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.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge (Nintendo DSiWare) Review

It's been five years since Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the last proper "Metroidvania" adventure, came out and boy have I missed my Metroidvania. A lot. I miss my big goofy weapons, my ridiculous magic spells, my melodramatic Dracula stories, wickedly cool heroes and heroines like Alucard, Nathan Graves, Soma Cruz, and Shanoa, giant, crazy enemies and bosses, beautiful 2D art, fantastic soundtracks, and most of all, I miss the item/ability-based exploration of labyrinthine environments. With Konami recently embracing an entirely new Castlevania universe and delivering a high fantasy, God of War-esque, 3D action experience much removed from the humble 2D Metroidvania formula with its Lords of Shadow series, and also with Nintendo flat-out ignoring its brilliant Metroid series since Other M came out and underwhelmed most of us with its poorly-written, cutscene-bloated, linear adventure, it doesn't look like my new Metroidvania is anywhere on the horizon.

Luckily, Shantae: Risky's Revenge has come along to fill this gaping hole in my gaming life...well, maybe not fill it completely, but at least gave it an oh-so-tasty treat to savor.

After learning that the original Shantae had been released for the 3DS Virtual Console (I've wanted to play these games for a long time, but the Shantae Game Boy Color cart is ridiculously pricey due its rarity), I purchased and downloaded both Shantae and its DSiWare-exclusive (originally) sequel. After finishing the original, I couldn't wait and I immediately booted up the sequel. I played Risky's Revenge all the way through to the end of the first labyrinth, and spent the next several days relishing every moment of this gem.

Risky's back!

Risky's Revenge essentially improves on every little nitpick I had with the original Shantae while also upgrading the visuals and music and everything else the way a sequel that came out eight years later should. After gaining control of Shantae at the beginning of the game, I was immediately struck by just how much better the game feels to play. Perhaps my biggest gripe with the first game, that Shantae's hair whip, her main method of attack, had too short a range and felt handicapped as a result, has been vastly improved. Shantae's hair now has the range of attack that I feel her long, purple ponytail should and it's amazing how this one little change makes RR so much more fun to play than the original. Not only has the range improved, but Shantae can now upgrade her hair so whipping is faster and more efficient. It now feels smooth and satisfying to attack enemies and those enemies don't take five+ hits to kill anymore, so combat is never tedious or out of Shantae's control. Challenge doesn't come from frequent cheap hits this time but from learning how each monster attacks and responding accordingly.

Hair-whipping feels so much better in RR

RR also ditches the cumbersome additional attack skills that could be bought from a shop in the original and replaces the numerous, frivolous consumable subweapons with three permanent magic attacks that Shantae can buy and upgrade throughout the game. Instead of having a limited number of uses, how many times Shantae can shoot fireballs or how long a protective barrier stays active are now determined by a magic meter. An additional upgrade can be bought that makes this meter slowly auto-refill over time. Magic potions and health potions can also be bought to refill magic and life, respectively. What's more, these potions are much more affordable than in the first game.



Shantae can master several magical skills now

Lives have also been done away with in favor of more frequent save points and less cheap deaths due to spikes and bottomless pits, which no longer kill Shantae instantly. All of these tweaks combine to make a much more enjoyable play experience. I died a lot less in Risky's Revenge, but a lot of my deaths in the original felt cheap and frustrating, so I don't really mind the reduced difficulty, which allows me to focus on what I really enjoy about these kinds of games, namely exploring. Besides, the game never felt too easy, and your health will rapidly deplete due to the swarms of monsters that hit hard in this game, so you will die if you don't stock up on potions and watch your hearts carefully. The difficulty just felt more fair this time around.

Risky's Revenge is more than just a few tweaks though; it also feels like a truly enhanced experience, like the sort of leap games saw from their NES iterations to their SNES ones. For starters, RR is a beautiful game with gorgeous 2D art featuring lushly painted backgrounds, crisply animated sprites, and engrossing world design. The fields of Sequin Land are full of vegetation in the foreground and background and dotted with pumpkins and lilacs. The forest is misty and densely packed with flora and the seaside is sun-splashed and colorful. All of the charming characters from the first game return and we also get to meet some new ones. Risky Boots is back to terrorize Shantae again of course (hilariously first appearing riding a giant anchor nonsensically suspended through a building's ceiling) and friends like Sky and Bolo (who seems much more reserved this time) are back. We also get to finally meet the mischievous zombie-girl Rottytops' two brothers, as well as the various quirky Barons, and also my personal favorite side-character, Barracuda Joe. All of these characters are also now accompanied by a large, detailed portrait of themselves whenever they speak.

