Any headwear and scarf equipped will show up on Miriam:
So you can swap out her horns for a "Beast Beret", a cute li'l hat designed after a teddy bear. Guess if you're gonna kill monsters, might as well look cute doing it.
The Bunny Scarf bounces in front of Miriam and clips around in the Den of Behemoths' opening cutscenes, adding an unintended bit of humor.
The ending cutscene when everyone walks away, is rendered with the game engine, meaning that Miriam can walk off while the Gold Is Power gyroscope is rolling above her head!
Please keep your cool, Miriam—there are still so many other bosses for you to face off against...
In the Garden of Silence, a Coachman is unable to cross a chasm because of a heavy obstacle in his path. He tells Miriam that she needs a "Giant Hand"note i.e. the Craftwork shard to move it aside. If you talk to the Coachman again while the obstacle is still blocking his path, he tells her:
Coachman: What you need is a giant hand. Giant hands do giant things... said no one in particular ever.
One sidequest in the game is Miriam coming across a lost man named Benjamin:
The first time, he asks if she is human because of the crystals on her skin. To set him at ease, she tells him that they're the latest fashion trend from Paris. His reply:
Benjamin:[awestruck] Oh, Paris? Wow! I've never been to Spain!
Later on, you can find Benjamin again trapped behind a waterfall because he imagined the wrong place when given a Waystone to warp home. Miriam is rather peeved at this and is far more blunt with her instructions:
Miriam: Do you want me to kick you?
Now remember. Picture your house. YOUR. HOUSE.
When Miriam finds Benjamin a third time:
She is so fed up with his incompetence that she threatens to kick him upside the head if he doesn't warp straight back to the village. Fortunately for him, he gets it right this time and rewards Miriam for all the trouble with a rare ring.
Miriam: If I find you in even one more strange place... Foot. Skull.
That final Waystone offering's dialog box being labeled "Why, Stranded Man?" Not even naming him, just titling him!
And when given the final Waystone, and that final conversation with Miriam is hilarious as well. It's about 50% "Please don't hurt me"... and 50% Love Confession, even before they meet for the final time!
Benjamin: I'm gettin'! I'm gettin'! Kisses! Love you! Don't change! Mean it! Hope I don't see you again!
Another NPC in the game is a friendly Killer Barber named Todd, who was cursed into his current form and in order to break said curse, he must master 666 different hairstyles. And they have to be real ones, he can't just randomly chop off hair and call it a new style or his cursed scissors will punish him by killing the person whose hair he is cutting.
Every time Todd learns a new hairstyle, he gets the same swirly blue Level Up animation that Miriam does.
Once Miriam has Todd change her hairstyle, you get this if you promptly sit back down instead of leaving:
Todd: Well, you got over that hairstyle quickly! What will it be this time?
Lindsay, an NPC who lost her friends and family to the demon invasion, has become a vengeful woman and tasks Miriam with killing the demons who killed her friends and family. Or, as Lindsay would say...
Lindsay: Kill those murderers dead!
The names of Lindsay's fallen friends and family are all references to characters from the Castlevania franchise, a Take That! at Konami after their management shift in 2015 which saw them turn away from console game development in favour of mobile game development.
Although minor, the return of death physics, although few enemies take full advantage of it. This can most easily be seen by hitting a Morte in the head, causing it to go flying.
Unlike most bosses whose death cries are typical screams or groans, Bathin's sounds like a teenage temper tantrum.
A vampire who's virtually a dead-ringer for Alucard, with only a few clothing differences to keep lawyers at bay. He's also voiced by Alucard in both English and Japanese, and is found in a room practically identical to the librarian's room from Symphony of the Night, chair balanced over a hole and everything.
O.D.'s dialogue reveals that vampires are apparently much more tech-savvy than humans, having had photography long enough to consider it mundane while humans still haven't invented it for themselves yet, and they even use photo ID. Which is funny if you remember that a commonly depicted trait of vampires is that they don't show up in photographs.
This manages to be even funnier by going through another layer of the same logic. The reason vampires traditionally didn't appear in mirrors and photos is because they don't get along with silver, which was used in both to create the reflection (some modern depictions have actually caught on to this and have vampires that can be seen in digital photography). The problem? The silver bromide needed for photographs in this era is a key item!
The dialogue right before O.D.'s bonus boss fight, where he gives Miriam the riot act for failing to return his books is already deliciously hammy, but then the cherry on top comes from Miriam's incredibly whimsical and nonchalant "Oops" in reply.
If you beat him, you can return to the library and find out that he's still alive ("Vampire, remember?"), but now he's wearing a silly mask with thick glasses, a Gag Nose and a mustache that resembles, of all people, Wario's, since he's now under your command for beating him and clearly isn't pleased about it. While Miriam sheepishly offers to give the book back, O.D. peevishly comments that she's free to pillage his shelves.
