Shantae and the Seven Sirens is a 2D side-scrolling adventure was originally released for iOS and MacOS in 2019, and was later released for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC in 2020, and PS5 in 2022. It was developed and published by WayForward Technologies Inc, and it is the 5th game in the Shantae series, following 4th title such as Shantae: Half-Genie Hero which is the game that I've already covered this for my review back in the January 2019.
As I previously enjoyed the 4th title which I described it as one of the better sequel of the whole series thanks to awesome artstyle of game graphics, exciting game modes to play, complex 2D gameplay style, catchy arabian-style soundtrack, and great story presentation, this 5th title of the series came really close to being an outstanding with same artstyle presentation and 2D gameplay design like from the previous entry.
So does it mean it's anything plays better than I've expected or is it a huge step-back compared the previous games in the series that I've played.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The story follows the half-genie girl named Shantae and her friends are invited in Paradise Island by the mayor of Arena Town, as she meets and befriends with fellow 5 half-genies to do a dance performance at the Half-Genie Festival. During the performance till it was interfered by the unexpecting blackouts and discovered that the 5 half-genies has disappeared from the show causing the mayor to cancel the festival after the disappearance of 5 dancers.
Shantae begins to go on her quest to exploring Sunken City beneath the island and find 5 lost half-genies that had gone missing.
The story in the game is rather quite good, I really liked the plot that involves mysteries of 5 missing performers and undercover the truth behind the event that happened in the festival is sounds pretty straightforward to follow if you like these types of mysteries that really adds up the game's charm.
The game shares with great cast of characters such as Shantae as we know her as the main protagonist from the entire game in the series with her unique special powers, long-purple hair, and has cool belly-dancing sequences is the reason we liked her in the game.
Then you have a long-returning side-characters such as Mimic, Sky, Rottytops and Bolo featured in the game, where as it introduces 5 new characters such as Plink, Vera, Zapple, Harmony, and Fillin are the victims that been missing in the festival.
Then you have all-time villain such as Risky Boots up to no good again just like the previous game, yes yes we know the crazy pirate lady has never learned her lesson, but I do consider her as the likable video game antagonist, just like SEGA has Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and Capcom has Dr. Wily in Mega Man franchise which is why I also liked her in the game.
I also liked the group of 7 sirens such as lovely green-creatured seaweed Water Lily, insane drill-engineer Coral, attractive parasite-petting chick Tubeworm, deep-sea creep Angler Fish, sleepy pale-squid Octo, and gorgeous young Empress which I find their appearance looks fantastic as the main bosses, where as you have cute red-tail Lobster are the only member of the 7 sirens who are likely as the ally in the game instead of being labelled as the enemies like the other sirens I've mentioned above.
The presentation is looking amazing with the 2D hand-drawn animation just like the 4th entry in the series.
The opening intro begins with Shantae dances off at the beginnings, wakes up from the bed and sets off her adventure to save a day, and her friends comes by past towards the screen feels like watching anime TV show with cool opening sequences is very eye-catching indeed that attracts my attention which is why I've downloaded this to play on my system.
I also liked the settings and design of many locations in the game such as paradise island which includes three towns and an ancient underground city acts as the main whole of the large environment map.
You have Arena Town which is resort and home of the half-genie festival filled with bath house, shops, and blacksmiths, the Tree Town is a village places filled with houses made of hut, and bunch of green trees, the Armor Town is a rock-solid place is famous for making armor, and of course Sunken City is an underground surface.
Each of the labyrinths such as the Water Lily's Den has big-stream of waterfall and mystical large caves, the Coral Mine filled with construction mining room, the Sea Vent Lab has hot surfaced lava and chunk of rocks, the Boiler has really dark underground themes, and the Squid Pit has light-water themes.
These settings looked incredible the way they designed the whole map of the game's levels tends to have the mixture of more colourful and bright sceneries to slight dark and gloomy tone feel to it which is very well done as the stage presentation.
Overall, it has amazing 2D hand-drawn animation, good storylines, likeable characters, and presentation settings.
Gameplay
You take control of Shantae in 2D metroidvania-style exploration where you start exploring around the levels to collect important key items, gaining new abilities, and defeating boss in each locations.
She uses her long-purple hair as a basic attack to knock down enemies or break objects which you can also do the jump or crouch attack.