This guy makes me smile

Shantae is also full of anonymous NPCs with funny, off-beat things to say. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the the game was returning to Scuttle Town and hearing what its wacky NPCs had to say. Something that bugs me in a lot of RPGs and adventure games is when I keep talking to the same NPCs at different points in a game to hear what they have to say and they just keep repeating the same dialogue over and over. I appreciated the fact that throughout the game, the residents of Scuttle Town always had something new and funny to say after I completed a major story event, like a dungeon. One little girl simply says "I'm four!" when you talk to her and then there's a guy who comments on how he wanders around on the roof of the town shop all day and also a guard who is always standing in the same place who talks about how he enjoys standing and looking. There are just so many clever little gags if the player takes the time to talk to the NPCs. A fisherman says something about "that dopey kid" tossing an interesting item he caught back into the ocean. If you chat to a nearby kid, he hilariously and illogically blurts out: "I'm a dopey kid!" I just burst out laughing at this. Both the main story and the world at large are littered with funny moments like this.

In addition to the beautiful, artistic visuals in RR, the music has also gotten a boost. I liked the music in the original Shantae and respect the originality and quality of that game's soundtrack, but Jake Kaufman really outdid himself in Risky's Revenge. The soundtrack combines wonderful remixes and excellent new tracks to form a spectacular OST and one of the better ones I've heard in a while. There isn't a bad piece in the entire game and every song is either perfectly atmospheric, appropriately catchy, or just upbeat and a joy to listen to.



Hanging out with Rotty

I compared the original Shantae to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, but Risky's Revenge ditches that formula (as neat as I still think it is if done well) and feels much closer in structure to a Metroidvania game. The overworld is one giant map and is set up like one big labyrinth to explore (although not quite as intricate as in Metroid and Castlevania games). The action is all in 2D, but the game plays with the idea of multiple, layered 2D planes that Shantae can travel between. For example, in the forest area, you can see faded objects in the background and enemies walking around. By utilizing certain "jump pads", Shantae can leap into the background and explore a new plane. Shantae travels in this way through the multiple planes of the foreground and background. It's a really interesting idea that brings Donkey Kong Country Returns (which also plays with the idea of traveling between the foreground and background) to mind. This plane-switching mechanic is sadly underutilized in RR, but hopefully the planned 3DS sequel returns to the idea, as it would be a perfect fit for the 3DS's unique 3D depth capabilities.

The world map is a little confusing to take in at first

The landscape of Sequin Land is dotted with hidden caves, secret discoveries, and interesting people to talk to. There are few things more satisfying in adventure games for me than acquiring a cool new ability and then retracing my steps and discovering new places that this new ability allows me to reach. This aspect is a staple of Metroidvania and Zelda games, and part of why I adore them so much. For example, after acquiring the ability to turn into an elephant (like in the first game), I was dying to re-explore the forest to smash open all those mysterious rocks and blockades and see what they were hiding.

Like in the original, Shantae has the ability to use her magic belly-dancing to transform into different creatures and gain new abilities. I was a little disappointed, however, that the actual act of dancing has been greatly downplayed in Risky's Revenge. In the original, dancing required multiple button inputs and had six unique dance animations. This process has been greatly streamlined in RR. Now, Shantae will start dancing if the player merely holds down a single button, and unfortunately her dances are not accompanied by any music or little ditties for each move like in the first game. Shantae automatically cycles through three dance moves and depending on which move the player releases the button on, she will transform into one of the three creatures that are unlocked at different points in the game. I appreciate the fact that transforming is much quicker and easier and it makes exploring and using the multiple forms a much faster and more streamlined process, but the detailed dance system was one of my favorite aspects of the original, so it's definitely missed here.

Shantae discovering a secret cave within another cave!

