Half Genie; fully hot!
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| Ummm hello there Shantae, um... oooh... |
Full disclosure: I kickstarted this game.
So, a platformer with a character I'd never heard of by developer I'd never noticed... so I kick-started it; WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!?
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| lol no |
I don't remember why, but when I saw Shantae I was ready and willing to kickstart it, for Mighty no 9 I had no interest... anyway, this is about Shantae!
Solid gameplay
I've never been a huge platform gamer, but when you play a good platformer the thing you notice least when it's done right is the basic mechanics of movement and combat. Looking back at my playtime I'd say the basic gameplay works well, shantae just moves well and responds quickly most of the time. One problem I have with the gameplay as it goes on is the dances that let you take animal forms... you end up with 12 of them! It can be annoying as the menu system cycles through the whole 12 in batches of four but at least the gameplay pauses while you do this.
Each animal form has a specific use but many of them can also be used elsewhere for some utility to skip some annoyance in a level or some such.
Ultimately though, it's rare for you to feel like you've been cheated by the controls or game mechanics... the game could be a little harder though?
Lovely graphics, art style and writing
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| Lovely... |
It just looks gorgeous; I love the resurgence of pure 2-D sprites and such. It's great!
Colourful, well drawn and animated, and simple things like making sure the foreground enemies and dangers don't blend into the background. It's just great.
And the writing! It's no Shakespear, but there's humour, warmth and enough compelling story here to make a good experience.
Too much Backtracking
Shantae games are famous for requiring backtracking, and I've never been a big fan of this. I think it's an interesting way of reusing areas but sometimes you just get sick of coming back to area A or B so many times... Still, it's not quite enough to wear out the welcome of the game I just think they could back it off just a little.
Often you'll do everything you can do in a level the first time you go through it... and barely be a quarter done with it because you don't have this or that animal form or you don't have the attack for a form; most forms are helpless initially without the attack for that form; meaning you have to get nearly 24 collectables in order to complete all the levels properly!!!
Ultimately
Shantae is good, it'll soak up 4 to 5 hours on your first playthrough... it looks great, plays pretty good and has a decent story to boot. It is a bit short in my opinion, but it's a $20 game; not like a Kane & Lynch $60 piece of BS.
Maybe kickstarter isn't all bad?
Shutup.
Keeper3 - Quality platformers in 2016/17? No wai!
