I am going to be very personal and vulnerable in this review. I very much am biased and unable to look at this game with a more critical eye, my apologies. I've wanted to play this game for so long. When Half-Genie Hero was getting a lot of buzz back in 2016, it got me interested in the series. This game in particular was on Game Pass at the time, so naturally I took the opportunity to play it right? Actually no, and the reasoning requires some personal background.

I've been struggling with my identity for a long time now. Before I recently discovered that I'm transfem, I was often ashamed of myself for my interests, and not being how I was "supposed" to be. To tell the truth, there's plenty of media I've been interested in checking out over the years, which I haven't allowed myself to. The main reason being that 'Guys don't do that and I'll be mocked and ridiculed for it.' Shantae was one of these cases. How was I, a male teenager, supposed to justify playing a game where the main character is a belly dancing genie woman? I mean that's just ridiculous right?

After coming to terms with my identity, I've been trying to open myself up to more things that I was pushing away all this time. After all this time, I finally played a Shantae game, and the experience was purely magical, for lack of a better word. Right away, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse was hitting me right in the nostalgia. As a kid, one of my favorite things to play was the original Adventure Time game, also made by Wayforward! Booting up this game, being met with the incredible 16 bit look, hearing another legendary soundtrack by Jake Kaufman, fighting enemies while platforming in 2D, it just...felt right.

As silly as this probably sounds, playing this game felt like I was just my old self again. Before I was stressing over my identity, my relationships, my future. Before I was struggling to come to terms with who I am as a person. I was just...my authentic self, playing a game I loved and enjoyed. The game's world and lovely cast of characters pulled me in immediately. It's got a great sense of humor, all kinds of whacky and entertaining scenarios happening at every corner, again, just like Adventure Time.

I don't just love the game because it reminds me of Adventure Time though, that'd be silly. Let's get into what makes Shantae so amazing. For one, the metroidvania gameplay. The game doesn't have one big map like most games in the genre do, or even some other games in this same series. Instead, there are a handful of separate islands you fast travel between. Each one has a handful of collectibles to find, a dungeon, a new ability to unlock, and a boss fight. Each island also has its own mini story arc with the characters you run into and these are absolutely delightful. My absolute favorite is Spiderweb Island where you have to carry Rottytops to her home. Rottytops is without question my favorite character and she gets a fair amount of depth throughout the game, which I appreciate.

Though, one of these little arcs, specifically the one on Sunburn Island, is clearly just an excuse for fanservice, if you know what I mean. That's not a negative for me, I just thought it was worth pointing out. I honestly love how these games just do not care. I mean, all of the different characters you run into throughout the game not only have unique sprites, but portrait art too. The team clearly just wants to draw hot women and I have to respect that.

Regarding the islands themselves, there are both Heart Squids and Tinkerbats to find on them, and a lot of them require abilities you'll have to come back with later. Heart Squids increase Shantae's maximum HP, while Tinkerbats are simply just for 100% completion. The true final boss is hidden behind collecting all of these. As for the abilities and upgrades, Shantae does not have her magic in this game, meaning no animal transformations. Instead, Shantae finds Risky's different pirate gear throughout the different dungeons and adds them to her arsenal. These include a pistol, a big hat for gliding, a scimitar for attacking directly below you, boots that allow you to run super fast (think the Speed Booster from Metroid, except you're also invincible while moving that quickly), and a cannon for additional jumps in mid-air. Sure, these aren't really magical at all, and don't have the spectacle that the animal transformations do, but they are so much fun to use. They can all be activated on the fly and can even be chained together in really fun ways.

Revisiting older areas with your new equipment is so fun in this game. Not only can you reach new areas that you couldn't before, but you feel so much stronger, with so many ways to easily take out enemies. Ever try staying in the air as long as possible while bouncing on zombies' heads with the scimitar? You should! I also love that your hub area of sorts, Scuttle Town, does change as you progress. There are always new scenarios and dialogue to experience there, most of which are pretty funny!

Playing this game just makes me feel so fucking good, man. Normally I wouldn't be inclined to go after everything in the game for the sake of a true final boss or whatever, but I did here because I was having too much fun! I didn't want to reach the end yet! I love this world, I love these characters, I love how satisfying this game is to play. I love that I'm feeling this way playing a game. I love that I'm finally opening myself up to experiences like this.
I love that I'm being more true to myself. I love...me.

If Geno has a million fans, then I am one of them. If Geno has ten fans, then I am one of them. If Geno has only one fan then that is me. If Geno has no fans, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world is against Geno, then I am against the world.