So with beautiful art, wonderful music, improved gameplay, a well-designed world to explore and puzzle-filled labyrinths to solve, is Risky's Revenge a perfect sequel? Well, unfortunately no. RR is dripping with quality but I have one big issue with the game...it's just too short. I'm not usually one to complain about a game's length, and I favor a short, focused experience in place of a long, bloated one padded out with tedious nonsense. I thought the original Shantae was a great length for what it was; it had no filler and didn't feel too short or too long. But Risky's Revenge is about half the length of the original and more importantly, it feels short. There are only two dungeons as opposed to four like in the first game, and the second dungeon is replaced by the "Battle Tower", which is essentially just an enemy rush that must be completed in a time limit. This sort of thing would be fine for an optional side-mission, but isn't a suitable replacement for a full-fledged dungeon.

The world, though well-designed, also feels a bit small and could have used maybe one or two more regions to explore, in addition to about two more labyrinths to conquer. Risky's Revenge also features what some might call padding in the form of several fairly brief, but mandatory, fetch quests. I never found these errands, such as "find a coffeemaker, coffee beans, and an egg" or "find three baby squids" to be too problematic, as I actually found these items by accident just by naturally exploring the world. These quests always follow the acquiring of a new power and basically task the player with using this new skill to explore previously unreachable areas. I naturally do this kind of thing anyway in a game like RR, so these missions never bothered me, but they feel like they're here to make short game longer.

Boss time!

Risky's Revenge was originally going to be split up into multiple episodic releases, but this idea was scrapped and the game was released as a stand-alone sequel. As part of a series of chapters, RR's length would have been acceptable (although I'm not a fan of episodic games), but as a stand-alone sequel to the original Shantae, it just feels incomplete. What's present is a very high-quality adventure, but it simply left me wanting more, especially with its semi-cliff-hanger ending. RR is a cheap, downloadable title originally only available on the DSiWare service, so this is of course the main reason for its brevity. I also wouldn't say I didn't get my money's worth because the game is a blast and from what I've heard, it's actually lengthy for a DSiWare game. I just wish that WayForward would have been able to make a full-fledged, retail sequel to the original Shantae like the game deserved.

Thankfully, I hopefully won't have to wait long for my next Shantae fix as the third game in the series, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (note: there are spoilers for the ending of Risky's Revenge in this video), which is supposed to be twice as large as Risky's Revenge, is supposed to arrive on the 3DS eShop sometime this year. I'm a bit skeptical though because the year is almost over and there hasn't really been any news on this game outside of its initial reveal in the now extinct Nintendo Power's November issue of last year. I hope the game still shows up this year, but in the mean time, if you haven't played or heard of the Shantae games, run to 3DS eShop now (if you own the system). They can both be downloaded for under $20 (Risky's Revenge is also available on iOS) and if you enjoy Metroidvania-style games, Zelda-style games, or just quality 2D action-adventures, you own it to yourself to play these games. The Shantae series takes one of my favorite adventure game formulas and builds on it with a unique world and cast of characters and style unlike anything else, and gosh dang it, I just love it!

Shantae will return in Shantae and the Pirate's Curse!

Shantae (Game Boy Color) Review

I've always thought that the infamous Castlevania II: Simon's Quest was a good idea, but one that was poorly executed. I liked the idea of a sprawling 2D world full of branching paths and dotted with towns and dungeons, but in the end the game just turned out to be pretty boring. There were several factors that weighed the game down: tedious grinding in place of actual challenge, bland dungeons with boring design, and just other silliness like the slow text boxes marking day and night transitions. The idea of having one seamless, explorable 2D world was later translated into the Metroidvania formula made famous by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the PS1 and later perfected (in my own humble opinion) in the Aria and Dawn of Sorrow titles. But we never really got another game quite like Simon's Quest. Zelda II (which was released before Castlevania II) comes to mind, but Zelda II features an overhead world map and various separated 2D action environments instead of one continuous 2D world. For the record, Zelda II is also just a much better video game than Simon's Quest on every level. The concept of a 2D scrolling world that eventually loops with townsfolk to talk to and dungeons to explore is a game concept that sadly seemed to have died with Simon's Quest's flawed execution of the concept.

Until Shantae was released for the Game Boy Color in 2002 (and FINALLY re-released for the 3DS Virtual Console about a month ago, meaning I don't have to shell out over $200 to play the game anymore).

