Don't get me wrong, I like this game. It's definitely solid in a lot of aspects, and was a joy to play. But I can't help but feel let down in many respects. This is perhaps only because I thought Pirate's Curse was so fantastic, that naturally any sequel would be a let down. But whatever the case, let me dive into my problems.
The exploration is dumb in this game. As far as I can tell there's no map, since levels are mostly linear now. It makes it a pain instead of a joy to backtrack, as your new skills don't really offer you shortcuts through the level anymore. Sure, the warp dance skill does let you advance somewhat, but only to one or two points in a large level.
Speaking of dances - they're horribly implemented. Let me say first that I liked PC's upgrades better than the dances in any game, since they felt like more integrated and smooth additions to your arsenal. So I knew I was always going to have a hard time going back to the traditional Shantae dance system. But even so, the dances in this game just feel so f***ing worthless for the most part. And I'm not just talking about joke dances like Blobfish.
Take the spider form, for instance. There are a few places you can access with it, but for all the powers of being able to climb along the ceiling, all they ever really do with it is have you go straight up vertically. There are no real puzzles or obstacles for Spider Form, and by the time you get the venom shot upgrade (which requires several other upgrades to get) you'll be asking "Why the hell would I ever use this?"
On the flip side, some forms, such as bat, can easily cheese entire levels by just finding a decently high platform and flying over the rest. Or the harpy ability, good god. They do actually put it to decent use in the final level, but the bosses don't seem to take it into account at all, so you can just casually fly over most of their attacks. Basically the game doesn't feel balanced around the dances at all.
The main reason for this, I think, is that there are no dungeons in this game. The overworld areas are pleasantly designed, but it was always the dungeons that really tested your mettle and puzzle-solving prowess. But without dungeons, HGH has given us around a dozen puzzle-solving tools, but no real puzzles to solve. I don't know that this is really the case, but it honestly feels like they probably made some of the dances backer incentives, and so just sorta half-assedly tossed them in. Am I off the mark with that?
On the note of backer incentives, the other reason for the limited puzzle solving might be the fact that several playable characters are going to be added, and that they needed the game to be playable by all of them. Now don't get me wrong, I'm stoked to play as Rotty (by 2020, at the pace they're going). And it looks like Risky will have a moveset similar to what we had in Pirate's Curse, which is nice. But I'd rather they made a game that worked for Shantae first, bonus characters be damned.
I'm going to sound like a jewish mother here, but Wayforward, why can't you be like your cousin Yachtclub Games, who made a whole game based around Shovel Knight's abilities that worked beautifully, and then went back to re-tool it for another ability set entirely, and made both feel natural?
Anyway, apart from being short and all, the game's position as a ... reboot? Soft reboot? Soft robot rabit? ... whatever, really lets it down story-wise. After seeing so much development out of Risky in PC, now she's just back to be generically evil again. Characters like Rotty, who had some interesting moments in PC (like seeing her human form), feel like background noise now. Holly Lingerbean feels particularly half-baked - she's a really cool idea, both in being a rival to Shantae and what she actually is. But you never even really fight her, you just kill her pet and then .. .that's actually it, she's just gone from the game forever now.
And the ending, wow. I know most Shantae games are short, but while I could easily have done with any of them being 4x as long, I usually leave feeling satisfied. But this game just ... first of all, why tease Shantae's mother so much, and then have Shantae just talk to some random genie spirit instead? Why couldn't that spirit have been her mother directly? Arguably, you could say that the spirit was her mother, and that all the "i'll pass it on to her" stuff was sort of tongue-in-cheek, but I see no real reason to believe that other than that I'd like it to be the case.
But did anybody else feel the game was totally set up to have at least one more area? Like, we never really go to the genie realm. Or rather, I think we technically do, but only as a re-skinned version of the final boss's chamber. There ought to have been a whole level of that, IMO. Instead, the whole plot with the genies ultimately comes down to what are basically 5 turrets placed around the final boss room that you constantly destroy and use against the boss.
As a quick aside, I really hate the final slide segment. There are a handful of obstacles that feel really cheap, and having to repeat the entire 2~ minute segment multiple times really grates.
Despite all this, I really did enjoy the game. But I know WayForward is capable of so much better than this.
