Solid Metroidvania with an odd difficulty spike at the end and questionable art direction
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.
