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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
