Shantae: Risky's Revenge

[Dracos]

Risky's Revenge is the second in a fairly obscure but well thought of metroidvania type series that started on the Gameboy Color as Wayforward's big push into original content from previously licensed game work.  It's had sort of a revolution these last couple of years, with a kickstarter bringing a lot of interest that the series hadn't had before as it struggled with both of its early iterations to break into profitable and repeatable project territory.  I'd been interested and heard good things, but had never played anything in the series.

Well, not entirely true, at some point last year, I'd given a brief try to the GBC version, and while it was impressive, it didn't hold my interest.  Doesn't actually say it's bad, since it can be hard to switch from modern styled games to older ones.

I found Risky's Revenge more accessible, but ultimately a bit weak with lots of retreading that felt like retreading.  It definitely had a tendancy toward curvy scantily clad women that I can't help but think went a little overboard and generally made it clear the style of game it was.  From the statues in the background, to the characters on the street, a bare handful of them could not be seen as reasonable attendees of a modeling show for bikini-styled outfits.  The overall game is fairly low res, but just figure it should get called out as an obvious 'this is what this is'.  The story of a curvy genie and her curvy friends, doing missions to try and thwart the curvy antagonist in curvy world.

It's definitely a metroidvania style title, and one that feels shorter than it is, in part by active choice to put extender type things in and in part from a narrative delivery that just doesn't work.  Risky has stolen a magic lamp that Shantae's Uncle was hiding that needs three seals, and the very bright Shantae decides, now that she's been fired from her job of town protector for not stopping Risky, to collect them so Risky can't get them.  Her friends, encouraging, try and help her out, except when they possibly aren't.  It's not really well delivered as the intent is that Shantae learns the meaning of not trying to do everything on her own, after doing almost everything on her own.  Sky did help with a latte at one point and Bolo carried some messages, but generally they didn't do much at all.  Apparently, Shantae's Uncle was supposed to have told her once to let others handle it, thus setting up the message of friendship, but it just didn't really connect, especially with having some of her friends being backstabbers.  So the story is kind of weak and Shantae doesn't carry the atmosphere that really delivers the one girl against the world feel of a Metroid.

That said, it is still pretty solid.  There's reasonably sized overworld with hidden areas and unlocks.  The areas don't connect too well, but they do have warps to allow to get around.  The warps are somewhat nice, though a minimum of one full area screen from whatever you would want to have been warping to, including town, another of the small design bits meant more to expand gameplay time rather than really be its own stuff.

Overall, I found it on the easy but not trivial side, but largely because you really can keep a large stack of potions around.  The boss enemies in general feel a bit thick, with little indication on how close or far away you are from victory.  They will generally rage around half, but that's more of a guess since with no life bar or visible damage indicators, at any time it is a guess how far or close you are from victory.

It's a cute short snack of a game in a sense.  It feels from a different era, with how pixely some of the character art is, but it was a nice play.