Shantae takes everything that made the concept of Simon's Quest interesting: a big scrolling 2D overworld that's filled with monsters and different pathways as well as several towns, but does everything so much better with a charming story full of very memorable characters, interesting and well-designed dungeons, a similar day and night system without the text boxes, and other tweaks like retaining progress even after all lives are lost. The only risk in losing all of your lives in Shantae is being sent back to the nearest save point; all other progress, including all acquired items and gems (the game's currency), sticks.

Shantae, forced into action after pirates cannonball her lighthouse home

But Shantae is much more than just a well-realized execution of Simon's Quest's concepts. Ir's hard not to remember the troubled second chapter in the Castlevania legacy when playing Shantae, but Shantae is also just a damn fine, refreshingly original 2D action adventure in its own right.

You play as Shantae, a "Half-Genie", belly-dancing, transforming, hair-whipping storm of awesomeness. Shantae is the self-appointed guardian genie of a small fishing village called Scuttle Town. The story kicks off when the adorably named, yet incredibly villainous lady-pirate Risky Boots attacks Scuttle Town in order to steal a Steam Engine from Shantae's adopted Uncle, Mimic, named so for his ability to discover and duplicate ancient relics from the old world (in this case, a steam engine). After learning that Risky plans to steal four elemental stones (like a stone that produces an endless stream of water) to help power the machine and fuel her plans for steam-powered conquest, Shantae sets off on a quest across Sequin Land to unearth four labyrinths, find the stones before Risky, and foil the evil pirate's plans.

Shantae is not amused by Risky Boots' antics

It's a very Zelda-ish plot, but one with an entirely unique flavor. Genies protecting fishing villages? Evil pirates using steam-power for world domination? The way Shantae combines so many disparate elements and blends them into this wildy fun (and funny) adventure is big part of the game's charm. And I haven't even mentioned the roaming caravan of friendly, sapient zombies yet!

Shantae's action is split between the large scrolling overworld (which eventually loops around if you go far enough to the right or left, just like in Castlevania II), towns, and dungeons. Town exploration is particularly interesting because while in a town, you view things from a third-person, behind the back perspective and move left and right. This differs from the rest of the game which plays out in a standard 2D side-scrolling fashion. While in a town, you can talk to passing townsfolk and also enter different buildings and shops in the town. One of the main delights of visiting each town is all the weird people walking around, especially at night. Half of these characters barely even look human, and I love how during the nighttime, everyone is wearing dark cloaks and looks super shady. Townsfolk offer advice for your adventure, foreshadow future discoveries, or just offer some funny gossip. All towns have a save room, a bath house (for health recovery), and a shop. Some towns even offer unique mini-games like a dance parlor and a gecko race. Also, living in every town is a friendly, quirky character who will help Shantae on her travels, like her dim-witted sparring partner Bolo who has eyes for Risky Boots, or her old friend Sky, a trainer of "war birds" (whatever those are) who lends her trusty bird Wrench to Shantae (an animal who lives up to his name in a comically literal way).

Hanging out at the dance parlor

In the overworld, Shantae will travel over plains, through forests, across deserts, through swamps, and over mountains. Upon leaving Scuttle Town, players can travel in whichever direction they would like, but they may run into more difficult enemies and puzzling roadblocks if they go a certain way. It's usually pretty clear where to go next, but it's nice that players are still given a choice on which direction to travel in. There's a lot of backtracking involved, but overworld travel is kept engaging by the classic Metroidvania/Zelda formula of finding new abilities that allow Shantae to access new areas and uncover hidden shortcuts and collectables, like heart holders that permanently increase the genie girl's health. Ordinary-looking tree stumps and rocks can be broken apart to find hidden caves, and walls and special surfaces can be climbed to reach new areas. Shantae doesn't find a set of tools or weapons to reach these new ventures though (although a plethora of different subweapons can be bought from shops and used); instead she uses her natural genie abilities to transform into different creatures.

This leads me to one of my favorite features in Shantae which is her ability to use different magical dances to transform into different animals as well as perform other tasks such as warping to the game's various towns. By pressing a button, Shantae will start dancing, and by inputting different buttons in time with a beat, Shantae will perform different dance moves. Throughout the game, players will learn how to use certain combinations of these dance moves to transform into creatures such as a monkey that can cling to and climb walls and an elephant that can smash apart obstacles. Shantae features wonderfully vibrant, detailed graphics and animations, especially for a Game Boy Color game (it was one of the last on the system), and these lively animations are no more apparent than in Shantae's set of slick dance moves.

