come with attempts. As of writing, only 4.6% of players have achieved the true ending, which seems comically low, and speaks to how the game punishes players in a way that only RNG is capable of delivering.
That said, I don't regret my time playing this, and I do want to try the Wish DLC when it launches! So that's a definitive compliment. Just understand that while at its heart I think this is a game made to be enjoyed, the procedural nature of this beast will tell you that you will try again, and again, for a majority of your game time.