The story of Shovel Knight is simple, Shield Knight, your companion, was lost while fighting in the Tower of Fate. And form there, you must conquer a couple of bosses to regain access to the tower to fight their leader, The Enchantress. You also have optional sidequests and missions to earn more money. You can also find two Towns, one will upgrade your Life and Magic and the other will grant you more Armor Options and other Abilities. These are completely optional.

There are a bunch of bosses, these can range from incredibly easy to hardest. This is my list ranging from easy-hard.
- Black Knight (First Encounter) is basically the tutorial boss. His patterns are easy to remember and he doesn’t move much.
- King Knight is a bit tougher, as he jumps around a lot, but then he can stay still for a lot of time, what che out for his confetti attack.
- Treasure Knight. Like King Knight, he has stages where he is moving around a lot, but then he stays still. The treasure chest can prove to be a challenge.
- Mole Knight is next. He moves around a bunch and can sneak behind the player. Most of the time you don’t know where he is going. But you can still hit him when visible.
- Specter Knight can prove to be a worthy opponent, as he can teleport and hit you with his mostly unavoidable scythe. After a lot of damage, he will turn the screen black and it will be hard to see him.
- Plague Knight jumps, a lot. He also throws a lot of fast potions and can multiply himself, he can also spawn Vats that will explode upon contact with any potion.
- Propeller Knight will try to stay in the air most of the fight and try to hit you from the air, but he will eventually come down.
- Black Knight (Second Encounter) will be stronger this time, with the ability to fly he will be tough to take down.
- Tinker Knight has to two fases, the first is incredibly easy, the second however, not. He starts throwing projectiles at you and his head is incredibly hard to reach.
- The last boss is Polar Knight. He will throw snowballs at you and after taking some hits he will turn the ground to spikes and if you touch the it will instantly kill you.

The Enchantress boss fight deserves it own paragraph. At first you will be fighting her while she throws projectiles, then she will start getting rid of the ground and place fiery blocks. She will later start flying in all directions and after defeating her, and finding out she was Shield Knight all this time, she turns a lot bigger. You must use Shield Knight to propel yourself to her head and hit her a few times. She will start breaking the ground so beware.

In terms of items, there are a few that are useful in your quest.
- The Alchemy Coin is one of the less useful Relics, as the only thing it does is clear all the enemies on a straight line, if the line ends, so does the Coin.
- The Chaos Sphere is a projectile that will bounce all around the stage until it hits a target
- The Dust Knuckles will propel you a little forward and will destroy any dirt blocks that are in front of you
- The Fishing Rod will let you fish in the pit, and will eventually grab a fish, which you can eat to restore health. If the pit is shiny, then you might catch a Golden tuna, which will give you around 300 gold.
- The Flare Wand will shoot fire in front of you, which will deal damage to the enemies.
- The Mobile gear will let you stand on it to move you forward, even in spikes. Very useful
- The Phase Locket is the most useful item in the game, as it gives you invincibility for a couple of seconds, so you can briefly avoid damage and even walk on spikes.
- The Propeller Dagger will propel you forward for a short period of time, so it can be useful for avoiding some platforming sections.
- The Throwing Anchor will throw an anchor that will damage enemies above or below you.
- The War Horn is the last one and will consume a lot of magic for a space where all the enemies are killed.

In terms of collectibles, there are the music notes that are scattered all over the levels and can be given to Bard in the first town for exchange of 500 gold. You can also find the Hall of Champions which is an optional level that is filled with ghosts that can only be killed with special orbs, this level also includes an easy boss. In terms of Armor, there are a few, but the best one, in my opinion, is the Dynamo Mail, which will charge your special attack if you do two consecutive shovel drops.

This is it for this guide, I hope you have learned something about the game and I encourage you to buy it if you don't have already, I made a review on it in my Curator page and My Steam profile which I will link here. Thanks!

Steam Profile: https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/profiles/76561198936040387
Curator Page: https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/curator/36584702/

UPDATE:
I would also like to add the Kratos Armor and the Battle Toads Armor to this list.

The Kratos Armor (which can only be obtained on the PS4 version of the game) is an Armor which drastically changes the play style of Shovel Knight. To get it, you must go the the Hall of Heroes. In there you must pogo jump in the corner of the secret room to reveal another secret room. In there, you will revive a note which will trigger a random encounter. I won’t spoil too much and will only tell you that is a 2 part boss fight.

To receive the Battle Toads Armor (which is only available in the Xbox one and windows 10 ports of the game) you must do the same thing with like you would do with the Kratos Armor, instead this time you will receive a Battle Toads note which will unlock a new area. Again, I won’t spoil too much, but I’ll tell you that it’s like playing Battle Toads again, with an extra boss fight. The Armor will make Shovel Knight control like a Battle Toad would, meaning he now kicks and punches instead of using his regular shovel.

Thanks Ashir for bringing this up to me.