Shady Knight

This game is extraordinarily satisfying, I love replaying every level for perfect SSS ranks. It gives you tools and lets you go ham crafting your own perfect runs. I would highly recommend this game to anyone that has adhd or ocd or just enjoys searching every nook and cranny in other games as perfecting the combat in this scratches that exact same itch.

I am so happy this has lived up to the hype. The demo had me hooked and the full game didn't disappoint.

One of the best games of 2024. Can’t remember when I had so much fun playing a game. I’m 43 years old and this game makes me feel like a kid again.

Whats if instead of Shady Knight... Twas Freaky Knight... And instead of killing the Armless Knight, they just kissed? And I mean tongue DEEP kissing! Just saying, I think it would be better that way.....

probably the most polished and mechanically in depth action game ive ever played. very very very very very fun

This game has far more potential than it currently has. A bunch of mechanics appear once and then never again. However, I do like how the game is constantly introducing new enemies, 1 per world (technically 2).

The secret ending is a bit weird. After beating the main game you have to go back and search a bunch of levels for skulls, which I find kinda boring. Then the game drops the combat part to focus on parkour, which is fine, the game might not be playing to its strengths but it's fine. Then after you have done that, you have to kill 100 enemies in a small arena that is completely flat. First, you have to take things slow in a normal fast-paced game, then you have to focus on parkour in an FPS, and then you have simply fight without any spice.

I loved this game! i thought the combat was very fluid and fast-paced. It felt good to figure out how each part of my movement could be used in combat. I was sometimes lost in the nexus, but that's probably my own fault. I did enjoy traversing the nexus, especially the last one since i felt so fast. i wish there was more content and lore, so i'm hoping for some more updates in the future!

Fantastic Game, Love the replay ability, Do wish there was more content and I did'n't really follow the story but that could be my bad

The game play is great, it is so unique and the vibe of the world it takes place in is underrated. However this game is practically unplayable for me. The main issue is that the game will eventually lag for an entire level during this lag the game is playing at 60% speed which is very annoying, a side effect of the lag is that it makes me unable to pause the game and pull up the menu every time. I play it I have to force quit the game and pray it saves my progress.

In short the game play is good but the lag spikes suck and can stop you from pausing the game.

I played through the entire of this game and i listened to pizza tower when i was playing the final boss and it hitted hard than TRUCKS that always hit the main anime charcters. This is one of the best fast paced first persons ever in my life. The story is good the gameplay is good the enemies are good. THEY GOT ME THROWING A SWORD AT THE GROUND AND THEN KICKING IT STRAIGHT INTO SOMEONES FACE. If i would rate this something it would be a 15/10, epik game. PLEASE ADD MORE

This game has a lot of mechanical depth, from the parkour to the combat, if you like beating your head against a wall on a quest to get SSS rank on every level this is the game for you.

This game has one of the best combat systems that I've ever experienced, but the later levels are incredibly difficult for me to enjoy. The shield types are interesting in theory, but end up just feeling like they force you to use the same repetitive strategies every time they show up. In terms of the new enemies, the Lancers can feel too aggressive at times but are relatively easy to stunlock. However, the Heavies killed my enjoyment of the game. It feels like they have no counterplay beyond just spamming whatever moves work, due to their unreasonably high health, area denial attacks, and high mobility. I might still recommend this game if its on sale since the first few sets of levels and general combat are incredible, but the later levels felt so painful to complete that I cannot leave a positive review.

Pretty good, has a lot of good technical combat and moves while keeping a fair difficulty overall (unless you are trying to get the highest ranking on all levels, then get ready to do some retries).

I know I'll be in the minority for this but that's OK. I don't even necessarily think it's a bad game, but I don't know how fun it is after the first hour. It keeps giving you new ways to interact with combat and movement which are fun for quite a while, but then it does what I hate SO MANY OF THESE "arcadey" games do - it starts to REMOVE options from you, in an especially annoying way.

