Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (2014)

After playing Seven Sirens, which I thought was mildly enjoyable but not without issues, I wasn’t too hopeful for Pirates Curse. But this game is a real Metroidvania gem.

Really engaging and fun level design. Solid platforming sections and great exploration. Quality pixel art and fun music. And a great sense of humor overall.

The map I had issues with. There are 6 islands each with their own map, which isn’t a huge deal to me in a Metroidvania, but you can only view the map of your current location. This made it hard to contextualize and get any kind of overview of the world.

Some pretty annoying enemies and cringey fan service aside, I really had a fun time with this game. It is very creative and keeps you engaged throughout. This is definitely the one I would recommend to anyone interested in the series.

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'.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is a third game in the series and a second one that’s on PC. A metroidvania game with some decent platforming, colourful graphics and a lot of character. Quite enjoyable.

I have not played the first one which was on Gameboy Color and I mention this as the whole story is connected - not sure how much but you feel the gaps. Because of that starting the previous one I felt like I’ve missed the intro and as I was playing this one a while after the previous one - I had a similar feeling. Like I missed something and did not understand all the what’s and why’s. It doesn’t take a lot of the experience but felt odd.

In the game you play as a half-genie whose powers were stripped. And suddenly there’s some curse with bad magic, and you have to stop it with the help of your previous enemy. The story is silly but fun - suffice to say - previous enemies are now friends or at least less of enemies - and it’s got that cartoony feel to it.

Gameplay wise it’s not a strict metroidvania as the levels are divided into islands to which you travel from the central hub island. You will have to travel multiple times to the same islands after unlocking certain skills but it’s a lot more structured than the previous one and I liked that approach a lot more than previous.

Your abilities you gain on each island differ from the previous game. As previously your character could change into different animals with different powers - now you’re collecting pirate gear which gives you the abilities. Hat for floating, boots for charging etc.. Those as expected allow you to access different areas.

Overall the progress is a lot more structured and there’s a lot less running around thinking of where to go next.

Your goal in the game is to collect all pieces of the pirate attire to unlock more and more islands. At the same time you need to collect all the bad magic from the cacklebats hidden over the islands. For a good ending you will need to collect all 20 of them and I have to admit - at least one of them I would not find if I have not looked it up. For most part they’re easy to find but that one was nuts.

Visually it’s pretty much the same thing as previously. Great pixel art for general game with highly detailed character talking screens with curvy shapes and revealing clothing. Looks good and colorful. The world and level design are ok. While the labyrinth levels were nicely designed with solid puzzles - there’s also a bunch of travel levels - which are just boring and unnecessary hard with too many enemies. Especially on bog island this was annoying and served little to no purpose.

Soundtrack is fitting for the game. Cheerful and thematic but not something I would listen to on it’s own.

Overall a very solid title worth recommending. Will be definitely picking up the next one.

Pros:

• Fun/charming character designs
• Was not expecting such funny dialogue :)
• Nice variety of different levels that all look and feel unique from one another. Unexpected, hilarious and memorable moments like the Saliva Waterfall feeding into a pool for those girls on Spring Break or the Squid Baron coming to terms that he's just a sub-boss xD
• Controls very well. Clean and precise movement.
• Good variety of skills and moves
• ABSOLUTELY love the music

Cons:

• Strange difficulty spike at the end of the last level. It should have been more gradual.
• No quick select button to immediately drink potions or heal. Pausing the game to heal takes you out of the action.
• Some levels have too much enemy projectile spam... (or maybe I'm just bad lol). Mud Bog Island I'm looking at you.

Overall Thoughts: Fun Metroidvania game. Definitely looking forward to see what the rest of the series has to offer :D

SatPC is a retro-style platformer. You're a lady in a bikini top who joins forces with another lady in a bikini top to fight a bad guy. The levels are colourful, the music is nice, gameplay is smooth, dialogue is fun and there's a nice variety in enemies. It also has too much backtracking, an annoying save system, a boring bossfight and asshole level design. I quit after 45 minutes because i fell down 4-5 screens and i was too annoyed to climb back up.

All in all, SatPC is a mediocre game. If you want to play a decent Metroidvania game with boring combat, get it on sale. Otherwise, don't bother.

Uhm, apparently it wasn't that hard after all. That was mostly because I was stocked up with all kinds of items though. But then again, the only possible 'flaw' I could have possible found within this game was *maybe* the difficulty overall. Not due to it being hard or anything, it's actually pretty much the opposite.

Foremost, it's not like I mean SatPC is any boring tedious piece-of-cake platformer. It's definitely closer to 'easy' than 'hard' in most levels and phases, that much is certain. *But* the game does have its immensely great share of mindless fun dialogue, interesting dungeons, collectible-hunting, pixel work and (DAT) soundtrack. And to add to that it's not like I actually had any actual problems with the difficulty being too easy or too hard in any moments throughout the game, (Unless we're specifically talking about that goddamned Mud Bog Island god how I despise that clusterfuck of projectiles and monsters and shit all over my face ).

Apart from being great overall SatPC also has a fucklot of charm to it. Now, after having actually finished the game, I can even say that it's already one of my favorite indie games. God, writing game reviews like this makes me nervous af.

I fucking loved the game, that's it. (Yup, it's really great. Go play it.)