Shantae and the Pirate's Curse has some great ideas, but ultimately feels like an inferior version of Risky's Revenge. Everything aside from the writing feels like a watered down version of what existed in the previous title. Gone is the charming dancing mechanic in favor of... holding a button to gather mist and scents. It's even more situational than the dancing mechanic and is notShantae and the Pirate's Curse has some great ideas, but ultimately feels like an inferior version of Risky's Revenge. Everything aside from the writing feels like a watered down version of what existed in the previous title. Gone is the charming dancing mechanic in favor of... holding a button to gather mist and scents. It's even more situational than the dancing mechanic and is not nearly as charming as Shantae's signature dancing. Aside from one or two themes, the music seems lackluster and rather forgettable compared to the first two games. It sounds like Shantae, but I don't remember any new tunes off the top of my head. Shantae's physics seem very wonky this time around, making platforming feel less natural. The enemies hit way harder this time around, hearts and healing items are almost non-existent, and hearts only fill your health a quarter heart at a time. It is a significant downgrade despite technically having more hit points than in the previous entries. You have more incentive to just make it to the next checkpoint and immediately kill yourself to gain full health again because your healing items are just too scarce and precious, making the game's difficulty feel cheap and unearned. You can buy potions from the shop, but you'll want to be saving your money for the expensive combat upgrades. Now, it's not a particularly hard game, but you will die. Many times.
Of course one could argue the whole point of the gameplay is to support what's happened to Shantae in the story. Making her feel significantly weaker and more vulnerable. I will give them credit where it is due, however I think they flew too close to the sun, as it made me less immersed in the story and derailed my focus again and again. It's a tough one to get right, and everyone is different when it comes to the difficulty they enjoy, so I'll leave that up to the individual.
Traversal through the overworld has been even more segmented than Risky's Revenge, which has been taken a step too far. It tends to make things feel much more disconnected and makes exploration feel a little less exciting than it use to. Labyrinths are criminally short this time around and are intellectually bankrupt compared to the first two games. The most interesting Labyrinth of the bunch this time around is one of the earlier ones with Risky's hat. As you progress through and restore power to the center room, it changes into an air current, which carries you to the upper levels. Unfortunately, this is about as good as the labyrinths get this time around.
On the topic of Risky's items you get in the place of the transformation abilities, they leave a bit to be desired. The two that are great additions to Shantae's kit are Risky's boots (very funny) and her hat. These felt very satisfying and were incorporated very naturally into her moveset. The other are not nearly as exciting and don't get much use. The plummeting shimtar move gets pretty much replaced by the cannon by the end of the game, and the pistol is useless in combat with a slow firing rate and terrible damage, which makes it better suited for activating distant switches for solving puzzles. Overall, a very mediocre kit without the charm and variation of the transformations.
Now as for the praise I can give Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, like I said earlier, the writing in the game is top-notch. Every character gets fleshed out in a meaningful way and they all contribute to the overarching story with little moments to shine. Risky is given some much welcomed nuance, and acts as your companion/captain across the seas. The dialogue is very entertaining and it makes as many small but meaningful callbacks to the first game as possible. They even bring back every single old enemy from the first game and update their sprites; this aspect of the game makes a great love letter to the series.
It also has a great pay-off to the ending of Risky's Revenge and the story feels very much like a fitting companion piece to it. Everything that was set up in Risky's Revenge has a continuation, no matter how big or small.
In conclusion, the story delivers a great follow-up to an amazing game, but the game itself falls short of that. In its own right, it's still a fairly enjoyable experience, and it even comes with a NG+ mode which increases its already lengthier playtime. However, it's subpar overworld and labyrinth structure, inferior control, and lackluster items hold it back from what is otherwise a remarkable experience.… Expand
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