And of course, as a throwback to Symphony of the Night, you can go to the underside of his chair and, should you have the High Jump Shard from mutating the double jump, you can proceed to launch Dracule from his chair in the very same vein as how you could do it to the Librarian as Alucard! Not to mention there's a very delicious sense of irony in that Dracule goes through what the librarian suffered from Alucard.
That ridiculous mask? That's an accessory Miriam can equip as well. The chest with the mask appears after you launch him from his chair (leave and enter the room below him to see it). This also means that tormenting O.D. this way is needed to get not one but two achievements: the "Deja Vu" achievement and the Item Completion Achievement.
Even Miriam herself can fall victim to being chair-launched in the same way, as there's an identical-looking room on the right section of Livre Ex Machina where she can sit on a chair and a Lance Armor will poke at her from below, sending her upward.
You can find a "Voice Changer" accessory hidden inside a breakable wall in the Forbidden Underground Waterway, and equipping it causes Miriam to have Helium Speech. It even applies to dialogue!
The portraits throughout the game are a kickstarter reward. One fellow in the entrance is wearing a very cliche vampire costume. Related to this reward is to have your pet appear as an enemy. One of them is Nyobon, a demon cat found in one of the hallways.
When the game hints that you need to go find the Double Jump ability to progress further, Miriam asks Dominique how Zangetsu can get around the castle so easily, to which she replies that he has trained his body beyond normal human limits and can now jump in midair. Miriam's utter disbelief that such a thing is possible is a humorous bit of Lampshade Hanging. Later, after Miriam gets Double Jump herself and relates how she still can't reach everywhere, and at least comforted by how Zangetsu would have the same trouble, Dominique bursts her bubble, claiming that she heard Zangetsu has the ability to fly:
Dominique: What? But I heard Zangetsu had developed the ability to fly. Mariam: Ah, what. Dominique: Here, he sent a message arrow. "In the searing hot caves, seek the strange demon." Mariam: "Strange demon"? That's it? Dominique: He says he saw the demon falling up. Mariam: I'm not sure I understand, but it sounds like finding that demon is my best lead. Dominique: I agree. Now is there anything else you need?
Especially funny about that first one? When Dominique basically makes a big deal of how awesome Zangetsu is to train so hard to allow himself to jump a second time in mid-air, Miriam gives an incredulous, "He does NOT!". The tone of her voice sounds more like a grade-schooler at recess calling out her friends for tall-tales.
The Shovel Armor enemies are worth a laugh on multiple levels. They are not just buff parody versions of the aforementioned Blue Burrower, they even drop a lot of different things related to him.
They can drop Sapphires, and are often found near chests containing various other gems. Shovel Knight is known for collecting lots of gems on his adventures.
They can also drop Shovels, which function as a Spear-type weapon.
Their shard lets you summon one that attacks by throwing dirt at enemies.
Lastly, they have a chance to drop the EX Shovel Armor, which, in a Call-Back to the Axe Armors of yore, turns you into a Shovel Armor when equipped, attacks and all. If you have the Double Jump, you can even pogo just like the real Shovel Knight!
The Randomizer mode leads to some hilarious bosses, like Gebel's Glasses + Chisel Barrage stunlocking Zangetsu in all his forms, especially for True if launched immediately from the doorway, leaving him no time to attack.
While the food in game looks absolutely stunning, there are a couple of unusual dishes: Berry Spaghetti and Shiruko Spaghetti. The descriptions of the two even hang a lampshade on this; they're both described as improvised dishes, with the former ending with "It works!", and the latter ending with "Not for everyone..."
When you fight against Valefar, he begins his next phase (upon you depleting all of his health) by stealing all of your money to replenish his health. If you're very low on funds, he gives out an indignant "Is that all you have?" If you don't have any money, he has this to say as his death quote.
Valefar: "What!? You're flat broke!"
Bloodless, as her name implies, is themed entirely around blood. Her entire outfit is made out of blood, which she creates from a blood-filled bathtub, and she fights using blood attacks. Why is this funny? Because if you change the color of the blood, you also change her color palette as well. Yes, this even means you can give her a white color palette, with all the implications that come with it. There's also the option to change the blood color to yellow.
As if that wasn't funny enough, the update where Bloodless is Promoted to Playable added more colors to change the blood into. This includes yellow.Although... Unlike.... that fluid, the "blood" is opaque so it looks more like mustard (which is still quite hilarious).
From Bloodless Mode, sometimes, when hit by an enemy, Bloodless will snap "STOP it!" in the same tone as an exasperated parent scolding their child.
, rendering the demo unplayable. While this is indeed unfortunate, some artists decided to poke fun at the situation, such as ArtPlay's Mana Ikeda's submissions regarding that matter