I’ve made a handful of posts containing brief thoughts on Shovel Knight. They all essentially say that it’s been added to my short list of Favourite Games Ever. There’s a ton of reasons to love Shovel Knight, but only one exists within the realm of e-commerce: the Shovel Knight Original Soundtrack.
Composed mainly by the exceptionally talented Jake Kaufman (maybe you know him as virt), with a handful of tracks contributed by the legendary Manami Matsumae, the Shovel Knight soundtrack is a thing of rare glory. It’s 48 tracks of nostalgic beauty, perfectly capturing the essence of the best NES soundtracks. Honestly, I’d say that it easily rivals the Mega Man 2 soundtrack, and that’s a pretty bold claim. I won’t say that every track is pure gold, but almost all of them are.
“Strike the Earth” is far and away the best track on the album, and both of the Black Knight battle themes are kickin’. The main stage themes are all really nice, and certainly add an extra dose of personality to their stages. One of the touches that I really love is that The Order Of No Quarter themes are all amped-up arrangements of the a stage themes. Nothing else really stands out to me, but it’s all good listening no less.
If I had to detract points anywhere, I suppose it’s a little silly that they included all three variations of the village theme as separate three-minute tracks. And one after another, even. They’re not really that different from each other, and they certainly didn’t all need to be so long. Ah well, it’s a minor thing, but still pretty odd.
If just the OST isn’t enough to slake your thirst for Shovel Knight tuneage, there’s also an arrangement album available, called Strike The Earth!, which includes 18 remixed tracks by a bunch of artists I’ve mostly never heard of. Most likely they’re arrangement artists from sites OCRemix and whatnot. Also, I guess some are songs that virt made specifically for trailers.
I bought the OST on the day that it was released, but held off on Strike The Earth! for a month or so. That was a mistake, as the remix album is just as good. I don’t want to say better, but it really cuts down on the cruft and keeps all of the excellence. There’s a particularly wonderful remix of the Iron Whale stage theme on there, which was one of my favourite tracks to begin with, so that’s a nice bonus. And of course, the remixes of the Black Knight’s battle theme and “Strike the Earth” are amazing. My absolute favourite of the bunch though, is “No Sense Running,” a dubstep remix of the Lost City stage theme with some vocal flourishes. Normally I don’t even like dubstep, so take that as you will.
Both the OST and Strike the Earth! are available on Jake Kaufman’s Bandcamp page, so I highly suggest that you click over there right away and get busy buying these. Have I mentioned that they’re really good? Because they are. And you can pay as much or as little as you want for them, so there’s really no reason not to get them. If you have any interest in NES-styled video game music, this is pretty much the cream of the crop. Help support an awesome game with an awesome soundtrack and buy at least the OST. Shovel Knight is exactly the kind of video game that I want to be playing, and I’m damn well going to spread the word where I can.