They give you new tools and then introduce enemies that are immune to those tools. So, you have to do X specific thing vs Y enemy. And then THAT tool is immuned by another enemy - so you do Z thing vs. Q enemy. And then that KEEPS HAPPENING, so every fight is just you remembering what move works on which enemies and doing those. It completely removes the expression from the fights, it makes them more like annoying clunky puzzles.

Compounded by the fact that the rooms just start to spam enemies at you, where you are getting attacked from legitimately every side plus from above, and you are having to look to see which enemies have the green shield and which have which weapons and where the exploding suicide enemies are and of course if you hit the wrong enemy with one of those attacks it does basically nothing and also opens you up to attack from one of the other 14 enemies you can't see while trying to hit this other one.

It's one of those games that's probably more fun if it's the only game you play for months on end, but I don't think it's interesting enough to justify that for 99.9% of players. Speed runners will probably have a time with it.

I don't know how much of the "game" I have left, I think I'm 3/4 of the way through, but it just isn't fun to play. You HAVE to do things a certain way now which just, IMO, goes against the appeal of the game. This is a pretty common problem in games like this - they just feel the need to escalate and constantly force players to do things rather than letting the players have fun.

I Am Your Beast does a similar thing to Shady Knight but in a much better way - there are very few forced counters so even though IAYB has a simpler toolset, it feels far more diverse since you are encouraged to use it 100% of the time. The final level there is basically a giant playground letting you celebrate everything you can do for like 5 minutes straight, whereas I expect Shady Knight's final level will be a glorified quick-time-event at the rate it's restricting you.

Annoying because enemies can jump back onto the platform after you have hit them off and certain enemies can only be killed by hitting them in the back or setting your arrows on fire.

If I could put this in the middle I absolutely would. The game is solid, but there are lots of issues that make it not worth the 20 dollar price tag. The physics seem off, almost like all enemies are in low gravity as soon as you hit them with the chain (not talking about the actual gravity affecting moves). They always go upwards, even if hitting them with a chain from below. The level design tends to feel pretty repetitive, especially at the beginning. I really dislike the game's approach to difficulty, being absolutely mobbing you with enemies. ESPECIALLY ARCHERS!!! They ruin the flow of the game so much. You try to hit a trickshot or a cool move (half the fun of the game), and suddenly get railed from behind by 32 arrows. AND THEN THEY START TELEPORTING?!? They are very annoying and difficult to kill, making almost all combat with them and other enemies even more annoying. I wish this game would add a danger indicator, as when I am actually somewhat immersed in the combat i just get jumped by 5 spiders outside my pov. Would also help for the archers. Furthermore, the focus mechanic makes 0 sense to me. While I understand the idea of getting some downtime after getting hit, most of the time it feels incredibly jarring and annoying. Also, being able to use it whenever truly makes the game worse. You can half the difficulty of the game by keeping it on focus mode all the time, but it feels clunky and almost like you are cheating. The parkour mechanics are alright, but I really hate the feeling of grinding for 100 attempts to get a high score in combat then falling and having that score demolished. I dislike the fact that getting hit even a little at S drops you to a B, i think there should be at least some grace. The combat system can feel very very clunky when you have to hit them from the back and there are a lot of enemies. Overall, the game is incredibly clunky and not at all like the smooth combat system I expected.
The game has it's moments where it feels fun, but 20 dollars for this game is crazy. Just buy terraria or something.

one of the best combat sandboxes ive ever played

(i spent like 12 hours in the demo)

buy and play :)

What an amazing game. It is short but sweet, only took me around 5 hours to beat it. But my god I see how you could easily get 30+ hours speedrunning levels and unlocking hidden levels. The combat is very fun, and allows you to do crazy things, which I love. When you are doing good, it looks like you are in a DMC game. Its amazing, The only con in my opinion is a somewhat lackluster final boss, but it is such a good game even that doesn't really matter. Play. This. Game.

