Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a tribute to eight-bit platformers that arrived on Xbox One in 2015 and still stands as a textbook example of how retro inspiration should be done. You play as a knight whose weapon and mode of transport alike is a shovel: you slash enemies with it, dig treasures out of walls, and bounce off enemies' heads and springy objects with a downward pogo strike. The world map with nodes and level ordering clearly nods to the classics, as does the octet of bosses called the Order of No Quarter, each ruling their own themed castle. Alongside the shovel, you collect relics that function as secondary weapons, and you invest money into armor upgrades that change your playstyle.

On Xbox One the game looks like a title from the NES era, but with modern comforts: smooth scrolling, widescreen visuals, and completely reliable controls that never let the blame fall on the player. Level design is thoroughly crafted — each section introduces one new idea, plays it out, and before it can grow stale, a boss fight arrives. Difficulty is high but fair; checkpoints can even be smashed for money, an elegant optional way to make the game harder for yourself. The chiptune soundtrack ranks among the best created in this style over the past decade, and some of the castle-level melodies stick in your head long after finishing the game.

Shovel Knight emerged from crowdfunding and became one of the most-cited proofs that this model can deliver a full-fledged game. Reviews praised the precise controls and how the game reinvents old principles instead of merely copying them. Yacht Club also released a series of expansions in which you play as the individual bosses with distinct movesets, turning the original campaign into a multi-part package. Today Shovel Knight holds up just as well as on its release day, because its graphics can't age and its gameplay rests on timeless foundations. For any Xbox One platformer collection, it's a must-have.