Shantae and the Pirate's Curse Game by Wayforward Reviewed by Philip "Pocket Squirrel" Wesley Size: 2315 Blocks Save: SD card backup, Three Save Files Released: 2014 Works with: 3DS, New 3DS ESRB Rated: Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes Rating Descriptions: E10+ Quick Opinion: Own! **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: The first Shantae title started life as a Super Nintendo concept back in 1996, but was never developed further. Many changes, most of them drastic, evolved the game until the very first Shantae title was released on the Nintendo Game Boy Color, published by Capcom, in 2002. The title was pretty hard to find and there was a limited amount of the game produced. This did not stop Wayforward from exploring the idea of putting out a sequel. In 2010, a sequel to the original game was finally released on the Nintendo DSi Ware service! When the Nintendo 3DS arrived, the very first Game Boy Color game was released on the Virtual Console service. It has been four years since the second game and twelve years since the first game. Since the time that the first game came out, Wayforward has continued to produce quality side scrolling games for portables and mobile systems with a wide variety of interesting mechanics. Before we go into the new game, it might be a good idea to take a look back at the previous two games in the series and the game mechanics they used. We will also be using a little bit of spoiler material here, so I suggest that you play the games in order. Shantae This game introduced us to the characters of Sequin Land and revolves around the discovery of Steam Technology. Risky Boots steals the new technology and then goes in search of magic stones to make it more powerful. We're introduced to the idea that Shantae's caretaker Mimic is a Relic Hunter who digs up ancient (Hmmm..) technology that existed from a time before magic. We are also introduced to the idea of the "Genie Realm," which won't be important for any of the other games until Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. Of course, Shantae wins the day, but that does not stop the push of Steam Engine Technology. This game features three mini-games, transformation based on dancing, a day and night cycle, and enemies take a zillion hits to kill. The game also has a "life system" and you lose a life when you fall into a pit. Honestly, that gets to be a bit irritating in my opinion. Shantae: Risky's Revenge This game kind of briefly acknowledges a few jokes from the first game and then sets up much more of a story focus. Shantae's "Uncle Mimic," as she calls him, finds a lamp. Risky steals the lamp and begins looking for Magic Seals that may unlock some power that the lamp has inside. Mimic tells Shantae not to go after Risky. Of course, the popularity of Relic Hunting has spawned other collectors of ancient artifacts to pop up. The better ones are known as "Barons" and there are three Barons in Sequin Land that might have these seals. Shantae sets out to recover those. This game does not end well for Shantae. If you have not played this title, I suggest that you do so before reading onwards as I have to spoil part of the ending of that game in order to explain the mechanics of this game. It is available on the Nintendo eShop, on the PC on STEAM, and the Apple iOS store as an extremely well done application. This game ditches the day and night cycle, has an easier to traverse world that also includes the ability to jump back and forth between layers of the screen. There are even more dialog moments and there are a lot of "fetch quests" to open up areas in the game. All of it takes place on the island that Scuttle Town is on. Also, Shantae now has the ability to swim and there is a visual cue to let you know when a pit will hurt you if you fall in it. The life system is gone, as it should be, and there is more of a "speed run" feel to the game. Risky's Revenge also ends on a cliff hanger. Shantae ends up as a normal human girl with no magical ability, other than her ability to use items and hit things with her hair. That lamp absorbs magic and you can kind of guess what happened when our magical heroine ends up facing off against such an item. It took four years of delays and development to get to this game and it will be the "final" game in the portable "trilogy" of Shantae, Shantae: Risky's Revenge, and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. Was the four year wait worth it? **************************************************************************** Gameplay Description: Shantae is being tormented by dark dreams of a lonely grave calling out to her. She has been having these dreams since Risky Boots used a Magic Stealing Lamp to turn Shantae into a human. When the Ammo Baron attacks, Shantae fights him and ends up in a bit of a jam. Risky Boots shows up again and demands that Shantae return her troops and weapons to her. Of course, Shantae has no idea what she is talking about, but a trip to Mimic's lab reveals that Risky's Tinkerbats are becoming "Cacklebats" due to a terrible amount of dispersed dark magic swelling around the grave of the Pirate Master. So, Shantae is tasked with finding and destroying pits of dark energy, finding maps for islands around her, and finding 20 hidden Cacklebats. Along the way, Shantae will find pirate equipment that allows her to access new areas and she will have to use the lamp from the previous game to recapture the Dark Magic inside of those Cacklebats. The majority of the game is a side scrolling, exploration based platformer with an emphasis on collection. The gameplay gets broken up with a few sections like an impromptu stealth section, and a section where you run through a gauntlet of obstacles that you can not fight against. The world is broken up into different island. Each island has a set amount of hidden Heart Squids (which you can collect to increase your health), Cacklebats, and a few mini dungeons, bosses, and so forth. There are instances where you need take objects to other characters to advance the plot as