This game is fun on the surface but there are several imprecisions and inconsistencies in the scenarios presented that I did not find myself wanting to see it through

Fantastic stylish action/platformer that's made for people who love movement games and fast paced melee combat. The game is made up of a bunch of short stand-alone levels that are designed to be replayed over and over until you can perfect them. You're ranked on style based on you utilizing a variety of movement techniques, environmental kills and a bunch of different combat techniques across multiple weapon types. Every couple levels the game introduces a mechanic you may not have discovered yet to add to your arsenal or a new enemy type to fight.

I'd recommend this if:
-You played Neon White and couldn't move on to the next level without getting the red medal.
-You sweat your ass off trying to P-Rank every level in Ultrakill
-The idea of Dark Messiah: Of Might and Magic's melee combat in a wild movement game appeals to you.

I don't recommend this if you just intend to beat each level once and not replay them. The game will feel exceptionally short if you aren't the type to replay levels to improve your score.

P.S. You can parry gravity

Started pretty okay... got insanely good... then became extremely annoying.

I'm done with it.

BUT I recommend it for those of you who care to absolutely MASTER movement, combo potential, platforming, and speed, then this game is for you!

If you're a more casual player... I can't say for sure. I got my enjoyment and then stopped bothering. The levels, environments and enemies all look basically the same, so it got pretty repetitive, even if the core combat had gotten better after discovering some moves.

Quite a decent game overall, just not for me anymore.

spiderman with a sword!

Feels amazing, and the learning curve is well done.

I look forward to a multiplayer version...

My only gripe was that it was hard for me to come back to this game after a few week off, because I didn't remember how to grab onto chains and I was stuck in one of the hubs where it assumed you already knew how. Eventually I figured it out, but it would be nice if all the different moves were listed out somewhere. Gameplay > Controls only has the basics.

waste of money even when that game is so much fun i am on a starting map where i cant even do anything to move forward and only thing i can do now is doing everything again and again and nothing else

really fun game where you can seamlessly blend combat and parkour together, and it gives alot of freedom to what kind of actions you can do, you can get creative with you on how you want to absolutely decimate you opponent with synergies, and this game often makes me feel like those webtoon characters, jumping from enemy to enemy, sending them crashing down to the floor, but I will say this game is very chaotic and you have to pay attention to you surroundings, if not you will be punished for it, overall would recommend this game if you like fast paced melee and play games similar to ULTRAKILL,

Good game, good music, good mechanics, good level design, good story, good weapons, good learning curve, about 4 hours of playtime, what else can you ask for?

horribly clunky feeling in both combat and movement, ill come back to it later probably but yea not ver fun -w-

This game? Absolutely incredible. Plenty to offer, even after you've beaten it. Gameplay is immaculate, a perfect blend of combat and parkour. Every level is a thrill, requiring skill and knowledge of the game and it's mechanics to be able to slice, stab, throw, grapple and kick your way to victory. This game is built for many different playstyles, anything from speedrunning to high scores to achievement hunting, it's all there. The Shady Knight community is one of the best I've seen from any indie game, and you can tell that the single dev, cptnsigh, has poured their heart and soul into this game, while caring about their community that they've built up. With every new feature comes even more excitement, and I cannot recommend this game enough.

If you choose to play this game, I wish you the best of luck, Knight.

A glorious blast! A very mechanically tight and wonderfully depth ridden game that is a joy to play through!

this game achieves great movement flow and feel without having it be excesive, and that's a hard feat achieve with fast-paced games nowadays. the mechanics are relatively simplistic but allow for a lot of variation, and the levels are small but they feel very well structured and designed.

This is the true "Hotline Miami in 3D". That's reductive, of course, but I think it communicates the appeal of the game pretty well.

