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Shovel Knight [PC/3DS/Wii U]


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Yay, updates! First of all, a Plague Knight Campaign Trailer!

 

Also: Yacht Club Games confirmed that we are going to get the MEGATON Nintendo announcement this week, not only that, but they are also present at the Pre-PAX Event "Nindies @ Night" on Thursday - I think it's pretty safe to assume that this is where we are going to hear about the Nintendo exclusive stuff.

http://yachtclubgames.com/2015/08/plague-of-shadows-trailer-big-week/


I honestly can't wait to find out what the Nintendo users are going to get! Thursday (Friday for me) can't come soon enough! :D

They're also saying that they expect to be able to set a release date soon; Plague Of Shadows has been finished for a while, and is just going through submission on its various platforms (and has been for several weeks).  But in the immediate future, I'm really curious about this mysterious Nintendo megaton announcement.  It's implicitly a parallel to the Kratos and Battletoads bosses on Playstation and XOne, but just what is it really?  I agree that we can expect to hear about that on Thursday/Friday...

Edited by FFWF
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An amiibo's cool and all but I'm going to be kind of disappointed if a bunch of stuff is locked behind a moderately expensive piece of plastic.

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Same here: i'm usually fine with DLC and updates, but i have never been into Disney Infity/Skylander figurine stuff, so i'm not really excited about content relegated to just an Amiibo.

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The jig is up, Yacht Club Games.

Classy pose, though.  I don't buy Amiibo, but that one almost makes me wonder.

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Wow, that really sucks for Wii U and 3DS owners. Unlike the Xbox and PS version, they have to pay $13 to unlock their exclusive content in-game. It's a big deal and great that Yacht Club got an amiibo made for their star character, as this would be the first Indie game on Nintendo's platform that got big enough to warrant an amiibo, but locking platform-exclusive content behind a paywall when the other two got it for free makes it feel like Nintendo owners got shafted AGAIN.

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Wow, that really sucks for Wii U and 3DS owners. Unlike the Xbox and PS version, they have to pay $13 to unlock their exclusive content in-game. It's a big deal and great that Yacht Club got an amiibo made for their star character, as this would be the first Indie game on Nintendo's platform that got big enough to warrant an amiibo, but locking platform-exclusive content behind a paywall when the other two got it for free makes it feel like Nintendo owners got shafted AGAIN.

I don't think this is all Wii U owners will get. This is also compatible with future games, and will likely also support adding Shovel Knight to other Nintendo titles, such as Super Mario Maker. Shovel Knight itself may even support Nintendo Amiibo, which would be a much bigger deal.

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Im sure that there's more and the amiibo is just the icing on the cake. Hey I'll buy it because the damn plushies were sold out

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Im sure that there's more and the amiibo is just the icing on the cake. Hey I'll buy it because the damn plushies were sold out

Exactly. This is just showing the Shovel Knight compatibility with Shovel Knight, and mentions other games as well.

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I think there's a good chance that the Amiibo will simply be a shortcut to some or most of the exclusive content, and that it can be unlocked separately.  For instance, YCG have recently stated that, while the upcoming Plague Knight campaign would normally require you to have cleared the main Shovel Knight campaign, there'll be a secret way to unlock it immediately; to my imagining that suggests that it's important to them to provide multiple gateways to content.  I don't think there's much point in leaping to conclusions when we'll almost certainly have the full story in a few hours, though (or, for me here in the U.K., tomorrow morning).

In other news, YCG have released the Plague Of Shadows instruction manual!  Time to brush up in preparation for its release, whenever that may be!
http://yachtclubgames.com/plague-of-shadows-manual/

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So...this is interesting. There's a german retailer who also lists the Amiibo and mentions specific features. 

Since they are so specific and the event where they might be announced is in an hour, I'll put them in spoiler tags now, just in case.

" Co-op (Wii U exclusive)

  • Enter the game of a friend and shovel together!
  • Special Co-op moves will support you on your journey.

Full Flexibilty:

  • Raise your level by beating enemies and find valuable treasure
  • Earn never before seen Relikts, abilties and powers
  • Change the appearence of your Shovel Knight with cool, cosmetic details"

 

Source: http://www.4u2play.de/trendartikel/amiibo/zubehoer/amiibo-shovel-knight/425662

Sooooo... yeah. If the retailer didnt make that up, there's A LOT coming to the Nintendo versions. I hope this turns out to be true.

Regardless, we'll probably find out soon enough if all that stuff really is true. Can't wait!

