Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

the game holds up great for being a 2015 basically eshop filler game, the music and visuals are great, and the gameplay holds up surprisingly well, and for me this game is just in every aspect better than half genie hero

...and it's got a really good soundtrack! Also all those innuendo-type gags which might or might not really fit into the whole thing but thats just my opinion. The dark magic collectibles are NOT QUITE optional if you're looking to try this one out.

Shantae and the pirate's curse is the third game from the series about this charming genie and the mission to protect her town, a port of the original game for Nintendo 3DS. If you have played any game from the series before you know what you will get, it's a very reliable franchise in terms of what it will deliver. If not, on this game you discover this cute genie that can use her hair to whip her enemies, moving through less than a dozen levels as she uncovers powerups, beats minibosses, and chats with friends and rivals she knew from previous games. a fully defined world that allows the series to focus more on the design and the silly but effective humor than on anything else. It's a winning formula: Despite the light fanservice and the casual nature of it, playing a Shantae game is always a blast. Killer music, cool graphics, always with a couple of challenging parts to 100% it if the game feels too easy. There's a continuity to the stories however. On the last one Shantae lost her genie magic and on this one she has to work together with her main rival Risky Boots in order to stop a bigger menace, and that's where the game disappoints a bit. Not in terms of the story, because the story is always kept in this unserious tone (even if it's against the great evil taking over the entire world) but in terms of what the game allows to do. Instead of actually working with our frenemy, Risky is just a glorified chaffeur for most of the game. And even if instead of genie powers we get to borrow Risky's pirate weapons as our power ups, we barely see her dressed as a pirate in the entire adventure, normally this wouldn't be an issue but you can see the design sort of backtracked in such a decision, when Shantae uses the weapons her attire does change. I'm not sure if such kind of decisions are part of the comfort zone Shantae is happy to stay on, but the baseline is so good it's really hard to argue against it. As said earlier, the game is a blast.

Fun, exciting, challenging, and fun puzzles to solve. What more could you ask for?

My introduction to the Shantae series, and an outstanding one! The PLATFORMING is precise and (skill issue of my part aside) quite challenging. Truly feels like the heart of the game and every tool you get expands your moveset in a very intuitive way. The EXPLORATION feels mostly like a puzzle, each time you find an area where you cant go yet, it snaps back to mind the very moment you unlock the needed item. The DESIGNS are great, and I dont think I need to elaborate. Cant recomment enough, if you enjoyed Hollow Knight or similar games, you probably will like this a lot! I enjoyed so much that ive kept backtrackin until I got 90% completion (and intend to try 100%)