Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is a Metroidvania that takes place after the events in Risky's Revenge. The game's pixel art and story is fantastic. The controls are very responsive. The world is broken up into different areas with their own unique environments that can be selected at a world hub. Each area in the game has its own Metroidvania style map to explore, its own dungeons and secrets. Some secrets will require abilities found in other areas of the game. Shantae can purchase upgrades to some of these abilities to make them more powerful. It is not hard to collect enough money to purchase upgrades and items in the town store. The store's healing items aren't really needed until the last area of the game which has a souls-like difficulty spike with a dungeon requiring near mastery of Shantae's abilities to navigate through it. Metroidvania veterans will probably not see the game over screen during their playthrough unless they forgo using healing items like autopotions and don't upgrade their health. Enemies drop healing items constantly so I saved my gems for weapon upgrades. There is an achievement for not upgrading Shantae's health while still collecting all the items for the health upgrade for those that are looking for more of a challenge. It was fun to explore the different environments in the game while looking for secrets. After beating the game, you gain the ability to begin a new game while having all of Shantae's abilities without any of their upgrades at the start!

If you love action platformers you have to pick this up. It's entertaining, amusing, and sexy. All very important things and I definitely recommend it. The achievements add a lot of replayability too. My only complaint is that, once you acquire all the items it feels like there's just too much to keep track of. Floating, triple jumping, downward sword, whip, gun... just so many things. Though it is still damned entertaining and I can't wait to play the next game.

I have always seen people talk about Shantae all the time and decided to try the game out recently and all the talk correct. It's got some good character design and lots of collectibles. Also seems like its just challenging enough for newcomers but not to push them away from the series.

Awesome game for a very good price! Been watching it on steam for a long time so jumped on the opportunity when I found it in a bundle. A must have!

This is the second Shantae game I've played and it seems like a very solid franchise overall. The controls are good, the art is enjoyable, the characters are fun, what more can I say? If you enjoy 2D platformers, this game is almost certainly going to satisfy you.