Shady Knight is an amazing game that might seem somewhat uninteresting at first glance, and there’s a significant learning curve when you start. However, the combat and movement are very well designed, offering tons of ways to use each weapon and even every object lying around. Essentially, your goal isn’t just to defeat all the enemies or finish levels as quickly as possible—it’s to style on your enemies as hard as possible by chaining together as many creative moves as you can. For example, throwing your sword on the ground, kicking the bouncing sword into an enemy which launches them into the air, then grappling them for a dropkick, then after picking up your sword again finishing them off with a sword throw while they are still airborne is just absolutely awesome.

That said, I think some of the enemies in the later levels feel a bit excessive, with ranged attacks, AOE attacks, stun resistance, and even teleportation all combined. I get that it’s hard to keep enemies feeling threatening as the player’s skill increases, but it can feel like overkill. Another issue is that the game feels more niche than it needs to be. If you’re not focused on achieving high ranks or styling on enemies and just want to complete the levels, the game is pretty uninteresting.

I feel this game has untapped potential, especially with its great movement system. A speedrun mode, where you need to kill all enemies but they all die in one hit, only time matters, could add a new layer of excitement—almost like a melee version of Neon White. In any case, Shady Knight is a fantastic game, and I really hope it gains more attention because it’s seriously fun and deserves it.

My new favourite game. 
Has the best movement and playstyle of any games I've ever played thus far.
Also, Jesus Christ, the art direction and soundtracks are also freaking incredible.

Didn't expect the game to be this difficult, though, but it's exactly what I wanted.

Ultrakill if it was based entirely around melee combat.

The premise is hilarious: you're some sort of parkour knight, and that's totally normal because so are all your friends. You fight other parkour knights in limbo. That's why levels are so abstract. There's a tight physics engine and everything you do in traversal and combat can change in response to split second differences in your aim and timing. That's how you know it's good! For a pretty linear game, player expression is off the charts, and the better you get, the more you enjoy it.
Runs on any potato, while looking like that, too.

Addictive indie game with true freedom in combat. There are only three weapons in the game, but the possibilities of using them completely make up for such a small arsenal. Every object on the map can be used as a weapon, be it traps in the form of spikes randomly placed on the map, or objects that you can simply throw at the enemy. The parkour mechanics in the game are many times more demanding than the combat itself (unless the player is chasing the best rating on each map), but at the same time everything works smoothly and with amazing optimization of the game. I didn't run into a single bug while playing. If you enjoyed games like Cluster Truck or Super Hot, this will be the game for you. For me, the best indie thing for 2024, I can only recommend it.

literally a masterpiece. loved every second of this and the combat is so ultrakilly in the best way.

So far a fun, quick paced action platformer. Although I do hate the tiny spiders adding more retries to the no-hit runs.

Shady Knight is a difficult, hack-and-slash, fps-platformer that has some of the best movement on a character I've used in years!

The game's artstyle looks awesome, the weapons feel so good to use, (I'll be it, a little button-mashy) and the enemies are really fun to style on as you pogo off their heads with spears, drop from hundreds of feet in the air right on their face with a sword, or captain-america's-shield them and ping-pong it back and forth through a crowd of enemies. And the movement is CARRIED by my favorite thing in the entire game,

The weapon dash!!!

You can throw your weapon at a wall, let it bounce off, and then dash right to it, leaving enemies in the dust, and you with an insane height advantage!

Everything combos perfectly into one another, but unfortunately, this game is not without its flaws...

And now I talk about the level design.
It kinda sucks ass. There are some REALLY cool ideas here, like, you can use your grappling hook to make this big, bow-turret looking thing shoot an arrow at your feet that knocks you in the air, but the unfortunate thing is, in later levels they kinda don't tell you how to use them in the way the game wants.

Same goes for a lot of obstacles in late game.

There were saw-beyblade-things that were just annoying to deal with, teleporters that don't work very well in terms of intuitive level design, and all in all I would just call all the level design really bad. (late game, at least)

If your here for a compelling story, your not gonna get it, if your here for an awesome soundtrack, your not gonna get it, and if your here for level design as good as ULTRAKILL, you're definitely NOT getting that.