Defeating enemies and breaking objects drops bunch of stuff such as hearts, green jug, and of course the foods that refills your health and magic meter, and these gems are used as the currencies which you'll need to save these to spend stuff at the shop are located to three of the towns.
In the shops, you'll have the selection of items and the upgradables such as health potion that fully increase health bar, magic potion that fully increase magic meter, and auto potion that fully replenishes automatically when your health fully runs out. The abilities such as fireball that roast your foes from long range single shot while upgrading to flamethrower shoots stream of fire, pike ball will have a ball around you and deal damage to the enemy that touches it while upgrading to scimitar deals more heavy damage, homing rocket that fires deadly projectiles that seek out targets on enemies while upgrading to third tier boost the number of speed and damage, and bubble protects yourself from enemy projectiles with a bubble shield while upgrading to invincibility shrug off enemy attacks.
The power-ups such as attract that automatically draws in nearby gems and hearts from the distance, and silky cream and shampoo increase the damage attack and speed dealt by your hair.
Then you will have 4 unique fusion dance that are used as special powers such as seer dance will allow you to see invisible objects, refresh dance will heal you as well as grow plants you find around the levels, spark dance will power up mechanical devices, and quake dance will damage all enemies on the screen as well as shake the level around you which can be used to find hidden items, so these fusion powers can be obtained by finding the fusion stones and hand it over to someone to do a crafting in each chapters.
There are special abilities that will allow you to traverse through the undiscovered areas such as newt that climbs and dash around the walls, the drill that digs through the sand-pits, the frog that swims under the water, the turtle that can breaks through the unbreakable surface by dashing forward or slamming ground, and the squid that allows you to triple jump to reach the higher areas, so these of the stuff can be obtained by rescuing each half-genies, who been locked up in cage, will reward you with the special abilities.
Your health meter can be upgraded by obtaining 4 heart squids each, can be found somewhere in the locations and take it to an blacksmiths, makes one health container each, so this can be extended up to 16 containers will make you last very long throughout the game.
The game also introduces an monster card which is a collectable items can be obtained by defeating enemies will drop down the cards which acts as augmented abilities that provides bonuses such as increased movement speed or magic automatically refilling over time, so up to 3 cards can be equipped at once with a total of 50 different cards to collect.
The gameplay plays really decently throughout the single-player adventure especially the game itself made the return to the style of the first three entries in the series since the 4th title.
You have 8 different locations to explore which keeps you busy exploring around the levels such as discovering hidden secrets, collecting all cards, opening up treasures, and grinding many gems throughout the game.
What makes the game so good is that you have 7 labyrinths which is a dungeon-based areas similar to Nintendo's Zelda series where you need to get pass through the level by completing the puzzle-solving rooms, collecting keys to unlock doors, and defeating mini-bosses in order to reach at the main-boss battle, and I also love the platforming aspects in the game such as evading hazardous objects and avoid falling into dead pit.
Both the platforming and puzzle elements to it's game is just done it right that keeps the game's difficulty feel intact that made the areas feel bit impossible, but give's the player's ambitious practice makes it better.
I got to say I really liked the epic boss battles with great use of enemy's patterns and tactics are balanced and flexible that keeps you well entertained, so stuff like Water lily Siren will fire with 5 green seeds on the ground will grow into small traps, Coral Siren will toss multiple of bombs across the screen, Angler Fish launches the eye toss that bounces around the room, and Octo Siren that fires a laser, so each of the bosses I've mention above will have 2 or 3 different attacks that you need to avoid getting hit and find their weak pattern to attack is what made the game quite fun to play.
There are some drawbacks in the game is the monster card system that are mostly useless which is why I don't use them as much otherwise it made the game too super easy to beat especially playing on the full deck mode and rule breaker mode which I find these two modes quite unnecessary in my opinion, so I rather much stick to purchasing magic abilities and power-ups from the shop is quite enough for the game's difficulty level.
Aside with the monster cards and two game modes that I've mentioned above, the rest of the whole game is totally fine it should because I find the gameplay mechanics and the level exploration plays exactly just like the first threes that made the series quite recognisable. You have solid level design, great use of attacking and system, puzzle solving elements on each dungeons, has interesting quests, and decent boss battles which I am happy the way the game just plays.
