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Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Review

Written by Enigma

Four years after her successfully Kickstarted title, Half-Genie Hero was released. Everyone's favourite purple-haired, hip-shaking, Smash Bros Hopeful Genie has returned in "Shantae and the Seven Sirens". Now admittedly, this title has been out for several months on Apple Arcade, which was a thing that most of you had forgotten about until now. But with its release on PC and Consoles this past week, we finally get to check it out.

For the first time in the series, we don't actually start in Scuttle Town, but instead, Shantae and her friends have been whisked away to a vacation on Paradise Island for a Half-Genie Festival. Yeah, turns out Shantae isn't the only half magic lady in the world, and I have now discovered a whole new set of waifus.

Of course, as soon as you land things go completely tits up (and not in the good kind) and all of the other Half Genies vanish, leaving Shantae all alone. Which leads to her exploring the island and solving it's mysteries.

Gameplay wise, the movement and controls is what we can expect from the Shantae series, with it pretty much unchanged from HGH. But this is where I voice my concerns. Four years ago, when I covered her latest title in "The Shantae Retrospective" I voiced my concern about how Shantae's gameplay is slowly becoming stale.

Now look, I take no pleasure in saying this, I love Shantae, and I mean LOVE.

*cough*

But to be fair, it isn't like Seven Sirens is a complete clone of Half-Genie Hero, if anything it's more of an amalgamation of the entire series. We have separate towns to explore, a feature that hasn't been seen since the original on GBC and we see the return of aspects like the Squidsmith from Pirates Curse.

One of the biggest new additions is the introduction of animated cut scenes, handled by the studio behind Kill La Kill, TRIGGER. These are seen throughout the game to introduce boss battles and of course, the opening cinematic featuring music from Christina Vee, whose grunts, groans and screams voicing Shantae are just adorable.

Soon enough, surprise surprise, we run into Risky Boots. I'm now convinced it's impossible to have a Shantae game without her, but she usually shows up throughout the game for a quick fight and is honestly more of a nuisance than any kind of threat.

One of the bigger changes is, while you still have dancing, they aren't for transforming like in the previous titles. Instead, once you rescue each of the other half-genies they will fuse their magic with you, allowing you new abilities like revealing hidden platforms or bringing back life.

The animal transformations, however, are now used as passive moves like a dodge/dash move or a drill when you are up against the soft ground, but the new moves seemingly only have a few moments that are required. The reveal spell can actually show hidden gem containers, but really offer no hint where they are, so unless you are going to do it on every screen, it's not something I'd go back for.

One of the biggest flaws of the Shantae series as a whole is how easy it is to break the difficulty in half. With the hair and pike ball upgrades in the past, bosses became an absolute cakewalk. Here it is so easy to grind gems and food, there wasn't a time where I finished a dungeER, I MEAN "Labyrinth" without max gems, from there you just get the Hair Cream and Shampoo upgrades and you become a whipping machine. I did honestly feel after beating a few of the bosses thinking "was it supposed to be that easy".

Unlike previous games that had you traversing all across the world, Seven Sirens adopts a much more Metroidvania style to its predecessors, unfortunately, the map layout leaves much to be desired, with other titles in the genre at least detailing certain landmarks, or giving people the ability to put markers where they want, in comparison Seven Sirens map is fairly bare-bones.

There are also periods where you have no idea what to do or where to go next, you could be travelling all across a dungeon trying to find that one switch you missed. For example, throughout the game, you come across these broken windmills that need to be FIXED, you need PARTS to fix them. So when you receive literal “nuts and bolts” you rush to the nearest windmill to fix em, right? WRONG! You need to go to a very specific windmill that isn’t made clear and fix THAT one and ONLY that one.

This is not me knocking the game, I had a lot of fun playing through Shantae's latest journey. But I knew I was going to enjoy this, because I did 4 years before. Again, this is what terrifies me, Shantae is coming back again and again with the same basic concept, and I know this girl, I know this STUDIO has so much more potential.

Imagine teaming up with Skye, Bolo, Rotty and hell, even Risky in a squad-based RPG like Paper Mario.

Shantae has always had stellar music, maybe even a rhythm game like Cadence of Hyrule.

Orrrr, maybe it's time to finally take that leap into 3D.

I want this girl to succeed, I want her to be recognised as one of the standout female character's in gaming, up there with Samus and Alyx Vance and most importantly, I want her to finally receive her invitation. #Believe

Shantae and the Seven Sirens is still an adorable, enjoyable adventure and anyone who was a fan of her previous titles will surely enjoy this.

PROS:

Beautifully animated cutscenes and graphics

Controls and combat are fluid and tight

Numerous labyrinths to explore

CONS:

New abilities fall a little flat

Everything feels just a little samey

Review copy supplied by WayForward, played on Nintendo Switch

7/10

#shantae #shantae and the seven sirens #WayForward #nintendo switch #risky boots #unboxed #review

Trials of Mana Review

While everyone else has been engrossed with a certain other Square Enix "remake", I was one of probably 5 people not playing it or Animal Crossing and instead was waiting for the release of that other Square-Enix remake, one that actually deserves the moniker.

Yeahhhhh, I will be discussing THAT later, but now it's time for a little history lesson….

Seiken Densetsu 3 was released in 1995 on the Super Famicom as the third game in the series following the success of its predecessor, known in the west as Secret of Mana. Sadly, by 1995 the SNES in the US was slowly fading away, with anticipation of the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 on the horizon and Square didn't want to put in the time and money into localizing the title.

A truly under appreciated gem

So for years afterwards, the title stayed in its native Japan until finally being smuggled in through the fan translation route of the early 2000s and for almost 20 years no one could agree on what to call it, there was Secret of Mana 2 for normal people and Seiken Densetsu 3 for the ones who like to think they are smart and cultured but just come off as complete prats, I believe it's now called "Boku no Hero Syndrome".