But if you can ignore that stuff, and you love satisfying combat, animation, and movement, this is for sure the game for you.

VERY smooth gameplay, i literally cannot put this game down, heavily recommend. Shields do need a content update though, they are a bit lacklustre compared to the other 3 weapons.

This game is awesome, the combination of sliding around, throwing swords and chucking chains at enemies makes me feel like a angel of death on ice skates. if you're at all a fan of movement shooters then I would highly recommend this game. While at first I did find the lack of hand holding a little annoying at first, I soon realised how rewarding it was to just, figure sh*t out myself. I hope this game wins a steam award this year as its game play is phenomenally well polished.

This game is awsome, so much replaybility, and actually requires good skill to master levels and get S+++

This is one of the best games EVER! I fully recomend this game to anyone who likes fast games like ultrakill! 11/10 Please get! Great job cptnsigh. Great job.

I keep coming back to this, giving it second and third chances but my opinion still remains the same. I don't like the movement. In video, this looked amazing. But when I actually play, it's not smooth enough to transition from running, platforming, attacking, dodging, and sliding. The platforming just doesn't feel good. Climbing up chains or rings seems more cumbersome than fun. There are the bones for an excellent first person melee parkour game. This could have been the melee Superhot. But the combat feels clunky and too simple, the enemies are not interesting to fight, and the repetitive environments and level design didn't motivate me to keep going other than for completion purposes.

This game is well-made but the level-design is a huge of the game.
The single music is repetitve too.

really fun and smooth movement great game

Now, this game is well made, but there are SEVERAL things that make it a bad game. It can both be a well made game and not fleshed out enough to make it good.

That being said, you can predict absolutely nothing. No matter how hard you try, even if you're around a corner, hitting a spider, in the parkour, there are at least two dozen things that can just go wrong and make it unbearable to play.

Tangent wall kicks are satisfying, make them easier to hit.
Regular kicks are inconsistent
I've put 8 hours in this game and still don't fully understand how to parry or get rid of the green shield from enemies.
The big guys prefire you landing on a platform and have spawn damage??
There is 0 leeway to the grappling hook on grapple points
Randomly discovered fall damage
The grab-a-weapon bound to L shift sometimes throws you off the map if you're not careful
All the maps look the same and have little to no variability
For some reason enemies have active hitboxes during their jump attack
Sometimes mantling doesn't work
It's impossible to keep up with TWO disappearing enemies and multiple of them at that
For the big strong guys that have shield breaking attacks, their melee comes out WAYY too fast

This could all be a skill issue, but I paid 20 dollars for this game like everyone else, and the inconsistency in all of its parkour and combat feels like it should be 12 at the absolute most.

All the comparisons to Ultrakill aren't warranted. While this is a similar game in level, format, weapons, movement etc, it feels nothing alike due to the complete lack of consistency and synergy.

This game is absolutely awesome. i love the creative freedom it gives you with your environment, making everything have some sort of special interaction. anything you can think of to do with the tools you're given is possible.

i loved this game's demo, but now i dont like this game that much, since a lot changed. new blessed ones version made me rage a lot. AND I PLAY ULTRAKILL, SO UH, yeah (still good tho.)

This game doesn't make you feel like a badass, you become one.

"Beating" the game is very easy, however the style system means you get the opportunity to try out a more interesting and varied combat gameplay. The many actions and style points to work with really push what you can do in a moment to moment basis, making even Doom Eternal feel restrictive.

If you want to make it cool, the game is sure to put up a challenge for you!

That was a game I was eagerly awaiting ever since I tried out the demo long ago, the way it plays is just too captivating.

Smoothest movement in gaming history. Everything you can imagine you can (probably!) do. Super high skill ceiling that allows you to fine tune your moves. Interesting level layout, enemy design and a banger track.