Overall, it has large exploration to discover, solid gameplay with unique abilities, cool dungeon stages with puzzle solving, and epic boss battles.
Graphics
The graphics is just as stunning as the 4th title thanks to 2D hand-drawn techniques featuring much colourful environments design and anime-styled characters is looking remarkable as the presentation aspects.
I got to say I really liked how the levels are well constructive with the use of shadow-transparent and lighting effects especially with places like Arena Town is looking impressive on both the backgrounds and foregrounds of the large castle, where as the Water Lily location has bunch of flowers and trees with tiny little fireflies speck with it, and has big waterfall animation.
The outside of the town has the cloud moving itself, the sunken ship has gloomy and wrecked setups with big spotlight that follows Shantae around and foggy looking room that moves itself which I got to say its magnificent to look at and really shows that having the hand-drawn in video games does holds up well as today standards.
Overall, it has colourful environments design, anime-styled characters, shadow-transparent and lighting effects, and magnificent animation.
Music and Sounds
The music does have catchy opening song "Rise and Shine" which was sang by Cristina Vee, who is also voiced her titular role in the series, does sounds like you hear it from the awesome 80s cartoons in Saturday afternoon which I really liked it indeed, while the rest of the original soundtrack in entire game was composed by 4s such as Kentaro Sakamoto, Mark Sparling, Madeline Lim, and Gavin Allen did a wonderful job of scoring their track in different locations fused with both retro-inspired and Arabian music which I quite liked the style of genres being mixed together.
The sound design in entire game is just like from the previous game with similar background effects and environmental noises, and I got to say the character's voice are also sounds great, but then again what I've mentioned on my previous 2019's review of 4th title in the series it's pretty still limited on the storyboards with just few short lines during the conversation between the characters, so I wish they could use the proper fully voice dialogue with entire lines, but still it's acceptable overall.
Overall, great soundtrack, decent sound design, and acceptable partial voice.
Special Features
The game has 4 different modes such as definitive mode which features more challenging rebalanced difficulty, beginner mode which lowers the difficulty such that the player cannot lose, full deck mode, which grants the player all 50 Monster Cards from the beginning of the game, and lastly rule breaker mode which removes the limit on how many cards can be equipped at once, but like I've mentioned about both the full deck mode and rule breaker mode at above, I find the game modes aren't as good compared with the 4th installiment like Half-Genie Hero which has tons of better content like two expansion story with different playable characters and additional modes with different playstyles which unfortunately the Seven Sirens are nowhere come close.
Overall, an disappointing game modes.
Advantages
Amazing 2D hand-drawn animation
Good storylines and likeable characters
Solid gameplay with large exploration and unique abilities
Fun boss battles
Great soundtrack
Disadvantages
Disappointing game modes (such as full deck and rule breaker)
Monster card system
Final Verdict
Presentation 9/10 - amazing 2D hand-drawn animation, good storylines, likeable characters, and presentation settings.
Gameplay 8/10 - large exploration to discover, solid gameplay with unique abilities, cool dungeon stages with puzzle solving, and epic boss battles.
Graphics 8.5/10 - colourful environments design, anime-styled characters, shadow-transparent and lighting effects, and magnificent animation.
Music and Sounds 8/10 - great soundtrack, decent sound design, and acceptable partial voice.
Special Features 4/10 - full deck mode and rule breaker mode are kinda too easy.
Overall 8/10 - Despite the useless monster card system and two unnecessary game modes, Shantae and the Seven Sirens does shares with good story and characters, solid gameplay with exploration, puzzles and bosses, and magnificent 2D hand-drawn presentation are the decent highlights that adds the charm of the game itself.
Is it still a good side-scrolling adventure game? yes it is. Is it the best in the whole series? the answer is no, not quite good as the Half-Genie Hero which are better game in my opinion, but this game is still quite fun and entertaining that are worth checking it out for the fans of the everyone's favourite Half-Genie lady will be still appreciated the way the game has turns out to be.
You can get the game digitally for £24.99 from PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam, where as I don't know the price for both the iOS and MacOS version cost because I don't play games on mobile or Mac computers, so instead I pay much attention to mostly PCs and consoles as primary platform.
That being said, it's still a fun game which I am happy with, so I was hoping WayForward Technologies Inc will consider an future follow-up.
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