well. The basic flow of the game follows this formula: You get to a new island, find an event in the island, then find the main dungeon of the island. Each main dungeon contains a map of the dungeon, keys, and various obstacles to overcome before taking on a screen filling boss character in order to get another map to find the next island. In between these sections, you will collect money to upgrade your weapons and partake in sometimes funny, often slightly dark, story sequences. There are quite a few sections of the game that are tough because of spikes and other obstacles. Once you get the hang of it, you may be able to just soar through a lot of the game. I played through the game multiple times before doing this review and some areas are pretty frustrating the first time through, but you learn it and it looks impressive to do so. This is a sign of excellent level design and a fair sense of balance. There are a lot of little items I enjoyed that will have to get addressed in the Gameplay and Play Control section of this review. I would like to state that I did enjoy the game a lot. This is a pretty fun game and it feels great to revisit these characters and see how they have progressed since the very first game. Although the story of Shantae and the Pirate's Curse requires you to have some knowledge of the events from the second game to fully appreciate the story. Story elements aside, the game stands on its own as a challenging and interesting experience. Liked: I love the little references to the previous titles, the new powers and areas were superb. The platforming sections were great, the bosses have interesting patterns and are designed so that it is possible to take them down with out getting hit. The story is interesting and full of the same, slightly off, undertone of things like Bone or Adventure Time. Seriously, the world that Shantae inhabits is built on the remains of technology and we start seeing more of it appear. Also, Shantae seems to be the only Half-Genie. Something happened to prevent full Genies from living in the same dimension as the "people" of Sequin Land. If you read more in to the game, you are going to get some interesting hints and insight into Risky Boots, Shantae, Rottytops (Poor Rottytops), and many of the other characters in this game. Hated: There is a stealth section and a "running" section in the game that I feel were, by far, the weakest levels in the game. The game has a little bit of fan service in the character design that some people may feel uncomfortable with. If you are a person who was shocked and appalled by the costume Princess Leia had in Return of the Jedi, than you will probably feel the same way about the character designs in this game. (You also have my pity.) **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: The expanded resolution of the Nintendo 3DS is used to give more space for Shantae and this factors into the game play by allowing screen filling enemies and lush locales. Each island has a distinct theme to it: A lush tropical paradise, a graveyard, a frozen wasteland, a Hellish underworld of lost souls, and more! The character animation is smooth and everything moves at an excellent frame rate even in 3D. I have to comment on the 3D in this game because it is some of the best subtle 3D I have seen in a while. When in conversations with other main characters, there are superb character portraits with varied emotions and some visually creative character designs. The game has a very realized art style and world that works incredibly well for it. The enemies are all very animated and there is very little reuse of enemy assets. That said, some enemies have only evolved just slightly from their appearances in Risky's Revenge and that seems a little unfortunate. Liked: Excellent use of 3D in the environments and the little animations. For example, in the first area you play through, Shantae kicks up bits of dust when she jumps on stairs in the area. The dust clouds are on what appears to be two different layers giving them a three dimensional feel when the 3D is on. The particle effects in this game are superb. Another example would be the subtle moving in and out of layers that the floating, transparent skulls over bottomless pits do in the game. I loved the island navigation graphics with Risky. Everything seems so vibrant and alive... Hated: Except that the close up character sprite portraits do not move. I still want them to move, blink, or otherwise animate. Some of the enemies that are reused from previous games appear to be barely upgraded. **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: The newest addition to the game are small sound clips with Cristina Vee, the voice actor for Shantae. While that is pretty great, it would be even better if there were full voice acting or some sort of Banjo-Kazooie esque chatter with some of the characters. The voice acting is limited to a few phrases here and there from Shantae, but it would also help to have that limited voice acting on other characters as well. Even if it means that Matt Bozon would have to voice Mayor Scuttlebutt or they make Tomm Hulett voice Bolo. Just a little more voice acting would be some pretty great icing on an otherwise superb audio cake. The folly and sound effects are appropriate and have a good weight to them. When you hit something, it sounds like it has some force to it. Now let us talk about the music in this game. There are some subtle dub step drops mixed into some of the music but it works a lot better than that sentence sounds. The slow and moody compositions are superb, the action music and boss music is suitably intense, and there is not a bad track in the entire game. Some of it isn't very memorable though, but it is incredibly good. Let us face the awful truth here, Virt makes excellent music that fits the games he composes the music for and this is no exception. Liked: The music is always a high point in this series and there are some awesome tracks. Get a good pair of headphones and crank it up. Hated: There is a minimum of voice acting that