Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is a solid metroidvania. The game plays it fairly safe and doesn't do anything remarkably innovative. If you've played Super Metroid or Castlevania: SotN, the power-ups and abilities will be recognizable albeit wrapped with a pirate themed flair. There isn't much to delve into the story of Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. There's a basic setup of an evil baddie who has cursed the crew members of Risky Boots and it is up to Shantae to trek through various islands and defeat the various bosses.

The controls and abilities are nice and responsive which is expected in a good metroidvania. What makes Shantae and the Pirate's Curse only a good game and not a superb one is the odd difficulty spike near the end. What initially seemed like a fairly casual experience suddenly becomes a frustrating gauntlet with enemies that can take large chunks of health and trial and error platforming stages. There are a few occasions where the game does try something different like a runner level and stealth level. These sequences stifle the game’s momentum forcing the player to repeat the level upon failure. There is also a completely unwelcome luck based mini-game where Shantae has to play heads and tails and win consecutively three times to progress through the story.

The art is pandering to the male gaze. With the exception of two overweight female characters, every woman and girl portrayed in the game has ample bosoms with an hourglass figure. Many of these characters don bikini tops and have an idle jiggling animation that accentuates their busts. There is even one puzzle sequence where four bikini clad women have to latch onto a large rope as if they were scaling a stripper pole. The sexulization of women in Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is unnecessary and distracting. The game would have functioned perfectly fine if all the characters were reasonably dressed and had more muted animations.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is a fine metroidvania experience if you can stomach the difficulty in the later stages and can tolerate the raunchy art direction.

This was my first Shantae game, but of the two I originally played (plus Half-Genie Hero), it is the one I far prefer.

The game was built with the 3DS in mind and the port to PC doesn't provide any sense of the game being larger or more accommodating to a non-handheld platform. That's going to sound entitled, but the alternatives we're provided with are very, very cramped rooms in a game whose physics seem like they could accommodate more. You'll have very fast and generally fun movement options that have the wind cut from them because you hit a screen change or room-segmenting-wall one second after you start a charge. Rooms that are large (usually only vertically), are typically very plain and feel zoomed-in.

Rather than feeling like a port that I'm playing on the wrong platform, SPC feels instead like it was built for the wrong platform originally. The foundation here is very, very solid in the realm of platforming which peaks with the final gauntlet (it is a rare, blissful moment when a game's finale is also its most fun). The bosses are well designed and very tactile, one of those situations that leaves you itching for a boss rush mode which unfortunately is never offered. The unlocks are also meaningful and fluid where they contribute to the movement. All of these elements are impacted by a bizarre and spammy combat balance, which is weird because you don't have a lot of options when dealing with enemies to begin with.

Areas are absolutely choked with enemies, meaning that until you have every unlock (and even a bit after that), you are prevented from going fast even across areas you've already fully explored. Bosses will physically hurt your fingers from mashing attack and only one unlock provides a meaningful combat alternative, with the exception being a few lock-and-key style prompts where things seem too perfectly meant for you to charge or pike ball.

Exploration to the 75% marker is delightful, primarily because this accounts for the opportunities to stretch your unlocked moveset. That last 25% (which is very close to being required for the good ending) is unfun and unfair, examples including having to break one particular block out of 100 in a room, unmarked walls that require you ram them, and repetitive, bland money collection for items that add negative value to the game. There is a thin line between collection and coddling and I feel the difference maker for SPC was not including the location of doors between rooms on the map.

Less enemies, more platforming, less stockpiled healing, more alternatives to mashing the hair whip button, unless you're going to let me move while I do it. Please do not sacrifice another title in an attempt to 'Build a Better Speed Run'.