Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U) Review

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a charming little game from Nintendo EAD Tokyo and 1-UP Studio that is sure to be overlooked by many and overshadowed by the Wii U’s bigger releases (like this one). This is both a shame and somewhat appropriate, as Treasure Tracker feels like an indie game; a AAA Nintendo indie game based on the most well-known video game franchise in the world. This bizarre identity is just another aspect of Treasure Tracker’s charm, something the game seems to exude in abundance. Captain Toad is an engaging, atmospheric, and unique puzzle game that thankfully shows that Nintendo is still willing to take some risks with their iconic Mario universe, something we haven’t really seen since the original Super Mario Galaxy back in 2007. It’s nice to see something so unique suddenly emerge from the recently stagnating Mario universe, even if Treasure Tracker does borrow a lot of elements from the EAD Tokyo-developed Super Mario games (that is, all the 3D Super Mario games since and including Super Mario Galaxy).

                If you’ve played the Captain Toad mini-games in Super Mario 3D World for Wii U, than you’ve played the basis for Treasure Tracker. Treasure Tracker is essentially an entire game of those kinds of levels, except a full execution of the concept and a far more fleshed-out experience. The game features an incredibly simplistic narrative that involves Toadette being whisked away by a giant bird (really novel stuff for Nintendo here) and Captain Toad trekking off to save her (and collecting Power Stars along the way, because why not?). But wait! In an innovative twist for Nintendo, this narrative shifts a bit later in the game to Captain Toad being the one captured by the bird (named Wingo) and Toadette taking on the role of the intrepid adventurer tasked with saving him. Eventually, the game switches back and forth between the fun-guy and fun-gal (I’m so sorry) and although (spoiler warning) ultimately the endgame does come down to Captain Toad having to save a damseled Toadette and get the big hero moment, I appreciate Nintendo giving Toadette some time to shine.

Adorable Duo

Beyond the straightforward narrative, the game has a cute storybook-like format where players select one level after the next by turning the pages of a book. The levels themselves are what Nintendo calls “mini-universes”; essentially living dioramas that can be thoroughly explored, manipulated, and viewed from every angle in order for Captain Toad and Toadette to pluck, scour, and track down every treasure within (see what I did there). Besides dioramas, the environments in the game also remind me of something else as well: Lego sets. Also, those little miniature environment toys from the ‘90s like Polly Pocket and Mighty Max. Also, childhood. The miniature worlds have a great sense of charm and it’s an engaging and satisfying process to first view an environment from all angles, figure out what to do, and then conquer each world, discovering every little nook and secret along the way (including the returning hidden Luigi sprites from Super Mario 3D World and also some other neat Easter Eggs). There’s a lot of variety in the level designs as well and the formula is often changed up with something like a minecart ride through a dank cavern (where the Toads can throw turnips at enemies), the exploration of a steam-powered train during a fierce blizzard, or a battle against a gigantic, beautifully-rendered, and whimsically-animated dragon inside of a volcano.

These levels throw several mechanics into the mix throughout the game, such as making ample use of the GamePad’s touchscreen to move certain platforms around, spin large valves that manipulate certain pieces of the environment, and aim with in a first-person view on the minecart levels and also when using a stand-alone turnip cannon that is used to unleash vegetarian justice on the game’s baddies. I appreciate gimmicks like touching and blowing on the GamePad to manipulate platforms in a slower-paced, more methodical game like this than I do in the main series Super Mario platformers, where I get annoyed when this kind of stuff gets in the way of a smooth platforming experience. Overall, this kind of gimmickry works better in a puzzle game like Captain Toad and while none of it is drastically innovative or game-defining, these elements are often used in clever ways and add a certain tactile pleasure to the experience as well as contribute to its overall great sense of charm.

A "mini-universe" in Treasure Tracker

Besides all this, several other mechanics from the EAD Tokyo Super Mario games and the Super Mario series in general show up, such as Beep Blocks, Flip Panels, and Donut Lifts. The Captain and Toadette also utilize a handful of power-ups including the Super Mushroom (serving the same function here as always), the Double Cherry from 3D World, and a new Super Pickax item that can be used to smash through blocks and enemies and shares an animation and theme song with the Hammer of Donkey Kong (and Super Smash Bros.) fame. The Toads can use these power-ups as well as Super Mario Bros. 2-style turnips and their environment to overcome a plethora of foes from the Mario universe as well as some brand new ones unique to Treasure Tracker. It’s actually a fascinating dynamic encountering an enemy in this game because Toad and Toadette cannot jump and also cannot run very fast and therefore a player must find clever ways of outmaneuvering and defeating these creatures which usually aren’t much of a threat at all for Mario. With Mario, most of these enemies are a single quick jump away from defeat, but for the Toads, even a simple Goomba can be a tense encounter. Several different options often exist for defeating a baddie: do you hasten to pluck a turnip from the ground (and hope it’s not just a coin) or do you try to manipulate the environment in some way, such as by falling off a higher ledge onto their head or by luring them into a hazard? With usually only one Super Mushroom at most hidden somewhere in a level, making a mistake can often be costly. This adds a novel spin on the Mario universe and I quite enjoy the “fish out of water” experience. In addition to well-designed levels and clever, new kinds of challenges, like most EAD-developed Nintendo games, Treasure Tracker’s gameplay is impeccably polished and satisfying, and everything from collecting a coin to the satisfying pluck of a vegetable patch to touching the screen to spin a valve just feels great.

                Another area with a hefty coat of polish is Captain Toad’s presentation, including both wonderful animations and beautiful, appealing visual design that often pops with personality. One area where Treasure Tracker really shines in particular for me (and something I’m actually surprised by) is in its atmosphere. Remember earlier when I called this game a triple-A Nintendo indie game? The game really does feel like some strange, mysterious thing at times and I think its short development time actually benefited the game’s minimalistic, interesting atmosphere. For one thing, the game’s art design, despite some occasional levels where objects and backgrounds can look blurry and jaggy at times, is gorgeous and every world is intricately detailed. Most environments are just a cube floating in the sky, but they are often enveloped in flower petals blowing in the wind, enwrapped in vines and dotted with flora, or surrounded by beautiful blue skies, purple and pink twilight, or brilliantly starry skies. The game seems like it’s running on an enhanced Super Mario 3D World engine, with a similar art-style but much more detail packed into each corner of an environment (this could also be due to the fact that the levels are smaller and thus can afford to be more graphically detailed). Some of the environments in this game are truly fantastical and at times I almost wished they were levels in a more traditional Super Mario platformer (these locales are great in Captain Toad, but I would also love to explore expanded versions of them with Mario). One level took me aback with a beautiful nighttime, particle-filled forest scene, complete with chirping crickets. Other levels consist of onion-domed spires and floating carpets amid tranquil skyscapes. Another environment is a self-contained fresh water spring flanked by hollowed-out logs inhabited by cute little ants and complete with a pristine jet of water that shoots up and creates a rainbow. In addition to the regular levels, there are brief story segue portions that allow us to take a stroll through a gorgeous environment before setting up a campsite. These scenes serve no real gameplay function, but they have a wonderful sense of atmosphere and are such a lovely detail that adds a boatload of extra charm to the experience. The game’s largely minimalist soundtrack does a good job of supporting its atmosphere with several ambient tracks that majestically support many of these beautiful environments; most of my favorite levels in the game were accompanied by either this track or this one. The game just has this really interesting, unique, sometimes mesmerizingly enchanting vibe and it’s really hard to put it into words…I’d recommend experiencing what I mean for yourself!