 

,

 

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http://yachtclubgames.com/2015/08/shovel-knight-amiibo/

 

Shovel Knight Amiibo officially announced, here's full details:

Cooperative Multiplayer (exclusive to Wii U)!

  • Join a friend’s Shovel Knight campaign and shovel together!
  • Use new cooperative moves to help each other out along the way!

Deep Customization!

  • Level up by defeating enemies and finding treasure!
  • Earn all-new relics, abilities, and powers you never thought possible!
  • Customize the look of your Shovel Knight with cool and crazy cosmetic options!
  • Use your custom amiibo seamlessly between 3DS and Wii U!

Exclusive Challenge Stages!

  • Battle your way through amiibo exclusive challenge stages that take advantage of the new amiibo relics and abilities!

One amiibo, multiple games

  • We plan to continue support of the Shovel Knight amiibo in future Yacht Club Games and Nintendo products! Stay tuned to amiibo.com for compatibility details in new games.

 

I think Nintendo is probably going to confirm other games the Amiibo is compatible with this weekend at PAX. Probably at least Mario Maker will support it for sure. Its not JUST co-op, and it will be supported in future Yacht Club AND Nintendo products.

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Co-op being restricted to the amiibo is absolute garbage. Everything else sounds fine but that is way too major of a mode to be tied to a toy that costs almost as much as the game itself and is guaranteed to be swiped up by scalpers, thus guaranteeing that most fans will be barred from ever playing it.

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I think they said a while back that there was going to be 4 player co-op, didn't they? I doubt it'll be amiibo exclusive.

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Co-op being restricted to the amiibo is absolute garbage. Everything else sounds fine but that is way too major of a mode to be tied to a toy that costs almost as much as the game itself and is guaranteed to be swiped up by scalpers, thus guaranteeing that most fans will be barred from ever playing it.

I think it enables you to save your shovel knight, and your customization from your console, and use it on someone elses(essentially, it's like amiibo's in smash but not automated), you can do Co-op otherwise, but other players simply can't save their stats

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I think it enables you to save your shovel knight, and your customization from your console, and use it on someone elses(essentially, it's like amiibo's in smash but not automated), you can do Co-op otherwise, but other players simply can't save their stats

...but you can't do co-op otherwise. It's literally amiibo exclusive. The trailer literally says it will unlock a brand new mode, being co-op.

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I think the most likely scenario is that YCG were debating exclusive content with Nintendo, got offered an Amiibo, and decided to pack as much as they could behind it to justify being the first independent game to get an Amiibo.  It's worth noting that YCG's other Nintendo-exclusive content is also hardware-based - the Miiverse-centric Digger's Diary on Wii U, the Streetpass arena on the 3DS.  Tying more content to an Amiibo does fit with their modus operandi.  From what I'm reading, the exclusive content is basically the same as the Amiibo content in Yoshi's Woolly World and Smash Bros. with cosmetic polish, so I'm not exactly scandalised by this unprecedented development.  If I wanted to be scandalised, I'd point out that the co-op mode isn't Nintendo-exclusive; it's Wii U-exclusive, which puts a several-hundred-pound paywall in front of me that makes the ten-quid paywall pale in comparison.  All content is paywalled; the only difference is whether you've already paid for it or not.

I think they said a while back that there was going to be 4 player co-op, didn't they? I doubt it'll be amiibo exclusive.

That's different; that's a four-player Battle Mode exclusive to the non-handheld consoles.

I think it enables you to save your shovel knight, and your customization from your console, and use it on someone elses(essentially, it's like amiibo's in smash but not automated), you can do Co-op otherwise, but other players simply can't save their stats

By no means impossible.  At any rate, there's plenty of time between the hysterical present and the actual release of the Amiibo to clear things up a bit.

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Ah, I see. My memory is awful, forgive me. ^^;

So should I buy the download version or retail version?

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Ah, I see. My memory is awful, forgive me. ^^;

So should I buy the download version or retail version?

I don't think it really matters outside how much memory your Wii U has. If you got the space for it go for it unless you're like me and like to have physical copies to slap people with.

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I would presume the download version would be cheaper, though?  I would be surprised if the retail version went for a paltry fifteen dollars.  So that may also factor into your decisions.  (I'm seriously considering double-dipping on a physical version to help fund the insane amount of add-on content they're creating entirely for free.)

