Good game

It's a fun little metroidvania, has a good soundtrack and I really like the spritework in this game. Despite that, it feels pretty rushed, the bosses are too long and boring and the backtracking parts are a bit annoying. It's nonetheless a good game but not remarkable.

Feels like a Sega Genesis game incorporating gameplay elements from the Castlevania, Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and other games of the NES/SNES/Genesis era.

Man, is this a cute game. I had a lot of fun playing and just looking at its animations. The main character is a cutie pie with fantastic animations, and it looks and feels like a Sega Genesis game—I feel like if it had come out in the early 1990s, it would’ve been a classic. As it’s a game for a Nintendo system, though, it is self-aware that it borrows gameplay elements from other Nintendo series: the heart containers of the Zelda franchise, the climbing of chains looking like Super Mario Bros. 2, the doors feel like SMB3, and the world exploration feels like Castlevania 2 (the only two Metroid elements are blocked paths/backtracking with new abilities and the multiple ending screens with a female character). Overall, I had a ton of fun in this game but it is a handheld game and so you should expect a simplified gaming experience.

The Positives
-This game is beautiful. The graphics brought me back to the Genesis era, and the gameplay was simple but fun. I kind of got a Kirby vibe in that this was for newer or younger handheld players playing the Metroidvania genre for the first time since it had a dynamic difficulty where you could play it straight or do things like use multiple potions during boss battles. It was also simple and fun to play with nice little plot elements, exploration, and combat.

-It’s short, which I consider to be a plus. About 4-6 hours for a typical run-through, and then you can speed run it in under an hour once you memorize everything. There’s a lot to do, and then once you get everything, you fight the boss and complete the game. It isn’t padded with side quests and other things that stand in your way; the only length-extending gameplay elements are that you can backtrack to find hidden items that required special abilities that you didn’t have the first time, but they are completely optional to completing the game. There are a few required hidden items, but they give you hints as to where to go either in town or by the person directing you to the next location.

-It has decent enough controls. I only had a couple of times where I was ducking facing the wrong direction or was just out of reach with my attack. And I fell with the monkey on a couple of the puzzle challenges, but otherwise the controls were good.

-The characters are cute and fun. Risky and Shantae are cool, as are the zombies and the townspeople. They made the game colorful and cute. It definitely didn’t take itself too seriously.

-The music is catchy. I really think that this is a well-put-together game. Everything works well together, and I had fun playing through and experiencing all of the abilities.

-The spinning 3D effect of your character after beating a boss is awesome. It felt 3D in a 2D game. Amazing.


The Negatives
-Your attack is relatively weak. Bosses take what feels like hundreds of hair attacks to go down. Fortunately, you get power ups to make your attack faster, but it never gets stronger. So even at the end of the game a base enemy takes 2-3 hits, and the bosses take over a hundred. As such, it’s a test of thumb pressing to get ~10 hits in before your next dodge of the boss because otherwise the boss battles would take an eternity.

-There’s a notable difficulty jump at the end. The final boss was multiple times more difficult than everything else in the game, and it takes over 100 hits and on top of that uses a variety of attacks that are difficult to dodge. You can learn the patterns and make it through, but I found myself brute-forcing it (i.e., using potions) just because of how many hits the boss takes and I didn’t want to have to redo the button-mashing part of it. With the potions, it was easy, but you probably need to go from a fun/casual playthrough to Mega Man-level gaming if you want to play it straight without them (note: I played the whole game up until the final boss without them).

-I had to go through the forest multiple times, which got annoying after a while. I went through twice to learn everything that was available, then I had to go back with the monkey ability to get items and then again for the coffee and again with the Elephant.

-I don’t know if there’s a place to refill your health without using potions, so I warped back to a dungeon entrance and used the vases to refill my health a couple of times. I could’ve just used the potions because they only cost 10 gems, but I was saving up for all of the special items and abilities. You do max out on gems pretty easily, though, so it's not a big deal to buy one or go to a dungeon to refill your life.

-The warp statues were 50% convenient and 50% inconvenient. For example, there was no warp point at the town; you had to go midway through the first area to get to one and so I did a lot of walking to get back to the town even with the warps. On the other hand, the one next to the boat house saved a ton of time. So I liked the system for a couple of the points, but then the others only saved you like a minute of walking at best.

-Some of the secrets/backtracks were in dungeons, and so it required more navigation through things than I was willing to do. I believe that I got all of the overworld items but was ~7 shy of the max collectibles. I just didn’t feel like going back, and I only used magic like twice the whole game—and those were because they were necessary to collect things—and so I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I probably could’ve used magic more on bosses, but it didn’t feel very powerful (the level one flame magic felt like its damage was slower and weaker than the base attack). Maybe the magic would’ve made the ending easier, but I didn’t try because the game said that it took my magic away (it said that I could only use items).

-I don't know if it gives you any hints that the elephant form can break purple rocks, but it's the only thing that I found out by accident charging through the overworld randomly. I figured everything out without a guide, though, so it could’ve have been too hard to figure out (in fact, they make fun of Castlevania 2’s cryptic nature in the game, so it knew not to be THAT bad).

-The story isn’t anything exciting. Which is strange because you’d think the story about a half-genie would be cool and memorable, but I found it to be the weakest part. Strange since the characters are so cool.

-I loved the Sega sprites and loved the beautiful character designs during the talking portions, but I don’t feel like they went well together. I think with this version they could’ve done both (fully pixelated and fully high-res) and let you hit a button to flip between it. That would’ve been awesome. They did it with Monkey Island, so it’s not unheard of to do that. I would’ve loved playing both and flipping between them. But the mix of pixels and high-res graphics was always distracting even though I loved both graphical styles. I guess I’d prefer to play it looking like a Genesis game for the nostalgia, but the idea of making the game flip between the two styles instead of mixing them I think would’ve been better for the aesthetic.


Overall, I liked this game a lot. It’s not a big game because it’s originally for a handheld, but it’s great for what it tried to do. I don’t mind that it leveraged existing ideas and gameplay features from a variety of games because it creates a new experience from the combination. I’m glad it was short because I don’t think it could’ve held me for 20 hours given that it’s a handheld game with a lot of backtracking and simple elements. But I have to repeat that the graphics and music are fantastic and make the game. As such, I recommend you try it if you don’t mind a simplified, handheld Metroidvania that takes you back to the early 90s era of gaming.

shantae, yum