Enchanting

                My experience with Treasure Tracker was overall a positive one, but it also wasn’t without some notable hang-ups. This is a very subjective thing, but for some reason I would often get notably anxious when playing this game. I struggle with general anxiety in my day to day life a great deal and it’s often a mystery as to why certain things in particular trigger it so badly, and thus it’s also hard to put my finger on what exactly about Captain Toad made me anxious as honestly it’s mostly quite an inviting, chilled-out game. However, I think my anxiety at least in large part comes from much of the game revolving around the path forward being obscured from the player and having to shift the camera to get a better view; not being able to see what’s ahead on such a frequent basis put me on edge a lot of the time. Of course, this is a key aspect of the game’s design and I’m not saying it in itself is a flaw or a poorly-designed aspect, but in my subjective experience it made this game uncomfortable for me at times (and in this game’s case, I don’t think “discomfort” is what the designers were going for). On a more objective level, there were certain times where I felt like a good view was simply unachievable and moreover I found myself wishing there was an additional camera view. Let me explain: there are two camera views in the game, a zoomed-out and a zoomed-in one. I found the zoomed-out one to be a little too zoomed-out at times, but the zoomed-in one would likewise be sometimes too zoomed-in and not offer a clear enough view of the action. Therefore, I would have appreciated a third, middle camera option in between these two views, but perhaps this would have been too cumbersome to program given the design of the game. I also got a little frustrated throughout my playthrough because there are no checkpoints in levels, and although the game’s collectible “Super Gems” (which there are three of hidden in each level and are used to unlock future levels, though not all are required to simply reach the end credits) save after being collected once, I’m the type who liked to do an optimal run of each level and collect everything in one run and failing late into one of the longer stages in the game and having to start all over again would get tiring. But it should be said that this was frustration that I brought on myself and wasn’t exactly the game’s fault. On another note, as much as I appreciate some of the game’s more atmospheric music tracks and think they supplement the experience very well, overall the soundtrack is a bit lackluster and doesn’t stand out too much. There doesn’t seem to be enough variety in the music selection and I found myself quickly growing tired of the same small selection of main level themes. None of it is of poor quality, mind, but there’s also not much that is particularly memorable, except for the game’s main theme (which I also got tired of hearing so much) and the remixes from the main series Super Mario games (there are a lot of new versions of songs from the fantastic Super Mario 3D World soundtrack as well as some other tracks from throughout the Super Mario series).

Finally, the game’s bonus levels leave a lot to be desired, and if you’d rather not have them spoiled than I would skip this paragraph. If a player has save data from Super Mario 3D World on their Wii U, they get to play through four levels from that game as Captain Toad, but while this is a novel idea, these levels drag on for too long with the slow-moving Captain Toad and obviously weren’t designed for him. All of the other bonus levels (except for one, which I’ll get to) are simply stages that are recycled from the game’s main “episodes” but with a few twists, such as having to track down all the members of the Toad Brigade and finish the level with them in tow or being tasked to finish a level with a mummified Toad (known as a Mummy-Me) chasing the player throughout the whole stage. These stages offer some mostly satisfying new challenges for previously-visited levels, but ultimately they are just the same level again. At the end of it all is the “Champion’s Road” of this game: “Mummy-Me Maze Forever”, a series of fifty consecutive mazes with semi-randomized layouts (this Mummy-Me Maze concept previously appeared as a bonus game that would randomly appear after completing a level in the game’s normal episodes) that get progressively harder that a player has to complete all while being chased by Mummy-Mes mirroring Captain Toad’s every move. This level was satisfying to finally complete after many, many attempts, but I found it incredibly tedious and was more than ready to give up after just a few attempts. Trust me, you will rage here. I stuck it out though and eventually bested it, but I definitely prefer the aforementioned level from 3D World (or the Grandmaster Galaxy and Special 8-Crown in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D Land, respectively); replaying those over and over again wasn’t so bad because after learning the level I could get back to where I was in a short amount of time, but Captain Toad’s gauntlet is far lengthier and also relies partly on luck. I usually love the addition of this kind of “ultimate test of skill” level that has appeared in all of EAD Tokyo’s Super Mario games (except for the original Super Mario Galaxy), but Captain Toad’s version is probably the most evil challenge they’ve devised yet. That aside, to be honest, I’m getting sick of the “remix” bonus levels that are in every EAD Tokyo Super Mario game (including the Prankster Comet challenges in the Galaxy games). They are bonus levels, so I can’t complain too much and they do add some satisfying challenges to the experience, but they’re more tiresome than engaging at this point for someone like me who has thoroughly played all of these games. I actually prefer the way the 2D Super Mario games do it: just one final bonus world with around eight original levels that take a lot of skill to get through. As I said, I also typically enjoy the singular “ultimate test of skill” levels that EAD Tokyo brought into the mix.

This game is pretty

                Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a novel experience from Nintendo and I’d like to see more stuff like it; smaller, unique projects that deliver a new kind of experience. An adventure with Mario enemies and themes but with the titular plumber, the princess, and the Koopa King nowhere to be seen is very refreshing and playing as the often adorable and charming Captain Toad and Toadette duo is an interesting new experience. Treasure Tracker definitely shows its short development time (despite being a surprisingly lengthy game with a lot to see and do), but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as its minimalist approach is a big part of its charm and its “indie feeling” lends a unique experience to Nintendo’s arsenal. Captain Toad’s overall design and concept is quite unlike anything I’ve experienced before (besides, of course, the handful of Captain Toad levels from Super Mario 3D World) and it’s nice to see that Nintendo’s internal developers can still come up with something so fresh, even if the experience does still feel a bit too similar in ways to the EAD Tokyo Super Mario platformers a lot of the time, and borrows a lot structurally from those games. While I’m growing tired of the EAD Tokyo formula (as fantastic as most of their Super Mario games have been), this game is still an experience I enjoyed and one that also managed to deliver something novel. Captain Toad is a little morsel of delight that has a surprising amount of depth to it and is certainly a worthy treasure to add to your Wii U collection…*sigh*, I did it again…please don’t think too poorly of me.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Wii U…duh) Review

This review is going to a bit more informal than usual; originally I wasn’t even going to call this a review, but more just a “thoughts and impressions” kind of thing. I’m not going to explain or cover everything in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U in detail and am going to assume the reader (i.e. you) already has some knowledge of the game and the game’s content in this case. Above all else, this is mainly just about the aspects of the game that particularly stood out to me. With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the newest Smash experience.