feels more like a tease than anything else. Also, only have vocalizations and statements from Shantae makes the other characters seem a bit flat. **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: This game naturally feels like an evolution from Risky's Revenge and the inclusion of the Pirate Weapons is an inspired choice. The level design allows for a lot of creative exploration and the ability to choose how you upgrade allows people to make the game tougher or easier depending on how much time they put into it. When you beat the game the first time, there is a mode that is ready made for sequence breaking and speed running. In fact, the levels are designed so that starting in this mode means you can access the bosses in each main dungeon fairly quickly. It almost feels like there is not enough save points for all of the different ways to play through this game. Do you want to try and beat it with just two hearts? Try beating it in less than three hours? Go for it! The game is designed to be flexible and encourage multiple play through sessions. Navigation between islands is easy and it keeps track of the Heart Squids and Cacklebats that you have found on each island. However, the navigation between the bottom menu is dreadful. You have to tap left or right on the touch screen to move between the Inventory, Key Items, and Map. In order to use an item in your inventory, you need to tap it once and then tap it again to activate it. This is actually quite difficult to do in the heat of combat, especially when trying to do a two heart run on the game. The lack being able to conveniently select and use an item is troubling. Liked: Flexible game design means that there is plenty of replayability to this game! Hated: Selecting inventory via the touch screen is awkward in a bad way. **************************************************************************** Improve: The addition of blinking or slight moving animation in the close up character portraits would be excellent. Also, the addition of more voice acting would improve the game even more. But the biggest improvement would be to use the Circle Pad Pro attachment or the additions that the newest revision to the Nintendo 3DS adds. Mainly the ZL, ZR, and second slide pad/Camera Stick. It would be pretty simple to add too. Just let ZL and ZR allow you to switch between the Map, Inventory, and Key Items screen. You select items with the second slide pad/camera stick and then you push ZR and ZL together to activate the selected item in your Inventory. An even better use would be to move the Map screen to the SELECT button. Just tap the select button to display the map on the bottom screen and then tap SELECT again to hide the map. Tap ZL to switch between Inventory and Key Items. Select an Inventory item with the second slide pad/camera stick and tap ZR to use the item. Also, I want to talk a bit about the narrative. Some of the dialogue in this game just hints and teases at darker things under the surface of this bright colorful game. I play through these games waiting for that gut punch moment where some of the darker elements just click into place. The characters are there, the music is there, the graphics (especially later in the game) are there, and the narrative just continues to poke at the edges of what could be some pretty heart breaking revelations. This game came so close in spots and just seems to "dance" around obviously dark material. Shantae is a bundle of insecurities behind an otherwise young, hopeful, and trusting personality. When she hits the low point at the end of the second game, I was expecting her to grow more as a character in this game. Does she do that? Yes, but I feel that the story has earned a chance to make very bold character choices. If anything, it makes me all the more excited to see what Shantae's next adventure will hold for her and her friends. Another missed opportunity would be that there were not enough dungeon specific obstacles or hazards. In some levels, there are weird plant monsters that shoot your character around at high speed ala certain levels of Mighty Switch Force. I would have really loved to see a level with the odd gravity from Mighty Milky Way or an area with the plane jumping from Risky's Revenge. I feel that the "stealth" level would have been improved by having the level revolve around a switch that opens the doors. In that level, there could have been one more character to control and you could switch between the characters to find and hit the switches without getting caught. That would have been an interesting mechanic. Of course, I am saying all of this after it has taken about four years to produce this game. If people listened to me, they would never be able to release a game on time! RIYL: The easy answer would be Castlevania or Metroid. This game certainly has a narrative feel similar to Metroid Fusion or Metroid Zero Mission. If you enjoyed the previous Shantae games, you will love this game. The honest answer is that you will love this game if you enjoyed the Mega Man Zero or Mega Man ZX series of games. **************************************************************************** Final Words: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse does justice to the games that came before it while expanding the characters in its world in terms of depth. The only issues I have with the game are that it still has a bit of room to grow and the Inventory management is just awkward in this game due to the increased speed and fluidity of the game play. The navigation between levels on the boat was a wonderful call back to the first game town navigation. I thoroughly enjoyed this game and I feel that it is worth your time and hard earned gold to dive back into Sequin Land for this jaunty romp of a game. **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: ***** Graphics: **** Sound/Music: ***** Play Control/Game Design: **** Value: ***** Star Total: 69 Personal Opinion Merit: 22 Final Score: 91% Letter Grade: A ****************************************************************************