Weird decisions as always, with Shantae.
"Definitive Mode" is actually hard mode, and "Legacy Mode" is the normal difficulty.
This was really confusing, and I eventually restarted the game on the normal difficulty.
This meant the game was quite easy, so I challenged myself by doing most of the game without using potions.
In typical Shantae fashion, the increased attack speed game mechanic causes it to be harder and harder to attack airborne enemies/items as you level up, because the animations become shorter. A game like this desperately needs an auto-attack feature when you hold the attack button, but they used that keybind to do a mostly useless attack instead.
For most of the game the music was banging, the art looked nice, and the exploration felt fine. Bosses were a bit on the easy side mostly.
Then the game took a complete turn. There's a timed section where you have to defeat like... 30 waves of enemies or something in "5m 30s"... but you actually get time back after each wave. The first couple times I did it, I ran out of time completely :( After looking up advice, you're apparently meant to spam your magic dances (full screen attacks, often with obnoxious screen shake). After switching to that strategy, I finished the area with 4m 30s on the clock. Wow.
The next boss was literally a puzzle that just shot projectiles at you. There were 6 brains on screen, and you had to figure out the exact order to hit them in or they reset. Do this 3 times, and you're good. Pretty terrible boss design honestly.
And for the true final boss? It was two phases, and had an absurdly large health pool compared to the others. Bosses do NOT have visible health bars (boo!), so I had NO IDEA how close I was getting. I already broke my "no items" rule during the timed section so I could eat MP potions, and in this fight I used items to keep my HP up so I could face tank.
The second phase of the boss fight took place over a pit, and you had to jump between moving rocks to hit glowing weak points on a giant boss. Again, the best strategy was to just spam dance moves. The screen shake honestly became sickening from doing the same move repeatedly.
So the game definitely left me with a sour taste in my mouth at the end. It's too bad because I definitely liked aspects of it, especially the recurring fights against Risky Boots.
One final note: the game series still feels a bit too horny for suspiciously youthful characters, and body diversity is low. Most characters have gigantic spherical tits with bikini tops and their entire midriff showing. I'm no prude, but honestly the character design here is pretty copy/paste as it has always been. And I'll never not be creeped out by co-creator Matt Bozon saying that Shantae "has no official age, but we consider her an adult in every game". Feels like some pedo shit to me, chief.
The animated cutscenes were cool, by the way. Very well done.
Should you play it? Eh, it's on sale on Switch and decent enough. It took me about 8.5 hours to beat, and I mostly enjoyed it. Too bad the last 1-1.5 hours were a drag.
"Definitive Mode" is actually hard mode, and "Legacy Mode" is the normal difficulty.
This was really confusing, and I eventually restarted the game on the normal difficulty.
This meant the game was quite easy, so I challenged myself by doing most of the game without using potions.
In typical Shantae fashion, the increased attack speed game mechanic causes it to be harder and harder to attack airborne enemies/items as you level up, because the animations become shorter. A game like this desperately needs an auto-attack feature when you hold the attack button, but they used that keybind to do a mostly useless attack instead.
For most of the game the music was banging, the art looked nice, and the exploration felt fine. Bosses were a bit on the easy side mostly.
Then the game took a complete turn. There's a timed section where you have to defeat like... 30 waves of enemies or something in "5m 30s"... but you actually get time back after each wave. The first couple times I did it, I ran out of time completely :( After looking up advice, you're apparently meant to spam your magic dances (full screen attacks, often with obnoxious screen shake). After switching to that strategy, I finished the area with 4m 30s on the clock. Wow.
The next boss was literally a puzzle that just shot projectiles at you. There were 6 brains on screen, and you had to figure out the exact order to hit them in or they reset. Do this 3 times, and you're good. Pretty terrible boss design honestly.
And for the true final boss? It was two phases, and had an absurdly large health pool compared to the others. Bosses do NOT have visible health bars (boo!), so I had NO IDEA how close I was getting. I already broke my "no items" rule during the timed section so I could eat MP potions, and in this fight I used items to keep my HP up so I could face tank.
The second phase of the boss fight took place over a pit, and you had to jump between moving rocks to hit glowing weak points on a giant boss. Again, the best strategy was to just spam dance moves. The screen shake honestly became sickening from doing the same move repeatedly.
So the game definitely left me with a sour taste in my mouth at the end. It's too bad because I definitely liked aspects of it, especially the recurring fights against Risky Boots.
One final note: the game series still feels a bit too horny for suspiciously youthful characters, and body diversity is low. Most characters have gigantic spherical tits with bikini tops and their entire midriff showing. I'm no prude, but honestly the character design here is pretty copy/paste as it has always been. And I'll never not be creeped out by co-creator Matt Bozon saying that Shantae "has no official age, but we consider her an adult in every game". Feels like some pedo shit to me, chief.
The animated cutscenes were cool, by the way. Very well done.
Should you play it? Eh, it's on sale on Switch and decent enough. It took me about 8.5 hours to beat, and I mostly enjoyed it. Too bad the last 1-1.5 hours were a drag.
Reviewed on Jun 11, 2022