My experience with Super Smash Bros. dates back to the original game on Nintendo 64, which I fondly remember playing after school when it first released and also with friends many other times. It was such a surprising and novel game back then, and even though at the time I had never played a Metroid game and certainly had no idea who the hell Captain Falcon was, I had a blast nonetheless playing as Kirby and Samus Aran, unlocking everything, and doing all those “Break the Targets” and “Board the Platforms” levels. Later on Super Smash Bros. Melee cranked the series up to 11 and established the mold that the franchise would take the form of from then on. Super Smash Bros. Brawl built on what Melee established, not quite being another huge leap forward, but simply cramming more into what Melee had while also adding several new elements. Now, with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, it’s pretty much that same game again, except stuffed with more characters, more stages, more music, new modes and uber-polished gameplay that merges Brawl’s casual party game approach with Melee’s more technical skill-based approach. The result is…well, Super Smash Bros., now with the Duck Hunt Dog and Mega Man. That is to say, it’s one part polished, unorthodox fighting game crammed with stuff that is best enjoyed with friends and one part Nintendo museum. I think for me at least, however, the novelty of this series has worn off. I was excited about the game when gameplay was first shown off and loved every second of those character reveal trailers and all the speculation that went along with the game’s pre-release hype, but as the game’s launch got closer and closer, I found myself a bit apathetic. I was going to pick it up day one, but wasn’t necessarily overly excited for it and honestly sort of got sick of hearing about it after a while. Personally, I get much more excited for a new Metroid or Zelda game than for a big crossover that aims to make me nostalgic for those experiences. There’s just not much mystery when it comes to Smash anymore, especially thanks to the wonder (and the bane) that is the leaky internet. But I digress. While Smash Wii U has certainly had less of an impact on me than any of its predecessors, it’s still certainly a well-made game with a lot that I admire about it and a lot that I am fond of (and not so fond of) within it.

Multiplayer is still one of the most important aspects of Smash Bros. and thanks to the inclusion of up to eight-player battles, the game is now more a party pleaser than ever before. Online works better than in Brawl (honestly, this is mainly going by the word on the street since I barely used Brawl’s online, but I’m aware that most unanimously agree that it was shit), but unfortunately every single mode barring For Glory 1v1 was met with varying degrees of lag when I tried it all out, some of it hilariously unplayable and some of it manageable but still far from ideal. Unfortunately, if just one person has a bad connection, it ruins it for everyone. Luckily, 1v1 works mostly great and I’ve been able to get in a hundred matches here, mostly getting my ass kicked, but also winning a passable amount and having some fun encounters with strangers I will likely never encounter again. Although I should mention that, weirdly, my most recent 1v1 session was met with lag in almost every match I played; I don’t think this was on my end since I have a wired connection, but it’d also be a weird coincidence. But luckily and most importantly, online with friends in my experience works flawlessly as of this writing. I play with two friends and we all have good connections and I can recall maybe one instance of brief stuttering but otherwise every match has run as smoothly as if we were in the same room (it should be noted that every match we’ve played has been a stock battle with all items turned off). It’s great to be able to jump into a match with friends and not have to always gather together (because who wants to see their friend’s stupid faces, amiright? I kid, I kid).

Chaos!

As for everything else in Smash U…sigh…ok, I’m not going to go over it all in detail, but mainly just point out the stuff I notably like and dislike, because there’s a lot of stuff here. First off, and this should go without saying, the character roster is massive and it is spectacular. Besides being able to have a sparring match between Mario, Sonic, Mega Man and PAC-MAN, all the newcomers are excellent additions to the roster and each is as unique as the last. Villager and Wii Fit Trainer are hilarious and creative inclusions, and others like Little Mac, Bowser Jr.+ the Koopalings, Palutena, and Rosalina and Luma are all great additions that make sense. Having a little known character like Shulk will hopefully increase exposure to the hard-to-find Wii gem Xenoblade Chronicles (which is getting a port to the New 3DS later this year, although I’d still recommend playing that game on a big screen, which suits the game’s epic scope more) and Duck Hunt is the craziest, funnest surprise character the series has seen yet. As for the stages, I generally like all the new ones, which are vibrant, detailed and meticulously crafted fighting arenas. There do seem to be too many overly gimmicky stages, however, and an option to simply turn off hazards like the Yellow Devil of Mega Man fame on the Wily Castle stage would have been ideal (the option to choose a flat final destination variant of each stage is a nice, if imperfect, compromise though). Disappointingly, there are less brand new stages here than in Brawl and more returning stages than ever before. I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with this (it’s not only about always having more) if it weren’t for my other problems with the stage selection. This is my personal taste, but some of the choices for returning stages here are…eh. I would have gladly seen creative and memorable stages like the Wind Waker Pirate Ship from Brawl (which would have made perfect sense, since The Wind Waker HD just came out on Wii U a little over a year ago) return instead of the bland Mario Circuit stage from Brawl (which feels out of place next to its shiny new replacement one from Mario Kart 8), two nearly identical Animal Crossing stages, and that Kid Icarus level from Brawl that nobody likes. There’s more stages than ever before, but the selection feels smaller than in Brawl somehow, thanks to the prevalence of returning stages but also because there’s a lot of “sameiness” in the stage selection (two Skyworld stages, two Animal Crossing ones with a near-identical aesthetic, two Mario Kart ones, two lava Metroid stages, two Wuhu Island-based ones, etc.). However, I do love the variety that stages such as Gaur Plain from Xenoblade Chronicles and the Duck Hunt arena add to the selection. Ultimately, I feel that Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is a culprit here, as I would have loved to have gotten some of that version’s new stages in HD and also some of its returning ones.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I passed on the 3DS version and wish it never existed (I did spend a good chunk of time with the 3DS version’s demo though). All it seems to have done is rob the Wii U version of content and I hate having this newest Smash’s content split between two versions. It makes Smash Wii U feel less comprehensive due to its general lack of Nintendo’s handheld history, and I like Nintendo’s handheld history, I like it a lot in fact…but I don’t want to have to buy a watered-down version with an inferior control system to celebrate it. This is a selfish choice and I recognize that many who don’t own a Wii U appreciate the handheld version and I can understand its portability appeal, but for me personally, I’d rather Smash Bros. stay as a single home console release.

Characters!

