The sequel to the critically acclaimed Shantae is here! Fans asked, and WayForward has answered with a powder keg of high-octane, hair-whipping, hip-shaking action available only on the Nintendo DSiWare service. Shantae: Risky's Revenge sets the bar even higher with thousands of frames of animation, huge multi-sprite bosses and a quest so big it's bursting at the seams. Guide "half-genie" Shantae through haunted wastelands, burning deserts, enchanted forests, dripping caverns and deadly labyrinths. Discover magical attacks, brew zombie coffee, save golden babies and master the art of belly dancing to transform Shantae into more powerful creatures. Use your powers to foil the lady pirate Risky Boots and save Sequin Land from certain doom. With its infectious characters, flirtatious humor and deliciously outlandish action, Shantae: Risky's Revenge offers up all the hair-whipping, belly-dancing action you can handle.
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A fun and small little game, just wished some of the ideas had been a better explored, but for a dsiware game it impressive enough with such a small download size
I need whatever conditioner she be using
I was kinda Impressed
Aged well in my opinion
Aged well in my opinion
On the trains and planes and automobiles (I did ride a bus and a car or two) I had to take for my vacation to America, I decided to bring my 3DS and try and clear through some of my backlog on it. I brought some really good stuff: The 3rd Chibi-Robo game I was so excited about, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, plenty to keep me occupied. And instead I decided to play through this game I've owned more or less since it came out, and it was a good choice thematically for a year I've given second chances to so many games. Not sure it was such a good choice as far as having fun goes though XD. It took me a little over 4 hours to beat, but just because this was a little "longer" than Metroid Fusion, assuming it was in anyway close to better is a pretty generous assumption XP
This is a metroidvania and was the first in the last decade's series of Shantae revivals (coming out in 2010). All I'd known about it back then was that Shantae was a well-thought of but very rare GBC game, so a new entry in it sounded fun. I picked it up and played it and eventually just got stuck because I couldn't find where to go next. I did manage to get through the rest of the game this time, but the problems I identified ten years ago are all still certainly here.
First, in regards to my getting lost, the game has a map that is at best, functional, at worst, confusing. It's a very general overview of the entire world map, but the myriad of caverns and shortcuts between areas aren't on it, and you can't mark anything on it. A lot of knowing where you are is just as much down to your own memory as it is to that map, and if you aren't gonna play through this game in one sitting, you're gonna spend a LOT of time wandering around and backtracking to try and find that one cave that has a necessary power up in it.
Of course the game already has a TON of backtracking. The game's map design is really uninspired, at least the overworld. The caverns and three dungeons are mixes of platforming challenges and combat challenges, but the overworld is largely just flat/somewhat flat horizontal side-scrolling levels you'll need to trudge through over and over because the warp spots in this game seem like they go out of their way to be as inconvenient as possible. This game has a lot of padding for its content, and the bad overworld is one of the prime sources of that.
The combat and gameplay themselves are alright. I'm glad this game got sequels, because the way spells and your hair-whip attack function are really solid. It's mostly just that they have very little interesting to act in tandem with because the enemies have pretty poor variety despite the few bosses being alright fun. You gain the power to transform into a monkey, an elephant, and a mermaid in order to access new areas and do platforming challenges. They're a pretty good diversion from the tedium of the overworld and they control well too. Even the monkey's wall climbing is more generous and fun to play than it very easily could've been.
The story isn't too complex. Shantae, the half-genie hero of Scuttletown, goes to a show where her relic-hunting uncle is unavailing his newest discovery. Risky comes in to steal it, and you need to find the three magic seals (but not the fun, barky kind TwT) in order to get it back. It's nothing special or memorable in and of itself, but the NPC dialogue is really something odd. There are a lot of genuinely good, quick jokes, I got a chuckle out of, and a lot of them are of a nature that makes me wonder how this game got an E10+ instead of a T rating XD
The presentation is good for the most part. Animations are pretty and fluid, and it's probably one of the things the game does better than most other things. Music is alright, and the character portraits don't look amazing (and I'm not a huge fan of how sexualized the female character design is in the first place, but that's just me).
Verdict: Not Recommended. Maybe this was a serviceable experience for the money back in 2010, but these days there is really no reason to hunt this game down on the couple re-releases it's had since the DSi days. It is a painfully below-average game with TONS of padding that is barely memorable beyond the novelty of being another Shantae game after so so long. There are piles of better Metroidvanias you can get for as much or less money, so there is no reason to waste your time with this unless you just have to see EVERYTHING the Shantae series has been.
This is a metroidvania and was the first in the last decade's series of Shantae revivals (coming out in 2010). All I'd known about it back then was that Shantae was a well-thought of but very rare GBC game, so a new entry in it sounded fun. I picked it up and played it and eventually just got stuck because I couldn't find where to go next. I did manage to get through the rest of the game this time, but the problems I identified ten years ago are all still certainly here.
First, in regards to my getting lost, the game has a map that is at best, functional, at worst, confusing. It's a very general overview of the entire world map, but the myriad of caverns and shortcuts between areas aren't on it, and you can't mark anything on it. A lot of knowing where you are is just as much down to your own memory as it is to that map, and if you aren't gonna play through this game in one sitting, you're gonna spend a LOT of time wandering around and backtracking to try and find that one cave that has a necessary power up in it.
Of course the game already has a TON of backtracking. The game's map design is really uninspired, at least the overworld. The caverns and three dungeons are mixes of platforming challenges and combat challenges, but the overworld is largely just flat/somewhat flat horizontal side-scrolling levels you'll need to trudge through over and over because the warp spots in this game seem like they go out of their way to be as inconvenient as possible. This game has a lot of padding for its content, and the bad overworld is one of the prime sources of that.
The combat and gameplay themselves are alright. I'm glad this game got sequels, because the way spells and your hair-whip attack function are really solid. It's mostly just that they have very little interesting to act in tandem with because the enemies have pretty poor variety despite the few bosses being alright fun. You gain the power to transform into a monkey, an elephant, and a mermaid in order to access new areas and do platforming challenges. They're a pretty good diversion from the tedium of the overworld and they control well too. Even the monkey's wall climbing is more generous and fun to play than it very easily could've been.
The story isn't too complex. Shantae, the half-genie hero of Scuttletown, goes to a show where her relic-hunting uncle is unavailing his newest discovery. Risky comes in to steal it, and you need to find the three magic seals (but not the fun, barky kind TwT) in order to get it back. It's nothing special or memorable in and of itself, but the NPC dialogue is really something odd. There are a lot of genuinely good, quick jokes, I got a chuckle out of, and a lot of them are of a nature that makes me wonder how this game got an E10+ instead of a T rating XD
The presentation is good for the most part. Animations are pretty and fluid, and it's probably one of the things the game does better than most other things. Music is alright, and the character portraits don't look amazing (and I'm not a huge fan of how sexualized the female character design is in the first place, but that's just me).
Verdict: Not Recommended. Maybe this was a serviceable experience for the money back in 2010, but these days there is really no reason to hunt this game down on the couple re-releases it's had since the DSi days. It is a painfully below-average game with TONS of padding that is barely memorable beyond the novelty of being another Shantae game after so so long. There are piles of better Metroidvanias you can get for as much or less money, so there is no reason to waste your time with this unless you just have to see EVERYTHING the Shantae series has been.
I don't get the hype for this one. It seems like a really generic action/platformer without any innovation or unique mechanic to set it apart from the rest. Nothing's done poorly, but nothing's done well enough to be exciting either. I beat the first boss, then decided this game wasn't worth my time.
we gotta kill wayforward bro