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Well this is interesting

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/08/28/nintendo-and-yacht-club-share-how-the-shovel-knight-amiibo-came-to-exist.aspx

Nintendo And Yacht Club Share How The Shovel Knight Amiibo Came To Exist

pax 2015
 
by Brian Shea on August 28, 2015 at 03:44 PM
1,979 Views
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Some big news out of PAX Prime has been the fact that a Shovel Knight Amiibo will be sold this holiday season. Though the Amiibo is licensed by Nintendo, the figure is produced and sold by Yacht Club Games, differentiating it as the inaugural third-party Amiibo in addition to being the first Amiibo for an independent game.

Nintendo wanted to make sure Shovel Knight stood out on Nintendo platforms; this is how the Amiibo functionality came into play. According to Sean Velasco of Yacht Club Games, the studio toyed around with a ton of ideas for how Amiibo functionality could be worked into the game. “We went over the entire range of possibilities of what we could do and what was going too far, what wasn’t going far enough, what does the Amiibo do, how does it work together,” he says. “It was definitely a process. I heard that Mr. Miyamoto read one of my pitch documents and said, ‘No’ and that’s like the greatest honor of my life.”

“We went back and forth a lot,” Velasco continues. “There was a lot of talk about how it was going to be, because Nintendo is so protective of their IP, but we managed to kind of navigate everything and now we’ve actually got it to come out.”

When Shovel Knight first appeared on PlayStation platforms earlier this year, it included an exclusive battle with Kratos from the God of War series. Nintendo intentionally avoided including similar features in the Wii U and 3DS versions.

“When we looked at the Amiibo functionality with Yacht Club, I think there was interest from all parties not to do a ‘me too’ type of product,” Baker says. “We wanted to do something that was unique to Nintendo platforms that only we can do. I think that the announcements that the other consoles made, and the relationship that they have with Yacht Club is great, and they offered what they could offer in terms of IP from some of their iconic franchises, but the one really thing that we could offer is Amiibo integration, and that’s something that nobody else has and nobody else will be able to emulate.”

ShovelKnightAmiiboSmall.jpgWhile Shovel Knight’s inclusion in the Amiibo line has proven popular with fans, the idea of including other games’ characters in the existing line of Amiibos is not a new idea for Nintendo. According to Baker, the company has been receiving proposals since the initial announcement of Amiibos at E3 2014. 

“There’s a lot of interest and certainly the sell-through numbers of those Amiibo are very attractive to our partners as well,” he says. “I think what we’ll always evaluate is what is the end result of that and how does it create a positive gameplay experience for our fans and for our customers and consumers.”

Even if Nintendo does decide to strike more deals with third-party developers and publishers for new Amiibos, Baker says that it will do so very carefully. “We don’t want it to be exploitative. We don’t want to just throw stuff out there in order to just sell it,” he says. “I think that we’re very much looking at how does this improve or increase the gameplay experience and how does that story make sense in the grand scheme of things. So that’s what we’re going to always evaluate. It’s the reason why we collaborated with Activision with Skylanders; because it made sense for their franchise and there was a cross-promotional message with Amiibo in there in terms of the technology as well. It just made a ton of sense. We’ll continue to look at third-party opportunities with Amiibo and evaluate them on a case-by-case basis.”

For now, Velasco is just happy about what this means for the future of not only Yacht Club Games, but for independent game developers as a whole. “It’s huge for us. I feel like it just legitimizes us in the face of the world for Nintendo to kind of give us this honor of being the first third-party Amiibo. It’s incredible,” he says. “As far as what it means for other indies, who knows? I don’t know what Nintendo’s planning, but I do know that in the beginning of the Wii U when we first came on there, when we had success, we were quick to help trumpet their message that the Wii U is cool and the 3DS is awesome and small companies can make really great games and people will notice and Nintendo will notice and be really great about it. And they have.”

“Nintendo has been so good with us and helped push us,” Velasco says. “Regardless of what you think of indies or the ‘indie’ label or how I feel about being associated with that. It’s an incredible thing that they’ve done to sort of allow smaller companies to have their day in the spotlight. Back in the day, Nintendo was not nearly as forthcoming as they are now. I would say this is a really cool, incredible initiative for them.”

Though Nintendo hasn't announced any other third-party Amiibo partnerships yet, the deal with Yacht Club Games shows promise for the future. With Nintendo trying to elevate its independent partners in new ways, the eShop is becoming a more exciting marketplace for indies to publish their games.

 
 

Email the author Brian Shea, or follow on Twitter, and Game Informer.

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Something as basic as a 2 players mode is exclusive to a especific console now? This generation of gaming disgusts me. I adore Shovel Knight, but forget I'll ever play it again, since I bought the version they decided to not give a fuck.

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