The next main point for me to hit on is the game’s soundtrack, which is a massive 400+ plus songs, with a great number returning from previous Smash titles, but also with a wealth of new remixes, new original songs, and “new” unremixed songs that weren’t in past Smash games as well. Similar to stages, there seems to be less new music remixes here than there were in Brawl, but with nearly 150 new remixes and plenty of other great music it’s harder to complain here than with the stage selection. Still, it does seem like a lot of content in this game has been reused from past titles, which makes this newest Smash Bros. inherently feel a little less new than past titles, and less like its own game and more like a huge expansion on what came before. That said, I love the overall comprehensive nature of the soundtrack and have had a blast just listening to the in-game sound test and editing my music favorites list and fiddling with the My Music feature, which lets players set how often songs play on every stage (all of which is very, very appreciated). Several of the new remixes rock: some of my favorites include the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time “Gerudo Valley” remix and Spirit Tracks “Full Steam Ahead” remix, the “Duck Hunt Medley”, every single Mega Man remix, and just about everything Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Yuzo Koshiro worked on. Other remixes are not so much my cup of sleepytime herbal tea with a touch of milk and sugar. I admire artists being creative here but I think a bit too many liberties were taken with some songs, and in some cases wish the original track was included instead (luckily, in many cases both a remix and the original track are included, which I appreciate). Truth be told, even if I can appreciate a good remix, I almost always prefer original songs to their remixes and this couldn’t be more true in cases such as the “Try, Try Again” remix from Mario and Luigi: Dream Team, which isn’t necessarily bad, just much inferior to the original in my opinion (Shimomura’s only blemish here, and for my money probably ever, so we’ll let it slide). When it comes to song selection in an individual series, there seems to be a lack of variety in many cases, with an overwhelming focus on endlessly remixing the most iconic themes from each game. It makes sense to remix the most recognizable theme from a series for Smash Bros., but as someone who is very intimate with the likes of Zelda and Kirby, it pains me to know of all the other fantastic tracks that are being ignored in favor of yet another Legend of Zelda “Main Theme” cover or “Green Greens” remix (as good as these remixes often are). But nowhere is this more apparent or annoying than in the tiring seven remixes of the freakin’ Donkey Kong Country “Jungle Hijinx” theme that’s we’ve all heard one zillion trillion times before. This wouldn’t be so offensive to me if these three hundred versions of the same damn song didn’t take the place of the countless other possible inclusions or remixes from the varied and fantastic soundtracks of the Donkey Kong Country games (sure, we get a couple of other songs, but most are just taken from Brawl and even then there are not a lot). Three of these “Hijinx” remixes are from past Smash games, so those can be excused, but the other four being included at the expense of something new cannot be. Most face-palm worthy for me personally is the fact that two songs were chosen from the sublime masterpiece that is the Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze soundtrack and one of them is the goddamn “Jungle Hijinx” remix again, which only appears as basically an Easter Egg in like three bonus levels in Tropical Freeze. This…just makes me cry; like, it literally hurts me inside. All right, all right, I’ll stop being overdramatically whiny. There’s tons of awesome music here and I also haven’t mentioned how many smaller and lesser known games are represented in the soundtrack, many with new remixes, which is really cool and will hopefully make some people curious about these underappreciated titles.

                I’ll try to run down my thoughts on the rest of the main modes really quickly. Master Orders and Crazy Orders are excellent new additions, great for a quick play session and both with their perks and I hope they stick around for the inevitable sequel. Event Match mode is back and still a blast, with even more events than in the previous games and a new grid-like progression system which I approve of. Then there are the 140 varied “Challenges” to tackle for various rewards, which can be an addicting task, at least until you reach the later, super difficult tasks, most of which I don’t even care to attempt. Stadium mode is back with all the Multi-Man Smash stuff and Home Run Contest, both of which are a nice distraction as always. There’s also a new Target Blast mode in Stadium that can actually be kind of fun if you give it a chance, but it’s no replacement for the “Break the Targets” mini-game in the past Smash titles, especially in the original Smash and Melee, where every character had their own individual target level which took advantage of each fighter’s unique skillset. But with an ever-increasing character roster, I can understand why they stopped doing this in Brawl (which just had five target levels used by all of the fighters) and in Smash Wii U. I’ve perhaps spent the most of my time with Smash U in the Vault portion of the game: perusing trophies, setting up my own special matches in the versus mode using CPUs and saving replays and screenshots in the Vault (Samus vs. her Dark Samus color alt., an epic battle between Mario and Bowser, a nostalgia-fueled throwdown between a bunch of NES veterans, etc.), listening to the game’s extensive soundtrack, and sampling all of the “masterpieces”: brief, timed samplings of many of the classic games that the fighters come from (even if I’ve personally played most of these titles already, I enjoy the inclusion of these demos and think their existence makes a lot of sense). Finally, there’s the new board game mode, Smash Tour, which is inoffensive to me but a party mode in what can already be a riotously fun party game depending on how you play it feels a little redundant and unnecessary.

Menus!

There are two more things that I want to give particular attention to. The first is the game’s Classic mode, of all things, which hasn’t seen much change since the N64 original until now and honestly that’s how something called “Classic” should stay in this case. To be blunt, I’m not a fan of Classic mode in this game, which has seen a massive overall. It’s frustrating and it’s just kind of dull. I don’t like having to bother to slowly move my character’s trophy between matches to choose my next fight; this is just tedious and doesn’t add anything to the experience for me. I hate how there is such a focus on five to eight-fighter battles as well. For starters, this limits the amount of stages one is going to see; oh yeah, I forgot to mention that playing in matches with above four fighters cuts the stage selection down to about a third of what it normally is, with the selection becoming more limited the more fighters there are, which is quite unfortunate…but thanks to a patch being released as I write this, more stages are apparently being unlocked for eight-player Smash, which is excellent news! Besides this, while eight-player battles can be fun with a group of intelligent human players, playing against random CPUs with items cranked up and Pokémon flying everywhere is just a mess and I almost never had any fun in these situations. But above all, I don’t like the difficulty system in Classic mode for the same reason I didn’t like it in Kid Icarus: Uprising (Smash U director Masahiro Sakurai’s previous game, which pioneered the same difficulty system). If you haven’t played either game, basically there is a difficulty scale (in Smash U’s case, literally a scale) that goes from 0.0 to 9.0, with the ability to set the difficulty to 0.1, 0.2, and so on. You bet more gold for the higher difficulties but get better rewards for completing matches. It’s a novel concept and I like the idea of risking a bunch of gold for better rewards and then losing those rewards if I fall in battle. What I don’t like is how if I get knocked out of a match, in addition to losing some of the rewards I’ve acquired, the difficulty level gets knocked down five points, so if I was trying to complete the game on the highest difficulty of 9.0, if I lose once, the game automatically bumps me down to 8.5 and then to 8.0 if I lose again and so on. What makes me not want to even bother going for the rewards one receives on the higher difficulties is that the final boss comes with a ridiculously unfair difficulty spike and like a gajillion forms that one needs to learn the patterns of in order to get anywhere. But a player only encounters certain forms on certain difficulty levels, so continued failure means I have very little time to learn how to beat these phases. Basically, I don’t stand a good chance at understanding how to properly defeat these foes unless I replay Classic over and over on the highest difficulties, wasting time and gold. And as I said, Classic is boring, so doing that is boring as well. I prefer the old Classic (preferably Melee’s variant): straight and to the point, just fight after fight (and not a bunch of chaotic six to eight-fighter bouts), with a few mini-games and twists thrown into the mix and a battle against a fantasy incarnation of your twisted child creator’s hand (and perhaps its demented twin as well) at the end.

