For this being my very first Shantae game it really didn't leave that good of an impression on me. Especially the very slow beginning and middle. I'd say around when you get Risky's Boots is when the game starts to pick up but by then the game is already over. The backtracking here is horrendous, you can use an item to teleport you back to the pirate ship but if you're in a dungeon you have to walk all the way back to the entrance and it just makes getting 100% tedious. This is apparently the "highly regarded" game in the series by fans and if this was the best one that doesn't excite me to check out any other games. This game's highs are the dungeons obviously, they're fun to figure out and explore despite being way too simple, and I wish you'd earn a health upgrade at the end of each boss. It feels empty without it.
Shantae throughout the game can upgrade her hair and hair-whipping speed but never her defense which I always found strange, there are upgrades for all this but her general defense is always the same. That got really annoying to deal with going through the later half and enemies did 2x damage. Don't understand why she didn't get slightly stronger after beating each boss since that would solve the issue. With how easy it is to buy temporary stat increases and this spike protection ball, bosses stood 0 chance against her. The story was nothing either, Risky got her stuff stolen, Shantae goes and gets it, and uses it to beat bosses, and the formula is set until big bad baddy at the end so you beat them, and then the game ends. This game does the character interactions and moments type of storytelling and I'll be honest I don't care a lot about Shantae's world or characters to really say I was invested in learning more. Shantae as a character is pretty standard.
The gameplay consists of you going to a new area, solving the areas puzzle, doing a minigame/gimmick section to unlock the way to the dungeon, doing the dungeon, and then fighting the boss, repeating for other islands. I thought this setup wasn't bad until we get to the minigame/gimmick section because the two that stood out the most ended up being the most frustrating. The Spiderweb Island has this funny chase sequence where you have to help protect this zombie girl and run towards her house, only problem is if you get hit once it resets you back to the beginning of the room. I didn't mind this at first cause it was a little funny but then it kept going and going, and yeah it started to drag out. Then the Sand Island has this stealth section where if you get caught once you get pushed back to the very beginning and it was there I was like "ok this is really bad" forced stealth sections in adventure games are the worst thing known to mankind, to only way to do these right is if they're brief and not long. That was not the case here. By then I had reached the halfway point and I was starting to get exhausted.
One positive I can say the music was actually super good, there are a lot of beats I can hum and remember off the top of my head. Definitely will download a couple of these tracks cause they were pretty fire all things considered. I think when it came to the sound department this game nails it.
I gave the game a chance, but it really wasn't as good as I'd hoped it'd be. Would I recommend it? No, I think other games have done this better and Shantae alone isn't really something I'd go out of the way to check out given the really poor design choices here. There are big bitties all over the game but that wasn't enough to save its pretty mediocre gameplay and experience.
Shantae throughout the game can upgrade her hair and hair-whipping speed but never her defense which I always found strange, there are upgrades for all this but her general defense is always the same. That got really annoying to deal with going through the later half and enemies did 2x damage. Don't understand why she didn't get slightly stronger after beating each boss since that would solve the issue. With how easy it is to buy temporary stat increases and this spike protection ball, bosses stood 0 chance against her. The story was nothing either, Risky got her stuff stolen, Shantae goes and gets it, and uses it to beat bosses, and the formula is set until big bad baddy at the end so you beat them, and then the game ends. This game does the character interactions and moments type of storytelling and I'll be honest I don't care a lot about Shantae's world or characters to really say I was invested in learning more. Shantae as a character is pretty standard.
The gameplay consists of you going to a new area, solving the areas puzzle, doing a minigame/gimmick section to unlock the way to the dungeon, doing the dungeon, and then fighting the boss, repeating for other islands. I thought this setup wasn't bad until we get to the minigame/gimmick section because the two that stood out the most ended up being the most frustrating. The Spiderweb Island has this funny chase sequence where you have to help protect this zombie girl and run towards her house, only problem is if you get hit once it resets you back to the beginning of the room. I didn't mind this at first cause it was a little funny but then it kept going and going, and yeah it started to drag out. Then the Sand Island has this stealth section where if you get caught once you get pushed back to the very beginning and it was there I was like "ok this is really bad" forced stealth sections in adventure games are the worst thing known to mankind, to only way to do these right is if they're brief and not long. That was not the case here. By then I had reached the halfway point and I was starting to get exhausted.
One positive I can say the music was actually super good, there are a lot of beats I can hum and remember off the top of my head. Definitely will download a couple of these tracks cause they were pretty fire all things considered. I think when it came to the sound department this game nails it.
I gave the game a chance, but it really wasn't as good as I'd hoped it'd be. Would I recommend it? No, I think other games have done this better and Shantae alone isn't really something I'd go out of the way to check out given the really poor design choices here. There are big bitties all over the game but that wasn't enough to save its pretty mediocre gameplay and experience.
Mickey
1 year ago