Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut

Really fun blend of metroidvania, platforming, exploration and puzzle solving. Story is pretty light hearted and straightforward. Music is excellent, I bought the OST off bandcamp right after completion of the game. While you don't need a walkthrough guide for all of the game it does help point you in the right direction. I just kept a Gamefaqs walkthrough open and referenced it any time I felt lost.

Eight hours addictive arcade play with adorable enemy models, funny story and wonderful graphic that bring me memories from my childhood when i played games on my pegasus (hardware clone of the Nintendo Famicom).

First things first. If you haven't played the original Game Boy Color installment you may think Risky's Revenge is an OK or even good game. I played the first game before playing this one and was very dissappointed with all of the changes that were made. The Gameboy Color original was a pretty tough game. Not impossible by any stretch but there are many places that you simply cannot run and whip your way through without getting killed. Instead you have to be mindful of every enemie's attack patterns and deal with them accordingly which at times can be tiresome. Risky's Revenge aimed to fix that but turned the difficulty dial all the way down to zero. Enemies no longer pose any kind of substantial threat and there is no fear of dying. On top of that the level and labrynth layouts are deplorable and not a whole lot of fun to traverse. With the exception of the Squid Baron which is the first boss, the other bosses including Risky Boots are a complete joke with super weak patterns. Most of them are won by whipping until the boss jumps, then repeat. There isn't even a boss in the second labrynth, and it's not even a labrynth! It's a tower with 10 levels! The music isn't even close to as good but that's a minor nitpick. Overall sound quality is below par because it's a port of a DS game. Overall gameplay is boring because Shantae is so over powered even at the beginning and the enemies are all dumbed down. You no longer have to perform dance moves to the rythum to change form which is probably good for most people. That being said this installment introduces you to characters and story that greatly enhances the next game (the Pirate's Curse) if you know it going in. For that alone it is worth playing. I couldn't wait for the game to end but I'm glad I played it because the Pirate's Curse is excellent much like the first installment and I'm glad that I am familiar with the story and characters introduced in this game. So suffer though this one then enjoy the next one.

This game's contols are just aweful (especially when trying to jump from rope to rope, she sometimes just doesnt grab on), not only that, but the camera is up so close that you cant really see but a couple of feet in front of Shantae making enemies sometimes respawn if you move back just a little bit. The map is incredibly confusing, and the characters are rather dull and forgetable. I have put in about 3 hours into the game, and it has not gotten better at all. I really wanted to like this game, but it feels like a chore to play it. Pirate's curse on the other hand fixes most of these problems and is a much better game.

happy? I reviewed the game... bug off