All things considered, it's actually kinda fitting I'd eventually get a Shovel Knight based pic one day considering how closely associated he tends to be with Shantae anyway to the point where they even were both part of the same DLC pack for Blaster Master Zero. And also, you know, WERE going to both be guest characters in Indivisble at one point. I am never going to get over them pulling the plug on the guest characters showing up in that game, am I? It's also fitting that the whole reason I got this pic was a result of Shovel Knight itself actually having some crossover levels in his own game. Or rather, a lack of one in one specific version.

Okay so for those who don't know what I'm talking about Shovel Knight actually has a few console exclusive bonus levels which also rewarded you with different armour for Shovel Knight to equip himself. The PlayStation release of this game's bonus level was a boss fight agents Kratos from God of War and as a reward got you the Armour of Chaos. Meanwhile the Xbox version got a Battletoads themed level along with being rewarded with the Toad Armour. And the Nintendo releases got......... Diddly squat! Yeah, despite Shovel Knight technically debuting on both the 3DS and Wii U originally before being ported to everything else a few months later there was no Nintendo themed crossover for those releases. Not even in the later Switch port of the game! And I have never got that! Even beyond the whole "this game originated on a Nintendo system kinda" aspect there are so many Nintendo franchsies that would fit right in with Shovel Knight I'm suprised Nintendo has never collaborated with the devs to make something like this. Especially since, for as over protective as Nintendo is of there IP's to the point where you'd think they were a over bearing mother, they have shown they are open to crossovers in the past due to stuff like the Nintendo costumes in the Wii U version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and both Hyrule Warriors and Cadence of Hyrule exist.

So, to fill this gap, I came up with my own Nintendo themed Shovel Knight crossover armour! After thinking of which franchise to go with I decided to go with Fire Emblem. I was considering having this be Kid Icarus themed at one point but since the God of War crossover was already a thing I decided to go something not already tied to Greek Mythology. So I went the franchise that not only just had a new game a year prior to Shovel Knights original release but was also the most popular Fire Emblem game to the point of literally saving the franchise from being cancelled entirely (despite what some FE elitist who hate Awakening will tell you.) The armour itself is also themed around Awakenings main character Chrom and honestly, I think old Shovel Knight here wears this quite well! As for how I imagen this armour would of affected gameplay, I'd say you have a random chance to get a critical hit on enemies much in the same way you do in Fire Emblem itself. Now if only we could get Shovel Knight to show up in an actual Fire Emblem game somehow.

Artist is AmeerAshourDraws: https://www.deviantart.com/ameerashourdraws