Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

The first half of the game is a fucking slog, featuring boring platforming and combat that isn't particularly exciting. However, as you start to get more items the game gets creative with the platforming, pushing you to utilize all of the tools you've accumulated over the game. While this is good, the game has a tendency to pad out its length with obnoxious backtracking that feels like busywork. despite other flaws, such as the bleh boss design, Pirate's Curse is an improvement over past titles.

As much as I love the other games of this series, this one is the best and it turns everything you've learned from the other games on its head. There are no transformations in this game, instead you unlock equipment that make for maneuvering the map and beating enemies much more fun and quicker. Once you unlock everything, you are an absolute tank, but unlike some other Metroidvanias, the difficulty is able to increase well even with these power-ups.

There's a lot going for this game: charming animations, a good soundtrack, but above all some very good platforming. The bosses are often outstanding and make clever use of the new mechanics the game keeps throwing at you. The only demerits are the sometimes obtuse metroidvania structure which often doesn't make objectives clear and force ssome tedious backtracking. Use a walkthrough.

A great deal of cheeky fun, mixing action that calls Mega Man X to mind with big Metroidvania-style worlds and, uh, tons of scantily-dressed babes. Yep. Can't forget the babes.

A fun Metroidvania, although I would have liked to see more variety and complexity in terms of weapon selection and exploration tools. Separating the world into islands that get unlocked in a very rigid and formulaic manner also feels worse to me than the more open world-seeming design of the best Metroidvanias.