Shovel Knight review ), but Specter of Torment, in particular, is well worth returning for.

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“ The real draw for returning players is Specter of Torment.

“ Specter Knight's abilities create new opportunities for platforming challenges.

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“ Specter Knight feels totally fluid and skill-based.

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“ For Specter, the developers went all out.

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For one thing, the full bundle – called Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove – is a great peek into how far an indie studio can come in just a few years. The original Shovel Knight is a small but polished 2D action game with great platforming, an arsenal of varied tools, and a surprisingly well-written story. And while Plague of Shadows feels like a remixed addition for hardcore fans, Specter of Torment feels like a completely new game, and one that shows off everything Yacht Club has learned since the original’s release in 2014.The Switch version has a ton of features that are either new or will be new to many of those who haven’t played Shovel Knight since it first came out. The base game (Shovel of Hope) has co-op now, for example, made even better by the Switch’s multiplayer-friendly Joy-Con controllers (although it’s overall better with the more precise Switch Pro Controller and its actual D-pad) and the system’s general portability. There are amiibo features too – you can personalize a custom knight and easily bring it to a friend’s system for co-op, or if you have a custom knight saved from a previous Nintendo platform you can import it with a tap. New to this iteration is the Fairy of Shovelry, a small sprite amiibo owners can summon to zip around the screen while you play. The fairy isn’t useful, as it mimes picking up treasure and fighting enemies without having any actual effect. But it is cute.Treasure Trove also has the new “body swap” feature, which lets you fiddle with the gender and identifying pronouns (he/she etc.) for every main character. Making all the knights female and the Enchantress male – turning her into the Enchanter – is a nice way to make Shovel Knight feel fresh again, and you can tune the story to your liking. Unfortunately, body swap is currently only available in the original game, Shovel of Hope, though it’s reasonable to hope the developers might add it to the expansions in a future update.Even so, Specter Knight marks a big improvement over Plague Knight’s arsenal in Plague of Shadows. Although it’s rewarding to tinker with Plague’s bombs to try to make the perfect tool for each new situation, controlling the alchemist through double-jumps and explosion bursts feels awkward and imprecise. In comparison, Specter Knight feels totally fluid and skill-based, bringing to mind old Castlevania classics.If playing as Plague Knight sometimes feels like hard mode due to the strangeness of that character’s movements, Specter Knight’s devastating attacks can make playing as him feel like cheating. It was in danger of feeling too easy until the later levels, which really ramped up the challenge to compensate.One of the best surprises in Specter of Torment is that unlike in Plague of Shadows, which reused the same levels from the original Shovel Knight, the new expansion features almost a dozen completely redesigned or brand-new stages. Each takes advantage of Specter Knight’s versatile movement style and unique abilities in fun ways, including regular sections that require you to scythe-swipe between targets while barely ever touching the ground.Shovel Knight has always had a surprisingly deep and well-written story for a game in this old-school, pixelated tradition, and Specter of Torment takes it to new depths as Specter struggles to convince the other knights to join his cause – and faces off with each of them in turn. And like the new stages, each boss has been redesigned to better face off with Specter. Black Knight, for example, rides into battle on a spiked turtle/rhino thing named Terrorpin, and that’s just the first boss fight in the expansion.Each new ally joins the Order for a feast back in the hub area, and you can check in with them for funny dialogue and character moments in between missions. There are even flashback scenes that flesh out the ghostly Specter Knight’s backstory, showing his motivations are more complex than Plague Knight’s “more power!” and even Shovel Knight’s “save your friend!”Specter Knight’s motivation for spending hours trying to defeat Horace’s tower climb challenge, on the other hand, remains a mystery – unless you count my own obsession.