The other thing I wanted to give specific attention to is the lack of a story or adventure mode here. I’m well aware of why Sakurai chose not to include a story mode this time around (and in my opinion, his reasoning is...flawed, to say the least), but I loved the Adventure Mode in Melee and always hoped that it would evolve in future games. I generally enjoyed The Subspace Emissary in Brawl but it was ultimately forgettable thanks to an onslaught of mostly generic enemies instead of recognizable Nintendo ones and likewise a bunch of mostly generic locations instead of ones from Nintendo games. This is a crossover game, a game all about fan-service, and I don’t want to fight generic puppet monsters in a bland forest; I want to fight Stalfos’ in the Lost Woods. The cutscenes were cool though. But anyway, I don’t necessarily need another giant adventure like The Subspace Emissary (although something akin to it, just not so generic, could be grand), but just something like Melee’s Adventure Mode is great and nicely breaks up the single-player aspect of the game as well as adds a lot to the Smash experience in my opinion, so much so that Smash Wii U feels inherently lacking and incomplete without some kind of adventure mode, despite having probably more stuff to do than in any Smash game prior.

MEGA MAN!

For the inevitable Smash 5 (whether Sakurai directs it or not, and I certainly wouldn’t fault him if he chooses not to), I hope Classic mode returns to form and an adventure mode of some kind returns. Besides new characters, new stages, and new music there’s not much I can think of that they can do with this series. It’s pretty much another Mario Kart at this point: Nintendo’s big money-maker that always delivers a fun, polished experience, but doesn’t really evolve or change all that much from game to game. I forgot to talk about the character customization in the game and the Stage Builder by the way. In short, character customization is a neat addition that is fun to play around with, but I’m not sure how practical it all is since its usage online is limited and without a copy of the 3DS version, I don’t know of a way to bring my customized characters to friends’ games. I do like the way this game handles the customizable Mii Fighters, but they too are limited in the same ways as I just mentioned. As for the Stage Builder, it’s nice that it’s there and the ability to freely draw landforms with the GamePad is neat, but the user interface here is incredibly cumbersome, the options are extremely limited, and ultimately this feature is still far, far from being all that it could be (also, similar to my complaints with The Subspace Emissary, I’d rather have Nintendo game-themed items and backgrounds than generic ones, please).

At the end of the day though, despite my nitpicks and complaints, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a colossal undertaking of a project, and Masahiro Sakurai and his team deserve a great wealth of respect and applause for bringing this beast together in such an elegant way. It’s a finely-polished, finely-tuned experience crammed with content and is a worthy celebration of the many games that inspired it. It’s hard to believe what a juggernaut the Smash series has evolved into since its N64 roots (although I do still find great appeal in the quiet, weird atmosphere of the N64 original). Something I love about Smash Bros. is just getting lost in Sakurai’s maze of menus, remembering fond experiences with so many wonderful video games, and learning about characters and games I’ve never had any experience with or rekindling fond memories for certain games or series that I’ve lost touch with. I’m now more interested than ever in playing a Fire Emblem game (Fire Emblem Awakening in particular) thanks to Robin and Lucina both being boss and all the sweet music from the FE series present in the game (again, particularly from Awakening), and the fantastic Mother music remixes as well as the EarthBound masterpiece demo make me realize how much I really need to get on that whole “finally playing through EarthBound” thing. I haven’t played a Pokémon game in over ten years, but reading about all of these weird creatures I never caught from later games (post the original Sapphire Version, the last one I played, not counting starting LeafGreen and barely getting anywhere in it) and listening to all the great music from the series makes me question whether it’s time to dive back in. I know I’m being manipulated here; I know this is one of the major points of Smash Bros.: just one big, fun advertisement for Nintendo’s games. I’m fully aware, but given the amount of polish and care and charm in this game, I’m ok with it for now. It’s really all the details that make this game such a treat. Just about every animation, every voice clip, and every stage background is lovingly detailed and full of personality, not to mention painstakingly true to the source material. Easter Eggs like the Kid Icarus “Palutena’s Guidance” conversations are just an added treasure hidden among the layers upon layers of Smash. Memorable situations like an eight-player choreographed aerobics session with a bunch of Wii Fit Trainers I engaged in with friends at a party and communication via a Princess Peach duel high above Skyloft with another human being I randomly encountered online demonstrates the power of the experience that this game’s developers worked so tirelessly to deliver. And deliver they did: although Smash will perhaps never be as hype-inducing or as novel as it once was for me, it’s still a special and worthy experience.

Christmas Video Game Memories

I have countless Christmas memories that are tied to video games, or would that be countless video game memories tied to Christmas? Either way, when I think of fond Christmases past, the thought is usually accompanied by memories of playing a certain game either on Christmas day or sometime around it. There are numerous titles that are “Christmas games” for me, but I’m going to focus on two specific memories (involving three games) in this post.

                One game whose opening moments I will always equate with the rapturous jubilation of Christmas morning is The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. To this day, I have probably never been more excited for a game than I was for that one. Back in December of 2006, I had just finished my first semester of living away at college and my life was in a huge state of change. In the span of about four months, I’d felt like so much in my life had drastically changed. It was jarring to be thrust out of my comfort zone and into a brand new world with brand new people and brand new experiences, but before heading off to college I knew however it went there would be Zelda waiting for me at the end of the year. Twilight Princess was significant because it was the first major console Zelda release to come out after I had fallen in love with the series at the release of The Wind Waker in 2003. The years and months leading up to Twilight Princess was the first time I got to experience that sweet, sweet Zelda hype and I drank in every ounce of it (perhaps to a fault, in retrospect). Despite the fact that my life was in a tumultuous state, getting to dive into that game on Christmas morning and through the night made me forget all about everything around me and it was just like any Christmas past when I was an elated kid with a new game. It really was a magical experience. I remember my Mom was disappointed that she wasn't able to get me a Wii with the game (she actually got me both the GameCube and Wii versions of Twilight Princess; I believe she'd bought the Wii version first and was planning on getting the console and just ended up giving me both versions when she wasn’t able to find a Wii; I ended up liking the GC version better anyway), and I remember telling her how much I really didn't care, I was just so happy to have the game. I had a big, goofy smile on my face and all I cared about was playing Zelda. And play Zelda I did. This song will forever remind me of the pure, peerless excitement of Christmas morning, and I wandered around Ordon Village that morning in a sense of awe and disbelief that I was actually finally playing this game. I vividly remember first stepping into the open area of Faron Woods with all the Bokoblins running about and being filled with joy at the first small cave I found. Stepping into the twilight for the first time later in the day, meeting Midna, being completely baffled at the weirdness going on in the game with the giant goat light spirit and this odd triangle-headed villain, and finally conquering the Forest Temple Christmas night. After taking my first steps onto Hyrule Field, I knew that my adventure was only beginning, and over the next two or so weeks, I devoured Twilight Princess. My ultimate feelings on the game ended up being mixed (to put it as simply as possible), but there is no denying the fond memories I have of finally getting to immerse myself in the newest Zelda epic that Christmas vacation.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