#trials of mana #seiken densetsu 3 #snes #square enix #switch #secret of mana

Panzer Dragoon Remake: Review

Several years ago, to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the very much unappreciated for its time, Sega Saturn, I spent a month cleverly titled Sega Saturn month to give highlight to a few of its exclusive titles like Deep Fear and Burning Rangers, but the main part was a 2 parter looking at the Panzer Dragoon series, I had nothing but praise for the flight based rail shooter and its RPG spin off, back in 1995, even with all the Saturn’s architecture and launch problems, the original title blew everyone away, including Steven Speilberg who witnessed the game at the first ever E3. The music, the creature designs, even the CGI animations at the time being an absolute trailblazer for the industry

Seriously, back in the day THIS was groundbreaking

But in 2018, reports were emerging that Sega were planning to remake Panzer Dragoon and its sequel Zwei for modern systems, but we wouldn't witness the first evidence of that until Nintendo’s E3 2019 presentation, where that familiar music sent more than a few people into excited screams, yours very much included. Then, after an almost 200 day Nintendo Direct drought was quenched by a “Direct Mini”, the remake shadow dropped exclusively on the Switch that day.

I was lucky enough to be gifted with a review copy by the folks handling the remake, Forever Entertainment, to witness how accurate they keep to the original.

From the very beginning with the opening cinematic, it’s clear the small crew over at MegaPixel Studios are certainly Panzer fans like myself, putting a lot of time and effort into making this as familiar as possible, the recreated opening cinematic runs in sync with the original version on Saturn, just with far much more detail.

THIS is the exact same area!?!

Graphically, the game obviously looks far better, even on Switch the game runs with nary any framerate issues to speak of. That being said, MegaPixel may have bitten off more than they can chew, with this being one of the first games they have ever released besides the Switch ports of Agony and Grave Keeper, with the character animations feeling a little stiff in places.

But it’s not all bad news, the game still utilizes the old arcade feel with credits, but you can thankfully resume your progress if you decide to leave after several levels. Plus, the remake introduces the best upgrade for the game, dual stick aiming and being able to fire and turn using the shoulder buttons, so aiming is an absolute breeze and plays more like Sin and Punishment then Starfox, but this can be a real double edged sword, the original controls were horse shit, even with the 3D Control Pad, it could be a real struggle getting past even Episode 4. But with these new controls, I was able to breeze through the entire game in almost a day.

Aiming can have a learning curve for other people though, I found that the three spinning squares used as a targeting reticule could prove disorientation to where you are actually aiming, but the game seems to allow you to lockon to an almost infinite amount of enemies on screen, so just wiggle the reticle around and hope for the best at first, and in just the latest adjustment, it seems you have fair more energy compared to the original.

Despite the ups and downs I’m still going to support this game, hell I’m gonna shell out for the Limited Run physical release. Why? Because I want more, I bloody love Panzer Dragoon, more specifically the 3rd Iteration in Panzer Dragoon Saga. That game alone justified the purchase of a Saturn…...and a modchip because holy shit, have you seen the prices online. However, while it is certainly in vogue right now to get RPG’s from the Mid 90’s remade in glorious HD, I wouldn't want Saga in the hands of such an untested studio like MegaPixel, recreating an on rails shooter like Panzer Dragoon and Zwei is one thing, but Saga is a multi hour adventure spanning four discs and unlike a similar game released at the same time on Playstation, barely anyone played it legitimately. Which is sad as it truly is one of the most uncovered Gems in Sega’s history. There has been suggestion that Yukio Futatsugi, the man behind the series wants to tackle a Saga Remake himself, and expand upon the original with a much larger world to explore, and all I can say is, Yes, Yes to ALL that please.

Yes to all that please!

But back to Panzer Dragoon on Nintendo Switch, if you are a fan of the original then you really can’t go wrong, it is everything you loved about the original back in 1995, with a really really shiny new coat

PROS:

Faithful to the 1995 Saturn Original

Beautifully Designed Levels

Modern Controller Scheme Offers Improved Handling

CONS:

Rough around the edges concerning character animations

Better Controls can make the Game too easy in parts

Review copy supplied by Forever Entertainment, played on Nintendo Switch

7/10

#Panzer Dragoon #sega saturn #nintendo switch #review

DOOM Eternal: Review

Sometimes it’s better to have a game that only just meets expectations, gets average reception, doesn’t set the world on fire but mildly singes it, that way you are not expected to exceed even that with your next game. Take DOOM, the 2016 version, being the first iteration in well over 12 years, and already one version, one horrible, uninspired, carbon copy of Resistance version meeting a bloody chainsaw in the backroom, the series already had high expectations with the original titles being the trailblazers they are and recent Mods like Brutal DOOM.

What could have been, thank christ they saw sense.

It goes without saying that DOOM 16 was an absolute win, after well over a decade of samey, grey, military-style shooters, Doom Slayer rose from his grave, told the plot to go fuck itself and punched, snapped, cracked and chainsawed Demons into a bloody mess, and it was brilliant. You may remember that DOOM was my No 3 Game of 2016, just behind Overwatch and Pokemon Go respectively, and honestly looking back on it, especially how I have fallen out with both those other games, DOOM 2016 was the pinnacle in games that year.

But, let’s get back to the future expectations here, obviously, after DOOM 16 became such a big hit, winning awards from all publications, there were obvious expectations to top themselves with the sequel, more weapons, more glory kills, ballsier enemies, essentially making the whole game Bigger, and Better.

Well…..they got the Bigger part down.