Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is a 2D platform game which was both developed and published by WayForward Technologies and it is a sequel to 2010's game called Shantae: Risky's Revenge for Nintendo DSi. This game was originally released in 2014 for Nintendo 3DS and it was later ported to Wii U, XBONE, PS4 and PC in between 2014 and 2016 release.
I really enjoyed playing Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut on my PS4 last year because it has simple storyplot, amazing protagonist, solid gameplay and decent graphics that made the game so stunning to play, so if you haven't seen my previous review from last year, please check it out on the link down below before reading this game review:
https://zeeshanmirzasblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/shantae-riskys-revenge-directors-cut.html
I've decided to purchase this game from PS Store for £5 because of the stunning Easter sales that reducing the price cost. So far, I finding this game lot better than the previous installment Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut because it has impressive presentation, solid graphics, better stages to explore, useful pirate's items, amazing boss battles and slightly longer than the Risky's Revenge which adds the greater improvement to make the game even better and enjoyable.
Without go further do, let's talk about the game's overall.
Presentation
After the events of the Shantae: Risky's Revenge the part where Shantae has lost all her Genie powers after defeating her counterpart. This game takes place in Scuttle Town, After she has dealing with Ammo Baron in the morning, she returns back home and takes a bath until she was been approached by her nemesis named Risky Boots who blamed Shantae for stealing her henchmens and her belongings, but they have discovered the dark magic that puts a curse on tinkerbats turns into evil cacklebats. Risky believes that her former captain Pirate Master, who was sealed away long ago, is attempting to revive himself. Risky takes Shantae to the quest to destroy the dens of evil, recover Risky's lost pirate items, and retrieve the Dark Magic that inhabiting the Cacklebats.
I'm pretty impressed with the story overall where Risky, who used to be Shantae's rivalery, are no longer being enemy in the game which is kinda interesting to hear the villains in most of the films, TV show, and video games series decided to help with heroes rather than being evil in the story aspects. The story is easier to follow as it has useful dialogue box to read on the cutscenes to hear the plotlines and the character's animation on the slideshow shows their amazing humour during the cutscenes and I really liked most of the characters in the game are quite memorable in the whole game. It has the same town area from the Risky's Revenge, but most of the islands are well presented because it has stylish level sets of deserts, snows, forest, seasides, undergrounds and graveyards are looking spectacular in the game.
Overall, it has fabulous storyplot, awesome characters, great style of cutscenes and well presenting area.
Gameplay
Shantae's goal is to find dark magic and defeat the dens of evil in order to defeat Pirate Master.
Like from previous game it did retains the same 2D Metroidvania gameplay style as the previous game. Her main attack is her purple hair as whipping weapon, but despite losing her ability to use genie power she now uses the Risky's lost items which can be found in dungeon stages. Using the Risky's items is very useful for most of the stages; for instance the pistols are good for long range attacks, the pirate hat are used for gliding through the level, the scimitar allows player to break rock-solid objects on ground floor, the boots allows player to dash through the stages that can break through walls and cannon are used for triple jumping which most of the Risky's items works really well in the levels. You can also use the various of special items, such as pike-balls which rotates around the player, the bubble can be used as shields to reduce getting hit by enemy's projectiles, the monster milk which increases the player's damage attack and health items such as potion and food which increases the player's health icons. Special items are very handy for most levels and boss battles, so you can purchase these items from the shop in Scuttle Town. In the shop, you can purchase the character's new moves such as backflip which allow player to evade the enemy's attack, recovery which allows player to recover from being knocked out by enemies and power kick that uses the higher offensive attack on the enemies. You can also purchase the new upgrades for whipping attack and risky's attack items allowing to increase more damage attack which helps the character's abilities to become even faster and stronger during the gameplay. You can also improve character's health by collecting squid's heart from the different levels and hand it over to squidsmith place to add character's capacity which makes the player lasted long during the gameplay.
I really liked the exploration in the game because it is fun to explore every area like searching for key to gain access to the next level, finding secrets inside the cave, collecting the important items to give someone and collecting dark magic which increases the amount of fun factor. Visiting a same island again does adds the replay values if the player wanted to search more newer area, so you can also check the map screen which helps the player to look around the stages. This game does have really good puzzle solving in most of the dungeons stages, but the game however does have some annoying parts where player gets instantly hit by some dangerous hazards and sometime the player did tends to fall off the stages which takes sometime to get used with harder level design. I say each of the boss battle are quite epic which makes the game so entertaining to play.
I believe this game has longer-length than the previous game and it also has pirate mode which the player still retains most of the pirate items from the start which makes the game slightly easier and it's great for the speedrun walkthroughs.
Overall, It has great combat items, solid controls, impressive puzzle-solving, excellent exploration and epic boss battles.
Graphics
The graphics are looked the same from the previous game, but still has the fantastic character's sprites for 16-bit standards, the level environment has stunning look of landscape and scenery, and the visuals are very colourful and detailed.
This game does not have screen-size options which is quite shame that I always prefer set it to 4:3 resolution to make the game look right, but instead its on 16:9 size. To be honest, I did notice some of the graphics that did got polished on textures and filters to make the game look cleaner in HDTV, but it's still look nice in overall.
Overall, it has excellent character's design, well detailed environment, and nice visuals effects in whole.
Music and Sounds
I got to say that the whole arabian style soundtrack are by far the best in the game. It was composed by Jake Kaufman, who was known for composing music for Shovel Knight, Contra 4 and Ducktales: Remastered, adds the amazing catchy music on each levels as it's sounds good as the previous installment. I still liked the 16-bit style sound effects and simple voice effects for characters which is sounds much clearer for console version.
Overall, it has terrific music and great sound effects.
Special Features
This game has two unlockables such as pirate mode and wallpaper art and it does have trophy achievements to earn the player's experience. Unlike the Risky's Revenge, it has no unlockable costumes which is quite shame and it would have been nice to add more unlockable content in the game,
Overall, it has two unlockables, but lacks of more unlockable content in the game.
Advantages
Fabulous story
Memorable characters
Solid gameplay
Has replay values
Excellent exploration
Fantastic graphics
Terrific soundtrack
Disadvantages
Some frustrating hazards
Lack of screen size options
Not enough unlockable content
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - Fabulous storyplot, awesome characters, great style of cutscenes and well presenting area.
Gameplay 8/10 - Great combat items, solid controls, impressive puzzle-solving, excellent exploration and epic boss battles.
Graphics 7.5/10 - Excellent character's design, well detailed environment, and nice visuals effects in whole.
Music and Sounds 8.7/10 - Terrific music and great sound effects.
Special Features 5/10 - It has two unlockables, but lacks of more unlockable content in the game.
Overall 8/10 - I felt that this sequel offers better gameplay overall, the presentation keeps the story and characters more interesting, the music were the best part in the game and the length of the game is somewhat bit longer compared with previous installment that keeps the game in the right direction. This is definitely must play for the fans of the 2D platformer genre, so this game was still available to purchase on Steam, PS Store, Xbox Live and Nintendo eShop as downloadable game.
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