                The second game-related Christmas memory I want to talk about predates my Twilight Princess experience by a year and actually involves two games, and it’s a bit of a strange combination: Soulcalibur III and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. I don’t talk about the series much, but I was a big fan of the Soulcalibur games back in the day (before losing touch with the series when the HD era came around, mainly because I didn’t get a PS3 until a bit later in its life-cycle when there were many other games vying for my attention). I loved the atmosphere and detail put into the Soulcalibur games, and also loved the adventure mode present in Soulcalibur II and III (and maybe the first Soulcalibur as well; I can’t remember exactly) that almost felt like an RPG of sorts. Dragon Quest VIII (to this day the only DQ game I’ve ever played through) was a title that I had been greatly anticipating due to its beautiful-looking art design and also because it just looked like a great traditional JRPG that would be right up my alley. I received both games as gifts on Christmas morning and moseying about DQVIII’s first village, with that tranquil orchestral music playing, on a sunny Christmas morning is a wonderful memory that I have. I also remember sneaking away from my relatives whenever I could throughout the day to play Soulcalibur III. The following week I sunk a ton of time into Soulcalibur and although I don’t remember much about the game right now (except, oddly, for a scene involving a clock tower and that big dude with a giant scythe…I guess I’ll just leave it at that), I do remember having a blast playing it. But there was also Dragon Quest, and that’s one I certainly, absolutely do remember. I adore Dragon Quest VIII; it’s one of my favorite video games ever and one of my fondest gaming experiences. Similarly to Twilight Princess, I remember just immersing myself in the breathtaking, pastoral world of Dragon Quest that Christmas vacation and the days and weeks (and months perhaps) beyond it. I’d never experienced adventure in an RPG or a video game in general quite like in Dragon Quest VIII, where a sprawling fantasy world was laid out before me; not a zoomed-out map with a small avatar running around on it, but an up-close, fully rendered world for me to hoof about in. Dragon Quest VIII is very “traditional” in its approach to fantasy adventuring and it does this so, so well while oozing charm around every polished corner. The first dungeon in the game is a dank cave that the player explores with a burning torch in hand, fighting monsters and looting treasure chests. It just doesn’t get any more classic and charming than that, and DQVIII delivers this kind of experience perfectly. And really I mean that: perfectly. I remember there was a moment about halfway through that Christmas break when I was exploring the massive world in the game and I came to the ocean. A sprawling seaside vista spread out before me with a path bordering the ocean stretching in two directions and hills rolling down to the seaside with rocks and cliffs dotted about. I felt free in that moment, felt inspired and full of joy. To have that kind of adventure when I was younger was simply sublime and I cherish the memory to this day.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

                There are many other Christmas video game memories I could talk about: the year I received my GameCube and Super Smash Bros. Melee (and Luigi’s Mansion!), or the year I got a Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure (and how much that game blew me away back then), or when I experienced my very first Metroid games in Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion one year. I’ve been fortunate and some (myself included) might even say spoiled to have parents who have delivered so many wonderful experiences to me at Christmastime that have consistently supplemented many other lovely memories I have of spending Christmas with my family and friends, especially my Nana, who has now passed away, but who was always an anchor of happiness for me at this time of year. I try as hard as I can to not take how lucky I’ve been for granted and look back on all the happy Christmases that my parents, my brother, my relatives, and my friends have brought me. With my love for Winter and snow and my birthday right around the corner as well, this time of year has always been a source of great joy for me, and I’m incredibly, enormously thankful for it.

To anyone reading this, I can only hope that you find some of the joy that I’ve experienced around this time of year and I wish you a heartfelt Happy Holiday.

Pikmin Short Movies HD (Wii U) Review

Today, I'm going to give a brief review of three short films, a first for this blog! In terms of how faithful they are to the source material and how well-produced they are, Pikmin Short Movies HD is how video game-based films should be done. These three shorts, which were directed by Masaru Matsuse and executive produced by Pikmin series creator (and general Nintendo guru) Shigeru Miyamoto, are a wonderful homage to the Pikmin series as well as a beautiful and charming work on their own. Putting a lens on the world of the Pikmin and illuminating their day to day experiences through short films was a brilliant idea, and I'm glad Mr. Miyamoto decided to try something new. The stories here are humorous and even touching at points as well as consistently entertaining the whole way through. The films look gorgeous, the animation is fluid, and the sound design is also spot-on, including sound effects from the Pikmin games and other Nintendo titles. The music was done by several composers, including Pikmin series veteran Hajime Wakai, and features both familiar tracks and new ones. I'm going to fully spoil what happens in these films so if you haven't seen them, I'd suggest you run to either the Wii U or 3DS's eShop right now and check them out; they're well worth your five dollars (I opted for the HD Wii U versions, which I think probably do the Pikmin's miniature world more justice, although the films can also be viewed in 3D on the 3DS, which I imagine has its own merits). Come back and read the rest of this review when you're done! ...please!

While 'The Night Juicer' is more of a brief taste (no pun intended) before the two longer films, it's still enjoyable and just a little creepy (if not predictable for anyone who's a fan of the games). Seeing such grizzly imagery in a colorful Nintendo-produced work is a little surprising at first, but it's actually not that out of place for the often unforgiving world of Pikmin.

'Treasure in a Bottle' is probably my favorite of the three shorts. It's interesting seeing the Pikmin go about their business without the aid of any captain guiding them, and seeing the Pikmin displayed as intelligent, sentient creatures here capable of communication, laughter, and planning makes me feel even more horrible for all the ones that I've sacrificed in the games or carelessly let perish! It's actually touching seeing all the Pikmin trying to help their trapped buddy (the different-colored Pikmin coming up with plans that utilize their unique skills from the games is a nice touch) and the moment when they all form a chain to grasp hands with the trapped red Pikmin and pull him out of the bottle is actually quite heart-warming. These films as a whole, especially the way the Pikmin are characterized, actually remind me of the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, with the Pikmin reminding me of the Soot Sprites from My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away and the Totoros of My Neighbor Totoro. Actually, when presenting these films at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Mr. Miyamoto collaborated with someone who works at Studio Ghibli, and while I won't jump to conclusions, I can't wait for that Ghibli-animated Legend of Zelda film!

'Occupational Hazards' is the longest and fullest of the three films and it delivers on both an amusing first half and an exciting second one. The giant construction vehicle is an excellent set-piece and the many ways in which the Pikmin interact with it and harvest its many parts is a highlight. One of my favorite aspects of the Pikmin series is how ordinary settings and human objects become intricate levels for the captains and the Pikmin to explore, and this short demonstrates that central charm of the series well. The encounters with the Fiery Blowhog and Bulborb are also highlights, although I felt a little sad when the Bulborb fell to its doom (not to mention after the numerous Pikmin casualties during this film, especially when the poor little 'Min who got curious died from electric shock). The Pikmin series has always been relentless in its casual depiction of the slaughter of the countless adorable little titular creatures as well as the gruesome deaths of the territorial enemies of the Pikmin and these films are no different.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed watching these movies. I think that these short films are an experiment for Nintendo and Mr. Miyamoto, to see how Nintendo's lovable properties fair in a different medium. I think the prospect of seeing more Nintendo characters and worlds making the faithful transition to film with the close involvement of the original creators like Mr. Miyamoto is an exciting one. After all, I can only think after watching these films that I want more. I joked before, but seriously, an animated Legend of Zelda film (that's not this), maybe? Or perhaps an actually faithful adaption of Super Mario Bros.? Actually...