Monkey!

Shantae's list of dance moves and the act of dancing itself reminds me a lot of using both the Ocarina and the Wind Waker from the Zelda series. Also similar to Zelda, Shantae will acquire a new transformation dance in each dungeon and then use that dance to further her exploration of that dungeon, defeat its boss, and then explore new areas in the overworld. Every dungeon also introduces some kind of interesting new mechanic besides just the animal transformations, such as a magic panel that changes Shantae's color to red or blue, and puzzles are based around being a certain color at a certain time. I enjoyed all the dungeons quite a bit, although I found most of the bosses to be a bit too simplistic and easy. The only exception is the final boss, who is difficult, but in a cheap way that felt broken to me. I would attack the boss repeatedly point-blank with zero results only to attack it again in the same manner later and land a hit. I never quite figured out whether there was some pattern I was missing with this boss or if it really was just a clunky battle in terms of design.

I also want to point out a couple glitches I encountered in the game. I'm not sure if these were present in the original Game Boy Color cart, but both were encountered in the game's second dungeon. One of them involved me picking up one of the labyrinth's "warp squids" (collectables Shantae can find in each dungeon that allow her to learn a dance for warping to towns), after which the game became a mess of colorful lines and froze. Luckily, I was able to pick up the same warp squid without incident after retrying. The next glitch was an odd one that occurred while fighting the second dungeon's boss. First of all, either the boss is really, really easy, or a strange glitch allowed me to defeat it super quickly. Then, after I'd defeated the boss, the screen started to shake and after picking up the elemental stone that appears after each boss, the boss creature briefly reappeared, still in its death animation, before I was transported out of the dungeon. Weird. I'm not sure about the boss glitch, but I read online about the warp squid glitch happening to other people and apparently for them it also erased their save file, which thankfully did not happen to me. If you plan on playing the game on the 3DS Virtual Console (which you should because it's worth your time), you might want to be extra careful while in the game's second labyrinth.

Outside a town and inside a dungeon

Besides her transformation abilities and the wide range of subweapons available in the game (which I personally never found much use for), Shantae's main method of attack is whipping foes with her magical ponytail. This attack works fine enough, but it's held back by the attack's annoyingly short range. I found this very jarring and it's one of my few major complaints with Shantae. It's sort of hard to explain, but with a "whip" I expect there to be a certain range of attack and I just feel like I need to get too close to an adversary to land a blow. The whip's less-than-optimal performance is also exacerbated by the fact that many normal enemies roaming the overworld take about a million hits to kill, especially at nighttime when they all get stronger.

Throughout the game, other special attack skills can be purchased from a certain shop but the hair whip always remains the most convenient method of attack and it never gets an upgrade. I found these other skills in the game to be either too cumbersome to use or just downright useless. They either take too long to execute or end up putting Shantae at risk. One "upgrade" makes Shantae perform a forward dash attack. The problem here is that this attack is performed by holding down the "run" button in the game for a second or two to charge it up, which I'm usually constantly pressing. I can't count how many times I'd be standing on ledge, only to accidently charge up this attack and have no choice but to send Shantae flying off a ledge and into a pit of spikes to her death (spikes one-shot Shantae, which can get pretty annoying because they are very, very prominent in the game). This "upgrade" is more of a severe inconvenience than anything else and is also pretty useless in a fight because of how long it takes to charge. The player is seriously better off not buying this skill, and the other ones aren't much better, especially considering how pricey they all are.

Shantae vs. Risky

Other than these few flaws though, Shantae is a fantastic action adventure. It may borrow many concepts from Metroidvania and Zelda, but it melds them into a unique adventure with a sense of style all its own. Also, one of the best parts of Shantae is just how focused and tightly-designed it is; the game has zero filler and feels just the right length. Between Shantae's adorable belly-dancing, unique animal transformations, all the quirky and well-animated enemy designs and NPCs, the unique and catchy soundtrack, and just the funny and whimsical atmosphere this game presents, Shantae is a very memorable experience any player won't soon forget. You'll know what I mean when you compete in a footrace against a Zombie girl named Rottytops.

Moreover, 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.