I would like to thank @duhnuhnuh for gifting me this game, as a part of their massive Steam Key giveaway, and I’d recommend checking it out if you’d like to try some games out for the cost of absolutely nothing.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens is sure the fifth video game entry in the Shantae video game series released on video game consoles in 2020.

Going back a few years, Shantae and the Seven Sirens feels bizarre. It entered development around March 2018-ish, and was revealed about a year later, simply as Shantae 5. It was somewhat exciting to me, as someone who hadn't played a Shantae game yet but was definitely interested in the series. I grew up watching the Shantae Pirate’s Curse commercials on the 3DS, so I knew all of the characters, and I also heard that FUCKING MUSIC! But fast-forward a few months, it was eventually revealed that it would be a timed Apple Arcade exclusive, and I think the Shantae fans died a little inside, but rest assured, the game was fully released… to no avail! I had genuinely not seen anybody talk about the new game. The Steam reception seemed positive, the Metacritic scores were solid, so what happened? It wasn't until my Summer of 2022 Shantae binge that I would beat and finish almost every game in the series, save for two. Shantae (the first one), because of a crash that was seemingly exclusive to Switch and 3DS, and Seven Sirens, and by god. I could tell why this game went under the radar. It was really… meh, for the lack of a better term. I had only played till about the first zone, but the game really lacked the fun factor of Pirate’s Curse, nor did it have the phenomenal level design of Half Genie Hero,and overall, it was just really fucking easy. Over a year later after release though, the game received a brand new update which gave it a Definitive Mode alongside 3 other modes, which was nice, although it also released to basically no fanfare. Did every Shantae fan just… disappear between 2018 and then? I wasn't aware of the new update as I was using a less than legal copy, but now that I have the Steam version, it's time to give the game another look. With the Definitive Mode, is Shantae and the Seven Sirens a worthwhile package? Or does it give me scurvy? The biggest issue is it’s lack of risk taking with the tried-and true Shantae formula, unlike the previous 3 games, making it feel very by the numbers as yet another entry in the Shantae franchise. And none of the games have felt so... generic before. Let’s pop open the hatch, and see why Seven Sirens is so disappointing (to me, at least).

Right off the bat, I do have a few praises regarding how WayForward implemented these 4 new game modes. While the Definitive Mode takes precedence over the Legacy Mode, if you wish, you can also revert to the Legacy Mode on a save by save basis, which is pretty nice. But also, another negative right off the bat. The graphics. I don’t like em, never have and never will; hell, I’ll goes as far as to say that the aesthetics are fundamentally flawed. A majority of this game’s graphics are follow the style of Half Genie Hero, but there’s a big issue with how the game is presented. Half Genie Hero was a beautiful game, being presented in the 2.5D art style that looked incredible on the eyes. The background had so many layers, the models were high quality, it was a really pretty looking indie game. Compare this screenshot to this one from Seven Sirens and the problem should be immediately apparent. Seven Sirens is presented in a 2D plain, and it looks flatter than my man boobs, not to mention the occasional model in the overworld which just looks out of place, like the many plants you’ll find. The cutscenes are the strongest visual aspect to the game. Studio Trigger animated the intro to the game, and it looks great. It's a bit too general for my tastes, as Risky really isn't a major part of the story, but it still looks frantic and fun overall. The in-game cutscenes aren't as fast paced as the first, but it still looks okay to me. But aside from the in-game cutscenes, it just doesn’t look appealing to me, akin to how the soundtrack never caught my ears.

You can really feel the loss of Jake Kaufman in the sound department here. The soundtrack of each individual Shantae game has been mostly solid, maybe save for the first game, but at least that released on GBC, and the compositions were actually pretty catchy. The composition team behind Seven Sirens was lead by Professor Sakamoto, and a variety of composer contributed to the soundtrack. But, what happened here??? All of it takes a chiptune-esque approach, which is fine (albeit odd for a hand-drawn graphic platformer), but it simply doesn’t sound memorable, nor really all that good. There’s a few decent songs here and there, but for the most part, the music is just… noise. No cohesion or anything., just… music… It’s easily my least favorite soundtrack in the entire series, and I really hope they can clap back with Advance.

When it comes to the game itself, it’s... odd to say the least, at least when it comes to progression and structure. Classic Shantae (2000 and Risky’s Revenge) had a big open map, while the Modern Games (Pirate’s Curse and Half Genie Hero) had much smaller, multiple maps. Sure, Half Genie Hero made it a level-by-level structure, but you still had to use your abilities to explore through to progress. It worked, although it was awkward at times to backtrack. Seven Sirens returns to the Classic Shantae style while also mixing in Modern Shantae, to somewhat mediocre results. Unlike previous Shantae games which had you use your abilities to progress, Shantae and the Seven Sirens opted for a more “find x item, bring it to here” design. It’s not terrible, but a part of me really missed the more character based progression of the previous games. It gave you an “Aha!” moment, but Seven Sirens doesn’t really do that all too well. At best, I really felt a sense of satisfaction that I was at least making progress, but what game fails at that? Maybe it’s because the abilities themselves... kind of suck.

Seven Sirens attempts to integrate the animals into your moveset, but it doesn’t really feel as great at how Pirate’s Curse did it. In Pirate’s Curse, you were always using all of your abilities at once. Not because you necessarily had to, but it was really fun to do so, and most of the level design in that game encouraged that. Big, flat open plain with a bunch of enemies you don't want to deal with? Annihilate their asses with the Dash. Seven Sirens, on the other hand, fails at this. I really only enjoyed the Newt Dash. The rest are kind of okay. You use them to progress. That’s it. No practical uses outside of combat, like Elephant, or Monkey from the classic games. But, if Shantae is a belly dancing genie, watt about her dances though? So… the dances. They’re all pretty annoying. Not only do they eat up your magic, meaning players going for the most combat-positive upgrades are essentially shot in the foot. But the dances themselves are really, really boring. Shantae uses an element, changes something in the current room, get the thing you need, move on. Needless to say. It’s not FUN. It’s so boring, like, is this REALLY the best you could do? What if the transformations changed your player character, but they all have different movesets which provide individual benefits? As it stands, the current system, it’s really not all that great.

