Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 13 [Final]

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 12

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 11

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight part 10

Shovel Knight Part 9

Shovel Knight Part 8

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 7

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 6

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 5

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 4

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 3

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 2

Tau and Friends Play Shovel Knight Part 1

Tau's Top 5 Games of 2014

God damn!  It's finally 2015 and I think we have an exciting year ahead for us.  It's been really hard to put out any content recently since New Year is an extremely busy time.  However, I should have a significant increase to my free time in the 2015 so now is a good time to get started on producing all sorts of stuff! 

So let's kick things off with my top 5 games of 2014!  To clarify, I'm only picking off games featured on the list on the right hand side of the page.  There were a ton of great games this year and I'm aware that there are a lot of fantastic titles I didn't get to play due to restraints of time and money so don't freak out if YOUR favorite game isn't on the list.

5) Transistor

Made by the same dudes who gave us Bastion, Transistor was one of those games I had a lot of excitement for prior to release.  While I felt it wasn't quite as good as Bastion, Transistor was fun, stylish and rather challenging if you wanted it to be.

The gameplay was smooth, the music was awesome and it was just about the right length.  I had a few issues with it and the story didn't really pull me in all that well but I had a damn good time fighting the Process through Cloudbank.

4) Dark Souls 2

I loved Dark Souls 2, it was fucking fantastic.  It only comes in at number 4 since I didn't feel it was QUITE as good as Dark Souls for various reasons but it had me hooked really hard from start to finish nonetheless.

While Dark Souls 2 was extremely fun some of the changes made to the game play stripped away part of the challenge that I loved so much which soured me to it a little.  Also the world and over arching plot didn't feel as epic to me as the first game did.  That could be just me but I felt that DS1 had a lot more character than the sequel.

However, these are only little problems that I have and don't ruin the fun of a generally superb game.

3)  Hatsune Miku Project Diva F2nd

Yeah yeah, roll your eyes and call me a weaboo or whatever but I don't give a fuck because this game is AWESOME!  A great rhythm game with a really good selection of great Hatsune Miku (and others) songs.

If you aren't into poppy Japanese music then maybe this game isn't for you but if you don't mind it then there's a really fun game here.  It was also made considerably harder than the 1st one but I really enjoyed the fact that I'm not just breezing through all the songs on extreme like I did before.

It's the kind of game that I keep coming back to.  If I have a spare few minutes to kill I can just load it up and play a song or two then put it down again.  Would recommend for any Vita owner.

2) Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight was so fucking cool, it took ideas from a bunch of different games and just smashed them together and the result is magical.  There's not really all that much to say about Shovel Knight other than it's fucking good and you should go play it.  Fun, challenging, looks great and has a awesome soundtrack, it's the kind of game that everyone should at least try.

1)  South Park: The Stick of Truth

So here it is, my game of 2014.  While it was simplistic in its RPG elements, it made up for with it's character and humor.  The game is really fun to play and it's not just a weak excuse to re-run old South Park jokes for 8 to 10 hours.

While there are plenty of little nods to the show and its long history, Stick of Truth has so much to offer on its own.  I've not genuinely been this tickled by a video game in a long LOOONG time and some moments in the game had me hitting the pause button.

Even if you aren't familiar with South Park I still think you could get a lot out of it.  It's a really fun game with a ton of shit to do and if you go for 100% you'll be at it for a pretty fair amount of time.

I got it during a Steam sale but it's one of the only games I've experienced in a long time worthy of it's full asking price.

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So that's my top 5 for the year.  There's a lot of games that I didn't get round to playing that may have made the list like This War of Mine and Grimrock 2 but I'm gonna be catching up with them pretty soon.

So while you're waiting for the 2015 releases to get going, go play these 5 games, you'll be more than entertained.

Shovel Knight

I know that as this game was being made there were quite a few people who were really excited for its release.  I, on the other hand, tend not to follow game release after their initial announcement and I'm glad I didn't because Shovel Knight was one of the best surprises I've had all year.

Shovel Knight is a retro-esque 2D side scrolling platformer about the titular character trying to rid the world of evil and unravel the mystery of his companion Shield Knight.  Over the course of his journey he must do battle with a bunch of other knights, some wandering travelers and eventually an evil sorceress who has laid claim to the lands.  To be brutally honest the story is very much in the back seat position for this game but it's mildly entertaining and worth reading it's few cut scenes just for that little bit of extra enjoyment.

The game play is where this game really shines with it's mix of Mario 3, Megaman and Castlevania.  It takes the map thing from Mario 3 and uses all the same things such as spawning baddies that give gold and items as well as extra little challenge stages for the players that want to push their skills the extra mile.  It takes an item system that's SORT OF Zelda-ish but more like Castlevania.  You can equip items such as an arching anchor and a talisman that gives limited invincibility at the cost of mana points in the same way you use items with hearts in Castlevania.  Finally, the game is kind of presented like an old school Megaman game in it's level design and in the sense that every area comes with 3 bosses that you can pick in any order.

The absolute best thing about this game is it's level design.  Every level is challenging but without being bullshit hard.  Every time I died it felt like it was MY fault rather than the fault of some stupid bullshit making me fall down a pit or get crushed whatever.  If you do die there is a Dark Souls-ish system where you drop some of your gold and if you can make it back to where you died then you can reclaim your lost cash.  Later on in the game you get knocked back enough to the point where it feels like there's a decent punishment for death but without being overly harsh on the player.

It's this last part of the post where I'd usually say something bad about Shovel Knight but to be brutally honest with you I can't think of anything bad to say about it right now.  It's not a 100%, 10/10 perfect game but it's so damn good that any of it's flaws are so minor that you'll be having too much fun to notice.

So if you own any of the systems that Shovel Knight is on, go and buy it.  I'm fucking serious, buy the shit out of it because games with this much quality deserve to be supported.  It's not very often that a game is so good that I'm lost for words when it comes to criticism so take that as an indication of how much you should buy the damn thing.