Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

I like pretty girls with big ol' tonhongerekoogers and metroidvania action platformers.

Pirate's Curse is the third game in the Shantae series, and so far the best one. It is a metroidvania like the others, but feels a lot more polished in every way. The graphics are gorgeous, with a mixture of pixelated and hand-drawn art, the music is yet again amazing, iconic and energetic, without becoming annoying to listen. The story is very light and the characters are charming, often making jokes and breaking the fourth wall in their own unique ways that fit their personality. The gameplay is solid, with responsive controls, fun levels and weapon upgrades. The power-ups you collect along the game feel better integraded than the magic of the previous ones, and once you get the hang of them, exploring becomes much faster and easier. Exploration is fun and encouraged, you'll be rewarded with something nice if you collect everything. The difficulty feels more balanced than the previous, not too easy but not too hard, some parts will be more challenging than others however, but it will be fun nonetheless. If you like metroidvanias and cute girls, I believe you'll have a blast with this game. It worked flawlessly on linux for me using wine 7.13.

It's basically a precision platformer with all the precision stripped out and replaced with jokes. A huge improvement on the standard precision platformer genre if you ask me. My only complaint is it can get a *bit* fanservicy. It only happens like, twice, you'll know it when you see it. Even by my (rather strict) standards on that sort of thing, it's both mild and short lived. The music is great, it's pretty, and overall just a light fun adventure. Even if you aren't normally into platformers like me, give this one a shot.

Shantae and the Pirates Curse is a solid metroidvania-style adventure. It features many fun and memorable characters and distinct locations. The gameplay is varied with most being platforming, but with combat challenges and even a stealth section included. The platforming controls feel tight enough for all the challenges the game has to offer. At the beginning the combat feels tedious and unsatisfying, but once some upgrades are acquired it becomes quite fun. The different islands are fun to go through for the first time, but due to the games structure, one will be forced to back-track to them even multiple times in some cases. This structure would, in my opinion, have necessitated a better fast-travel system. The new upgrades often open up new areas to explore while also being fun to use and the game features many secrets. I got close but going for 100% completion seemed incredibly tedious due to the amount of back-tracking required. The music is very good and the art style is fun and full of character.

It's a metroidvania with a pun filled, sligtly risqué, completely bonkers story that still traps you in. Full of references and some well thought out callbacks to the genre, previous games (which I haven't played), adult themes and a lot of games. One of the weapons is literally a callback to a famous hard metroidvania game. Wife and I have been loving it!