Shantae's always stuck out to me as an interesting series with a lot of charm.
If you're unfamiliar, the series stars the eponymous Half-Genie with magical lethal hair
and belly-dancing powers that transform her into different animals, and follows her adventures
of protecting Sequin Land from her nemesis, the pirate Risky Boots.
A couple years back, I picked up the original Gameboy Color game and its follow-up that
came out eight years later on 3DS.
They're kind of a mixture of Metroidvania with Zelda, with the main gameplay gimmick
being the animal transformations that allow you to access new areas, solve puzzles, and
so on.
Admittedly, neither of these games are exactly top-tier in what they're trying to do, with
the first game hampered by the GBC's limitations, and the second being too short.
But for all these games lacked, for me, and many others, what makes them special is the
charm in the art design, the characters, the incredible music, and the writing.
The world the Shantae series takes place has such a unique style, with everything from
Genies, to pirates, to friendly zombies.
When it was announced that Wayforward was kickstarting a brand new game, with a huge
graphics overhaul and series' first debut in HD, I was ecstatic.
With more experience under their belt to finally make a more robust game, Half Genie Hero had
the potential to be the first Shantae game that really knocked it out of the park on
all fronts.
…And then Pirate's Curse happened.
I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the only one who for a while, forgot that Half
Genie Hero wouldn't be the only new Shantae game coming out; there would also be the third
game in the series, following up immediately where Risky's Revenge left off, releasing
on the 3DS eshop.
Hype for this game felt more muted, at least personally, after being shown how amazing
Shantae could look in HD, but I was nevertheless excited to play it.
What I didn't expect however, is that Pirate's curse ended up being the best Shantae game
thus far by a long shot.
It had even more charm in its characters and world than before, the soundtrack was easily
the best yet, and the better hardware allowed for a pretty nice upgrade in art from Risky's
Revenge.
I mean of course it isn't as good as the clean, stylized look of Half Genie Hero, but
they really pulled out a lot of great animation and spritework for this one.
What really made Pirate's Curse so good though are the changes to gameplay.
First off, it's worth mentioning that the world in this game is the biggest the series
had seen by this point.
Pirate's Curse fully embraces the Metroidvania side of its roots, and exploring is an absolute
blast.
Dungeons in this game are expanded upon and they all feel pretty tight, with both Metroid-esque
exploration, and Zelda-esque combat and puzzles.
The biggest and most important change however comes in the items and power-ups you get.
Spoilers for Risky's revenge, but at the end of the game, Shantae loses her genie powers
and becomes human.
Since Pirate's Curse directly continues from said game, it's the first game in the
series that doesn't allow Shantae to use her signature transformation dances.
Of course this worried me going in.
One of the series special mechanics, just suddenly gone?
Would that take away too much from what makes Shantae unique?
Well, the trade-off was actually worth it.
Rather than animal transformations that give you new ways to explore, you get the Pirate
weapons.
At the click of a single button, these items give you different abilities that offer applications
for puzzles, combat, and platforming.
In hindsight, the transformations were cool and unique, but really inefficient.
Even with Risky's revenge simplifying it to one button, you still had to stop dead
in your tracks and wait for the right cue, then transform, then go back through the whole
process for every roadblock.
The Pirate weapons, with no additional waiting or animations, keep the momentum going.
You can also easily combine these items to create really fun and useful ways to speed
up travel across the overworld.
I'm not a speedrunner by any stretch of the imagination, but this game is absolutely
built for it.
The Pirate weapons help you access new shortcuts, grab upgrades with ease, and as already mentioned,
keep up the pace.
There's even a mode unlocked after beating the game that starts you with all of them,
so you can take advantage of all those shortcuts and blaze through the adventure faster than
ever.
Pirate's Curse established a really nice fluidity to the gameplay that honestly wasn't
there before, at least not like this.
Don't get me wrong, I still like the other games, but this hit that Metroidvania sweet
spot just right for me, and being a huge Metroid fan, it really made an impression.
Pirate's Curse isn't perfect by any means, but it's really fantastic game I feel I
can recommend without any major hitches.
So after that, it was a little hard not to be more cautious of Half Genie Hero.
I wasn't concerned about its presentation, or even its charm, but what we knew about
the gameplay worried me a little.
Being a backer, I played the early-access demo of it, and while I definitely enjoyed
it, the level design felt more linear, especially with the world being split into levels, and
the gameplay a little slower.
The major contributor to the latter is the elephant in the room, the returning transformations.
On one hand, I'm glad to see them back because they look better than ever and they're a
classic mechanic of the first two games.
On the other hand, I'm immediately reminded that I have to stop and take a moment to perform
the transformation just to get past one part.
That's not even taking into account some of the controls for these transformations
not being quite as smooth as a double jump or a hat-parachute.
Pirate's Curse kinda put Half Genie Hero in a weird place.
After setting a benchmark for how solid of a Metroidvania Shantae could be, Half Genie
Hero returns to the more platforming focused roots of the series.
I couldn't help but be worried that Wayforward might've stuck themselves by trying to reboot
the classic gameplay after Pirate's Curse blazed new trails.