Please?

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (3DS) Review

Playing through Shantae and Shantae: Risky’s Revenge back to back last year was a great experience and I was happy to discover a new side-scrolling adventure series that took inspiration from some of my favorite games while also being wholly unique. In short, I love those two games and was greatly anticipating Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, the third game in the series and the advertised end to the Shantae “handheld trilogy” (just the end to the story these three games have set up; don’t worry, the series isn’t over). So did it deliver? In one sense, yes: Pirate’s Curse is a polished, well-designed adventure full of the smooth gameplay, beautiful spritework, feverishly catchy music, endearing characters and charming writing the series is now known for. In another sense, however, Pirate’s Curse falls short for me in several key areas and doesn’t quite have the same spark its two predecessors have. So what is Pirate’s Curse? For me, it’s a mixed experience, but let’s start by praising what deserves praise.

Risky’s Revenge is a gorgeous 2D action game, but I think Pirate’s Curse might look even better. I’m so happy that sprite-based 2D games haven’t gone extinct and indie developers like WayForward are keeping the form alive. Shantae’s wacky, fantastical world really comes to life and now pops more than ever thanks to the stereoscopic 3D effect of the 3DS. But more impressive than the colorful, detailed environments are the varied and lively cast of characters and creatures that populate them. Character sprites are full of details and personality. If you want to see what I mean, just stop moving anywhere in the game and watch Shantae and any surrounding characters’ idle animations; it looks like everyone is constantly rocking out to Jake Kaufman’s awesome chiptune soundtrack and having one giant dance party, which is fitting for a game starring a dancer. I also love the new art-style for the game’s expressive character portraits and official artwork, which has never looked better.

Shantae and Risky team up

In keeping with the previous games, PC also features an endearing cast of lovable characters and the patented sense of charm that the series is known for. The Shantae series as a whole features some of the funniest writing in the genre and the humorous back and forth between Shantae and the likes of the Ammo Baron, Risky Boots, and several other bizarre characters had me chuckling more than a few times. I particularly like the characterization of Shantae and her nemesis, Risky, who she is now forced to team up with in order to best a greater evil. I enjoyed how their relationship grew throughout the adventure and was consistently amused by the interactions between the two of them. That said, I think more could have been done here and Risky could have had more of an active role in the quest instead of basically just being Shantae’s chauffeur (via her pirate ship), but I ultimately enjoyed their partnership and how it turns out in the end.

Besides being an aural and visual delight, it should not be understated just how good Pirate’s Curse feels to play. This game has some of the most fluid 2D platforming of any side-scrolling action game I’ve played, which is fitting for a game heavily inspired by the Metroidvania games, which also excel in this category. It’s just a joy to move through the world and seamlessly going from hopping about to hair-whipping monsters feels fast and fun. The game’s excellent movement becomes even better when you acquire more and more of the pirate gear, the game’s main item upgrades (think Zelda or Metroid). The more items Shantae acquires on her journey, such as a giant pirate hat that acts as a parachute and a pair of boots that allows her to perform a high-speed dashing maneuver, the more freely she can move through the world and the more wonderful the experience feels to play. It’s that classic Metroidvania appeal of finding new equipment and improving your character as you go, so that by the end, revisiting old areas becomes a seamless experience of stringing together jumps, attacks, and dashes as you effortlessly dance across the environment with all your new skills in tow. You’ll know what I mean the first time you do a dash, followed by a leap into the air into a parachute glide, followed up by a cannon blast in order to stay aloft as you soar over large gaps and enemies below. I do wish more of the game was designed to utilize the player’s skills in stringing all of these abilities together (instead of just a handful of late game sequences), but it’s still a blast using these items to traverse old areas when trying to gather up all of the game’s collectibles.

Click on the picture for a better view!

Pirate’s Curse also makes up for Risky’s Revenge’s relative lack of mazes to explore with plenty of dungeons to traverse this time around, even more than in the first Shantae title. In fact, Pirate’s Curse feels like a much fuller and more complete experience than Risky’s Revenge, thus improving on my only real problem with that title. Overall, the dungeons are well-designed, but they don’t really stand out too much. A few do some interesting things atmospherically, but with the exception of a memorable mini-dungeon in the desert and one other main dungeon that I loved, these labyrinths didn’t really leave a lasting impression on me. They seem to lack stand-out elements like the unique color-switching mechanic in the desert labyrinth from the first Shantae. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare the two series, but part of what makes the dungeons in, I don’t know, the Zelda series (I know, you’re so surprised I went there, right?) is how each one feels like a unique world in themselves, often revolving around some kind of core gimmick or theme. The dungeons here make good use of the items Shantae finds, but lack that extra pizazz that made the dungeons in a game like A Link Between Worlds so memorable. I know, I know, Pirate’s Curse is working on a much smaller budget and under much stricter conditions than a giant like the Zelda series, and what the team at WayForward accomplished here is still incredibly solid. What Pirate’s Curse’s dungeons do have is a great sense of progression and a fluid design, plus some great bosses to cap them off, including a battle with a huge dragon and another with a giant robotic caterpillar.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is a well-designed, well-executed, enjoyable experience. It improves on the one flaw that I had with its predecessor, Risky’s Revenge, which I thought was otherwise a pretty much perfect game. Unfortunately, Pirate’s Curse missteps in some other key areas, which ultimately hold it back from being that ideal Shantae game that I wanted.

Each Shantae game has followed a somewhat different formula in regards to how it has handled its world design. The first Shantae took an approach akin to Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Risky’s Revenge went for a more traditional Metroidvania route, and now Pirate’s Curse takes an approach comparable to Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, where there are several, smaller Metroidvania-style maps selectable from a “map screen” of sorts. Instead of one big, interconnected overworld, this time Shantae and Risky Boots travel to several separate islands, each with their own area maps and dungeons. This is a neat idea and I’m a big fan of the seafaring adventure trope, so I was excited to see what each new island had in store. I have two big problems here though. Firstly, I was disappointed with the layout and design of most of the outdoor areas in the game. My problem with most of the field areas in Pirate’s Curse is that they are very linear and straightforward in design, often consisting of a single, flat pathway with a few hidden areas branching off of it. There are a few more maze-like areas in the game, but I wish this had been the standard, instead of reserved for a few special areas. Actually, the design of the first island Shantae visits is more what I wanted the rest of them to be like, as it involves more branching paths and verticality instead of just a straight line. These linear paths just don’t lend themselves to much exploration or imagination. The dungeons are less linear, but I was expecting more of an intricate overworld to explore. Instead of a single large overworld containing several different regions, the different islands just end up feeling like small, disjointed areas that don’t feel fleshed-out and feel somewhat hollow as a result. Also, I miss the awesome “plane-switching” mechanic from Risky’s Revenge, where Shantae would jump from the foreground to the background and so on. Not only would this mechanic be perfectly suited to the 3DS, but it would also go a long way in giving the areas in Pirate’s Curse more depth (literally) and making them feel more rich and expansive.

