I’ve been meaning to try a Shantae game for a long time in order to know more about the franchise and I finally got the chance. Honestly? I’m not really into it, I liked this game but that’s it
Gameplay
Overall, the gameplay is pretty okay. There’s not much to mention here and I like the power-ups but I felt limited by the game most of the time until I got the cannon and boots, which were super fun to use but I’m not really a fan of how you have to activate the boots
At the same time, I felt like the cannon practically makes any difficulty in collecting some of the late-game items practically inexistent. For some hearts, I had to think out of the box on how to use the boots and my limited jump, while the cannon erases any need for that
The bosses are fun (fuck the dragon though) and I liked them overall, I kind of wish there was some kind of boss rush mode though
Now let’s focus on what aspects of the game annoyed me to no end during my playthrough. I hated every time I had to go to a new island because it meant they would throw a new stupid puzzle at me that would require to go through the same damn zones AGAIN and in the slowest possible way, it’s just tedious. The puzzles are so damn annoying, they all feel like an excuse to prolong the game’s playtime and I’m not proud of how many times I had to look up what to do to proceed in the game so I wouldn’t spend more time than needed to find out where to go, which is not a good point in favour of the game’s design
Plus, I hate having to go through the same parts all the damn time, and oh my god this game is merciless, it’s so boring having to do the same zones all the time. It’s literally one of my biggest problems with metroidvanias of this type, and Shantae makes it even worse in this case
Story
Of course, since it’s a metroidvania there’s not much time for dialogues or to develop a story. The plot was fine and takes over from where the previous two games finished, from what I can imagine. I really liked allying with Risky Boots and the whole struggle of Shantae having to help her and recover Risky’s weapons (and later her own genie powers)
Characters
Shantae has forever been a popular character in the modern media and I’m glad I could finally see how she behaves and what her personality is like. She’s quite a lovable character and has many fun gags, so I really appreciated her
Risky Boots is probably my favourite character in this franchise though, she’s much more than a villain and I really like how her character goes. Plus, definitely my favourite design too. She should kiss Shantae already though, what are you waiting for, girl
Rottytops has a super cute design too and I liked her, but there’s not really much about her in the game except the infamous running sequence, which, for some reason, I beat way too easily. Sky is another interesting character too, and I like her design as well
But, oh boy, don’t get me started on the sexualization. I knew what I was getting myself into when I started this game but I hate so much how they sexualize every single girl in the game, ew
Music
The music is pretty vibrant and cool, not my type but a very solid soundtrack with many good themes. I must say, I don’t think it will live on my mind for long though
My completion
Huh, I would liked to try to get near 100% completion but… my god, these achievements are merciless: no-hit bosses (may i remind you, you can’t even save in a different file to try later), speedruns, a challenge of not getting additional health, etc… thanks, but no thanks. I would rather spend all that time on getting through my backlog, specially considering that they don’t bring anything new to the table, it’s just perfecting the same game multiple times
Silvy 