Shantae Review (AceAttVeg)
Now that I've played four of the Shantae games, Pirate's Curse feels even more like a one hit wonder. Half Genie hero was pretty fun overall, but not a good follow up to PC and just didn't fit in with the rest with the linear play style. But at least it had some heart- Seven Sirens feels like the series just giving up and fizzling out.
This game starts out fairly strong with a fully connected overworld to explore, and decently enjoyable labyrinths with more of a Zelda feel than previous games had. But it feels like the devs quickly ran out of steam and the final third of the game is full of simple and uninspired dungeons, a timed enemy rush harkening back to Risky's Revenge and the awful Battle Tower, and a final dungeon that has absolutely nothing to it. The final boss feels easy, bland and pointless.
We get neither the exciting gear from Pirate's Curse nor the varied animal transformations from Half Genie Hero. Instead there are a few powerup dances and a few transformations that are more like special moves for destroying obstacles or navigating specific hazards- you can't actually control the animals in the way you'd expect.
Difficulty on this "definitive" update is all over the place, with attacks from the final boss taking off a heart or so while random enemies earlier in the game can take off three or four entire hearts of damage with one hit. The game is never difficult because you can dance to heal, on top of all your healing items and food, but the inconsistency is distracting and confusing.
The story takes itself a little more seriously but has very little of the hilarious one liners and charm that the last couple of games did. The story is not particularly interesting on its own and some of the side characters I was looking forward to don't even make an appearance here so we can get a bunch of extraordinarily bland Half Genie friends.
When you look at the game outside it's role in the Shantae series, it's not the worst thing you could play- controls are relatively solid still, and I can't say I had no fun at all. But I think even a half off sale is pushing it a little bit.