Well, after finally figuring out where to find my backer code, I jumped into Half Genie
Hero.
Of course I was still excited for the game, but I knew I'd have to temper my expectations
a little and see where the game would go, and if it worked out.
Now, having played and 100%ed Half-Genie Hero, I can say that it both affirmed and eased
my worries.
Wayforward did a lot of work to make older aspects of the series shine brighter when
brought back here.
It's true, to transform you still have to pause and wait, but at the same time, it's
way faster and more convenient than before.
Not to mention there's a much larger variety of transformations this time, old and new,
with some extra optional dances to boot.
Utilizing the transformations isn't as smooth as the pirate tools, but they have a lot of
utility in movement, none showing this more than both of the flying transformations.
It's kinda ridiculous how good these are, you can skip over entire levels using them
correctly.
This added utility really works out because this game, like its predecessors, has backtracking.
Most of the time it's optional, but I never found it to be too bad anyway.
If you're exploring for item completion, you can always come back later once you have
the more mobile transformations.
However, this does tie back to my worries about linearity.
While this game does have exploration and encourages replay, the level design is much
more akin the linearity of classic platformers.
It's a weird mesh of the concepts of metroidvania with the level design of platformers like
Megaman.
It definitely doesn't always work, especially when it calls back to level design I think
was better off being forgotten.
That brings up something else I noticed while playing this game, the difficulty.
Shantae's never been known as a really hard series, usually leaning on the easier side
of things, but I found this game to be surprisingly harder than I expected.
After thinking on it a little bit, I realized that this is a result of the level design
focusing more on retro-platformer inspiration.
No matter how well equipped you are for combat, it doesn't mean much when you're faced
with a long stretch of tight platforming with few checkpoints.
This led to some frustrating moments, but I still wouldn't call this game too hard
overall.
In fact, what I mentioned almost solely applies to the platforming, because the difficulty
of the combat entirely depends on the upgrades or relics you use.
Honestly, it wouldn't be that hard to argue that Half Genie Hero's combat is way too
easy; with a little effort, you'll find all the tools you need to snap enemies and
boss fights over your knee.
This would normally bother me because you need to get all of those items to 100% the
game, so you'd be forced to be overpowered.
However, this game takes a page straight out of Symphony of the Night with its items: you
can turn off or on any relic right from the menu.
I could turn off overpowered items like the defense increasing armor or infinite magic
tiara, but I also had the option to turn them back on if I was really struggling with a
section.
It's really interesting that for all the steps this game takes away from its metroidvania
roots, it took a very specific feature from Symphony of the Night, which even goes back
to Super Metroid.
It makes the difficulty, of the combat at least, highly customizable.
Back to the bigger picture, while Half Genie Hero isn't the improvement upon the metroidvania
formula of Pirate's Curse I'd hoped for, there's something to be said about the different
approach it took.
The level design still lends itself to exploration and replay, but it takes a step back from
the connected world and dungeons of the previous games.
This might make it disappointing for some Shantae fans, because it's just a different
style of game that what the series had previously been.
Maybe it isn't the best analogy because it leans more into the retro-platformer genre,
but Half Genie Hero is maybe better compared to something like Shovel Knight.
You have a hub area, distinct replayable levels, and upgrades or relics found in stages and
in shops.
Levels are linear, but have tricky platforming and encourage exploration.
That all being said, I think most Shantae fans will still find a lot to love here.
It's still fun to play, but more importantly, it absolutely oozes the charm the series is
known for.
Maybe the shift in art style has led to some animations being simplified, but the presentation
of this game is absolutely gorgeous and perfectly fits.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the spritework of the previous games, but the more cohesive
art style of Half Genie Hero looks fluid and colorful, and it gives the game a unique identity.
The dialogue and flavor text is also good as ever.
I'd say it's on par with Pirate's Curse if not better, it consistently made me smile,
and there's some nice character moments here and there.
The overarching story though is unfortunately a step back.
It's not bad, but it's broken up in some weird ways, probably as a result of the isolated
level structure.
Last but not certainly not least on my checklist for what I look for in these games would be
the music.
To say the least, it doesn't disappoint.
Every song is super catchy and vibrant, with the soundtrack featuring remixes that are
the best versions so far, and some really solid new tracks too.
My favorites would include "Dance through the Danger", "Counterfeit Mermaids",
the boss battle theme, "Hypno Baron's Castle", and Rottytops's theme.
Half Genie Hero is far from a perfect game, and I'd still say Pirate's Curse is the
best in the series.
However, it's still a great time, for fans and newcomers.
The biggest complaint I really have is that it's pretty short, and while I'd say it's
still worth the 20 bucks because of the replay value with Hero Mode, where you start with
all the transformation dances, Pirate's Curse is a better package for the same price.
That being said though, the folks at Wayforward have laid down the groundwork for a great
new generation of Shantae games, and I can't wait to see where they go next.
For more infomation >> Tongue twist for the accent's way. This is a video performance a tongue twist sentence. - Duration: 0:19. 
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