Hey look I finally managed to finish an RPG from the Mario series, that only took way too long! This remake is very interesting to me because of how faithful it is to the original, for better and for worse. I never played the original, but this was even obvious for someone like me. There are just little things here and there. Platforming with no depth perception because of the asymmetric angle can be a little frustrating. The Bowser's Keep segment of the game goes on for a bit too long with too many battles that aren't even difficult in the slightest. Scenes that play out exactly the same as the original feel weird here, because the SNES game had the sprites animate in a way that let the player connect the dots on what was going on. With 3D models in HD animated exactly the same way, it just looks stilted and awkward, the first encounter with Bowser being a great example. To get one more negative out of the way, the game's performance isn't the best. There are a handful of specific areas where the game stutters and I did encounter slowdown here and there. One of these moments was when the final boss started which took me out of it a little bit.

Now onto the positives. I want to bring up the writing first off. This game is so creative and feels nothing like any other Mario game. Besides the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's Keep, every area in this game is something new and whacky you will never find anywhere else in this series, with so many fun characters as well. Speaking of characters, we've got two completely original ones as party members that never return after this game. As I said from the top, I absolutely love Geno. He's probably my favorite companion from any Mario game. He stands out so much, intentionally so because if his origin, but he still fits this world so well and I love his interactions with everybody, not to mention in battle he can just straight up shoot enemies. I unfortunately didn't use Mallow in my party all that much, but I still think he's a great character. It's nothing you or I haven't seen before in plenty of other stories, but he plays off everyone else in the party pretty well. I really enjoyed Nimbus Land because of Mallow's connection to its little storyline.
This is probably my favorite interpretation of Bowser ever. Future games really lean into the comedic aspect of his character, and that's still here for sure, but he also feels like a real person with emotions and goals. I love when you run into old minions of his who are afraid of angering him, but he tells them not to worry, it's nice. Peach is...not great honestly. I used her in my party a lot because her healing abilities are insane, but as a character she's not her Paper Mario self that's for sure. She's pretty one dimensional and I didn't really care for it.

I guess that just leaves the combat! My favorite aspect of this is that everyone has different attack animations with different timing for better damage, depending on what weapon you have equipped to them. Bowser has my favorites, from spinning and throwing a Chain Chomp at enemies to just straight up throwing Mario at them, great stuff. Every character has plenty of special moves they can use and it really feels like you need to be careful about which ones you use at what time. Not only do they have different timing or inputs to get the best results, but the strongest ones use a lot of mana and you definitely don't want to run out. The remake added a meter in battles that fills up when you successfully block attacks or land the input for better damage on your own attacks. When it's full, you can use a super move, and each party formation has their own unique one! Mario, Bowser, and Geno is my favorite one personally. You can also now swap out a party member if they become immobilized or if their HP runs out, which is a godsend. Mario has to remain in the party at all times though for some reason. Battles are pretty fun in this game! Boss battles especially kept me engaged and really thinking about what I was doing. It's nothing too complicated, it is a Mario game after all, but it's still a lot of fun.

And that sums up my thoughts on this game as a whole. It's not anything groundbreaking or super in-depth or anything like that. It's a simple, sweet, fun adventure that I could revisit anytime. I love this take on the Mario universe and there's nothing quite like it, and that makes it feel pretty special.

Alright I think it's safe to say classic Final Fantasy is not my cup of tea unfortunately. This is now the third turn-based FF game that I ended up putting down. For what it's worth, I definitely enjoyed this one a lot more than FFVII or FFIX. I played 20 hours of this before I got tired of it.

While I was very much invested in the story because of Terra, Locke, and Celes, that's pretty much the extent of it I could get into. This game has too many damn characters and most of them are not important after their introductions. I can appreciate the ambition, as it's definitely impressive for an SNES game, but too many of these characters feel half-baked. They DO all have their unique attributes...kinda. The game clearly wants you to use the esper system to build up your characters with magic spells, but this makes them all feel the same. Why bother worrying about specific character abilities when the game makes it very obvious very early on that spamming magic is infinitely more effective? There are also instances where you have to use specific characters for story moments, and if you haven't built those characters up enough, good luck! I was stuck on one section for a good while just because I needed ice magic, and I couldn't use the character I had built up ice spells on, how fun! Creating a team with so many characters to pick from should be a fun experience, but the game ruins this with its own battle system. Switching out the characters you've put time into is a bad idea, and it absolutely sucks when you have to. It just makes things take longer than they should.

I do want to make it very clear that I was enjoying the story a lot, as bloated as it is. I'm a little bummed that I won't see the end of Terra or Celes's arcs, but this gameplay is just not doing it for me unfortunately. I was super into this game in the beginning, but the more I played, the more the mechanics bothered me . It being an SNES game, it has plenty of "old game-isms" that are annoying too. The pixel remaster doesn't help with these either which just confuses me. I really appreciate what it did for the time, but it's not a game I like all that much.

What will stick out the most about this game to me is the opera house segment, because the performance scene is HD-2D and nothing else in this release is. It's beautiful and I love it, but like...why?