As for the level design… it’s just your average Metroidvania level design. Well, what’s the issue? It’s JUST your average Metroidvania level design. Enemies are present in the map, everything connects together, use ability (without any inherent satisfaction to be had as it’s the most predictable thing you can fucking imagine), move on. Seriously, what happened to the level design in between Half Genie Hero and Seven Sirens? The levels aren’t dynamic at all, and not even the fucking enemies are different. It’s just so… AVERAGE. Ugh. At least the enemies are occasionally fun to fight, but good lord. Not to mention the multi-staged fetch quests throughout Paradise Island. Shantae’s fetch quests, at least since Pirate’s Curse, have been pretty reserved. Usually you have to return to an area only once, rarely twice, and never again. And it was actually fun, since all of your abilities were awesome to use, complimenting the previous level design. Sure, Half-Genie Hero wasn't as great in this aspect, as the animals weren't integrated into your moves, but at the very least you had the teleport dance, as well as less backtracking in general. Seven Sirens is absolutely loaded with this, but unlike Pirate’s Curse, the moveset is just too unviable for general use. There's a few more than Pirate’s Curse, but once again, they're not all for general use. The best out of the few is easily the triple jump and dash. The rest are just awkwardly bad. The shell is too unwieldy for general platforming, and hitting a big enough enemy completely stops it. It's thankfully manually charged, unlike Pirate's Curse, which was a bit finicky, but it's still eclipsed by the Pirate's Curse dash. And the Drill and Frog just kinda… sucked. They're just too slow and tedious, good lord. That's the best way to describe this game. It's not doing anything innovative, just existing half of the time. And it infuriates me. There needs to be a case study on how Seven Sirens fails at competent modern Metroidvania design. Rather than expressing its level design through your own player character, it remains stagnant by only requiring the bare minimum of you, leaving it as the least engaging of the centrilogy, soon to be hexology. Advance better not have these problems, because this game is severely lacking in the fun factor of the previous games.

But why are we traveling through this big, open world, gaining new abilities and rescuing these half-naked women? Well, look no further than the plot. Shantae and her friends are invited to “Paradise Island” (seriously???), an island filled with sunshine non-stop. It's here where Shantae meets four other Half Genies, as a plot point established in the first game; Plink, the smallest one, Vera, the best one, Zapple, the strong one, Filin, obviously Rottytops, and Harmony, the tallest one, holy shit. All of them get ready for a massive Half-Genie Festival, but on the night of the festival, all of the genies (sparing Shantae) disappear. Determined to find answers, Shantae explores all throughout Paradise Island in search of the Half-Genies. Risky Boots is encountered but denies any foul-play at hand The Half-Genies and even the bosses themselves are pretty one-note for the most part. It's about as video-gamey as plot structure gets. Find Half-Genie, kill Siren, bam, onto the next thing. Oh, but surprise surprise, Risky Boots was behind the entire thing!!! Well, partially at least. Because the Empress Siren made a deal with Risky if Risky kidnapped the 5 Half-Genies. Soooo… yeah. Almost entirely Risky’s fault. But here’s the thing. If Risky wanted to kidnap the genies, how in the HELL did she not take notice to Shantae? Shantae is Risky's arch nemesis; she’s SEEN Shantae do her genie moves in previous games. Why only leave Shantae? Why not kidnap them all? Sure, It’d be overkill, but nobody else would be able to rescue the Half Genes, let alone Rottytops and friends while they’re lazing about. Oh, and the Empress Siren? She just feeds off of the Genies to survive because Harmony’s mother placed a spell on her. Then she practically kills Risky, and then plans to become immortal by taking everyone’s life force. They fight, a shitty boss battle occurs- WAIT.

I’m completely with Yuzrnaime on this, the fights are genuinely TERRIBLE. Not only do they have an UNHEALTHY amount of HP, a majority of them sped long periods of time in invulnerability. IT’S GENUINELY IRRITATING. I’d type out a long ass rant, but I’m writing this at 2AM. Bitch, PLEASE. But once you kill Empress, she dies, Risky comes back, Shantae and friends leave, the end. Sweet dreams.

Seven Sirens is certainly one of the most disappointing games I've ever played through. As a follow up to the two best entries in the series, it really falters. It's a game with 80% hot air in between it's content, succeeding at almost nothing it does in the remaining 20%. I didn't feel terribly angry while playing, just mildly annoyed. Shantae's abilities? Occasionally fun, but mostly annoying. The world map? Generic and mostly annoying. The dungeon designs? Among the worst in the series for simply how annoying they are. The bosses? Padded out and annoying. The music? Bland, and more importantly, annoying. I left Seven Sirens mostly ambivalent to its content, no desire to really play it, but most importantly, annoyed. I feel annoyed at this game's very existence. Not angry. Simply. Annoyed.

I whish I played this before, when I was really struggling at school. School was really not a great time for me, every day I thought about things I would not like to remember, and I feel like this game kind of really shows you how to have a healthy school life, and even if it may not have made me change and have an amazing life, it would have made my mind a bit more positive, and having a virtual school where I could feel safe and establish relations with people would have eased some of the pain I was feeling at the moment. It's my first Persona game and I didn't really know what to expect, but it was definitely worth it.