Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon

A dungeon in your pocket! Such is the promise of Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon, and now that Pocket Dungeon is available on mobile the name rings truer than ever. More importantly, though, is that despite being a spin-off of a popular franchise, it’s strong enough to stand on its own – at least for a while.

At its core, beneath all the Shovel Knight trappings, Pocket Dungeon is a puzzle game – one part match-three game, one part Crypt of the NecroDancer. Enemies rain down from the top of the screen, and you attack them by moving around the grid and bumping into them. If two or more foes of the same type sit adjacent to each other, attacking one of them hurts them all, which lets you make combos and clear the board more quickly.

Chain combos also help you earn more gems, which in turn let you buy upgrades. Upgrades are important, because in the later levels a good loadout can turn the tide in your favor. Speed is also of the essence. While there is no direct penalty for playing slowly, playing quickly keeps your combo meter high and ensures a steady stream of gems continues to line your pockets.

Boss battles change up the formula slightly. Instead of dashing around and keeping the board from filling up, you go mano a mano with the boss, dodging attacks and getting hits in where you can. Shovel Knight veterans will be pleased to find that all of their favorite knights are back and can even be recruited as playable characters. Each one has unique attributes that lend themselves to different playstyles.

Aesthetically, Pocket Dungeon absolutely lives up to the Shovel Knight legacy. The graphics are charmingly pixelated and the soundtrack, created by longtime series composer Jake Kaufmann, is a mix of energetic remixes and new tunes. Between the graphics, sound, and overall charm, Pocket Knight is clearly a labor of love – a thoughtfully constructed package that feels like a proper extension of the Shovelverse.

But enough about the window dressing. How does Pocket Dungeon feel to play? The answer isn’t so cut and dried. While the basic gameplay is solid, and sure to please puzzle game fans, there are issues relating to pacing and difficulty that I couldn’t overlook. The crux of the problem lies in Pocket Dungeon’s two modes: Adventure Mode and Roguelike Mode. Simply put, the former is too easy while the latter is too hard.

Being the “hardcore” gamer than I am, I started in Roguelike Mode, in which your run ends when you’re out of hearts. I had fun with this mode for a few hours, even making it deep into the game on several occasions. But Roguelike Mode is brutal, and eventually I got fed up with replaying the early stages over and over again. I put the game down for a few weeks, and if Roguelike Mode was the only option I probably would’ve called it quits permanently.

Eventually, however, I swallowed my pride and switched to Adventure Mode. This mode allows for unlimited deaths – the game only ends if the board fills completely. While this doesn’t let you off the hook completely – there’s a timeout period when you die and the board continues to fill while a revival counter ticks down – it’s an absolute cakewalk compared to Roguelike Mode. After 200+ failed Roguelike runs, it took me less than 5 attempts to beat the game in Adventure Mode.

And therein lies the rub. Neither mode nails the difficulty curve, resulting in a game that’s either punishingly hard or trivially easy. To be fair, Pocket Dungeon does offer extensive settings for customizing the difficulty, but I suspect there will be balance issues no matter how much one tweaks the sliders. Changing the number of lives of the enemy spawn speed isn’t gonna make me excited to run through the first stage with the same three enemy types again. After so many runs it simply feels stale.

Don’t get me, wrong, though. There’s still fun to be had here. I played nearly 20 hours and I enjoyed most of that time. The basic gameplay is fast and fun, and even if I’d paid full price for the game I would’ve gotten my money’s worth.

One more note in closing: This is probably the best mobile port I’ve ever played. The game runs in both landscape and portrait modes, and it works flawlessly with my Razor Kishi. You can play a quick round in portrait mode on the bus, or attach a controller for longer sessions. The UI even added the correct button prompts for my controller! It’s a nice contrast from most controller-enabled games, which often make me feel like I’ve bolted a weird accessory onto my phone. Pocket Dungeon offers a seamless, dare I say Switch-like, experience by comparison. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, don’t miss it.