My second problem with the areas in the game is that, by and large, they are all heavily based on familiar locales from past games. I was excited to finally be traversing beyond Sequin Land after exploring its environs for two games, and these islands are supposed to be mysterious new lands beyond that familiar domain, but instead each island is based on one of the regions from the first Shantae game, and at this point these environments are starting to feel a little too samey and familiar. The desert island is a prime example of this, as that’s a trope we’ve seen in every Shantae game now, and I’d rather have something new at this point. There are exceptions: even though the zombie-filled forest is familiar, it’s never looked so beautiful or given off such a sweet Castlevania vibe as it does now; Mug Bog Island, while also based on a location from the original Shantae, still has a brilliantly eerie (Metroid-influenced?) atmosphere and the Village of Lost Souls section is a notable portion of the game. There are also some later portions that feel fresh as well, but in a large way, I feel like these islands aren’t necessarily new places, but just the same Sequin Land staples, except cut up and scattered across the ocean. The island idea is nice, but overall I do miss having one connected world to explore, as I usually always prefer that to a more “level select” approach. While I think the island idea could have worked better if the areas were fresher and less linear in design, I also partly wish they’d stuck with the model from Risky’s Revenge and just expanded the world as well as updated the map to the new Metroidvania-style one in Pirate’s Curse.

Besides my issues with the way its world is designed, there’s something else about Pirate’s Curse that hold the game back for me. Put simply, the overall structure of this game is very familiar to me and quite frankly, overly formulaic. Whereas past Shantae games clearly took a lot of inspiration from the likes of Zelda, Metroid, and Castlevania, they still felt fresh with mechanics like Shantae’s belly-dancing and her animal transformations that took the place of traditional item upgrades in those other games. In Pirate’s Curse, however, Shantae has lost her magic and as a result the game follows the “Zelda/Metroidvania formula” more rigidly than ever: it’s go to a new area, find the dungeon (usually doing some kind of task or mini-dungeon in order to do so), get the dungeon item, use that item to beat the boss, backtrack to the immediately previous area and use that new item to find a “key” that unlocks the way to the dungeon in the next area, and then it’s basically rinse and repeat for the whole game. This is another case of me respecting the developers doing something new with the pirate gear items, but ultimately these items, while a lot of fun to use, detract from the uniqueness of Shantae’s identity, and all this amounts to Pirate’s Curse feeling much more like a traditional experience than ever. That said…

…That isn’t particularly a bad thing. After all, I love those kinds of games and this formula does work. Pirate’s Curse just seems a little too formulaic, or at least enough for me to really notice. The bottom line is that Pirate’s Curse is very solid and well-built, it just doesn’t feel as original or unique as its predecessors, and doesn’t do as much mechanically to feel distinct from its contemporaries. The game does what it does well, just not in such a way that really stands out to me. Whereas games like A Link Between Worlds are finally taking strides to change up the classic “Zelda formula”, Pirate’s Curse feels archaic and overly familiar. Unique mechanics in the past two Shantae games helped to circumvent this issue, and thus Pirate’s Curse feels a bit like a step backward to me.

Besides a lot of uninspired area designs and the overly formulaic structure, there’s one more aspect of Pirate’s Curse that left a bad taste in my mouth and distracted me from enjoying the adventure as much as I could have. Yeah, you know what’s coming: this game is straight male fan-service incarnate. I mean, Shantae games have always had sexualized female character designs, there’s no denying that, but Pirate’s Curse takes it a little too far, making sure that every single female character, from humans to monsters to zombie girls, has large, emphasized breasts, a sexualized physique, and a plethora of sexualized poses. While the male character designs, on the other hand, are far more varied, with men being allowed to be deformed, overweight, monstrous, handsome, cartoony, whatever. For a good example of what I’m talking about here, just compare Rottytops’ design to the designs of her two brothers, Abner and Poe, all three of whom are sapient zombies. It’s very telling that the only really “hunky” male character here is a cyclops. The straight male “fan-service” moments are around every corner here: at one point spring breakers get into their bathing suits for a pool party and the method for unlocking the path forward involves light shining off of their half-naked bodies and then there’s an entire dungeon devoted to dressing up all of the female leads in sexy metal bikinis against their will (the different explanations for each of them happening to be there are all laughably flimsy as well). The premise of this chapter is a humorous idea (a bizarre cult mistaking Shantae and co. for their “long-lost” princess when the real princess was just out getting groceries), but the clear purpose of it to objectify all the female leads is tasteless, and the final punchline of this section basically making a joke about female body image is off-putting. And if that weren’t enough, the game dresses Rottytops up in a skimpy schoolgirl outfit. It just never ends. While there are certainly a lot of funny moments in Pirate’s Curse (such as everything involving the Squid Baron; I love that guy), I feel that the humor in Risky’s Revenge was overall stronger and more consistently funny without having to rely on so many tasteless attempts to please a straight male audience. At the end of my review for the first Shantae, I wrote this: “Shantae proves that it's really not that difficult to have an action adventure video game that stars a cool, interesting female protagonist whose main power isn't her ability to grow a pair of gargantuan breasts that would break the back of any normal human female.” While I still think that Pirate’s Curse having a large cast of mostly female main characters and an endearing, powerful female protagonist is a positive thing, I’m a bit disappointed that the team at WayForward decided to make female objectification such a focus this time around.

Shantae addressing the game's developers

While I have a lot of gripes with the game, I really don’t want to understate that Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is a great game that I enjoyed playing through a lot. It’s an incredibly polished and endearing 2D action game with a great soundtrack, great art, great gameplay and overall an experience that stands well with its predecessors for a fantastic trilogy that I’d highly recommend to any fan of action adventure games or just 2D sprite-based games and artwork in general. But…I have a feeling my opinion is going to be in the minority here, but Pirate’s Curse is my least favorite in the series, and I feel it’s less memorable and creative than the previous two. I just love what the previous two games did with the dancing mechanic and connected overworld and think the perfect Shantae game for me would just be expanding on Risky Revenge’s formula (which remains my favorite game in the series), adding some of the tweaks that PC made (like the better map), and making it a longer, fuller, more complete experience than Risky’s Revenge is. All this said, Pirate’s Curse is still a very solid title which retains the endearing charm and personality in its world, characters, and themes that the previous Shantae titles have (I mean, a half-genie using pirate gear to save the world? Awesome). I also respect the fact that each of the three handheld Shantae games feels unique from each other while also having the same spirit. I enjoyed the way in which Pirate’s Curse concluded the story set up in Risky’s Revenge as well and was overall satisfied with the game’s finale. Overall, it’s a great trilogy and a great series and I’m looking forward to Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, which I hope will improve on some of the qualms I have with Pirate’s Curse.