Let’s Talk About Shantae and the Seven Sirens

I’ve been a fan of the Shantae series for a while now. In fact, one of the first reviews I ever wrote back on my old blog was for Shantae and the Pirates Curse, which is one of my favourite games of all time. And when Half Genie Hero came out I had to write a review of that as well, and I really liked that one too, not as much as Pirates Curse but I still enjoyed it a great deal. Which leads us to Shantae and The Seven Sirens, a game which launched back in May of this year. What took me so long to get to it? Well I wanted to get a physical copy for it, so I ordered one from Limited Run games and it only just arrived. I could have bought it digital, but I want to own at least one Shantae game as a physical release and I'm not in the habit of buying a game multiple times on the same console. It may of taken me a while to get to it but let’s look at Shantae and The Seven Sirens and see if it stacks up to the series par of quality.

Seven Sirens begins with Shantae and her friends being invited to Paradise Island, a tropical resort known for its strange sunken city ruins. Shantae is invited so she can participate in a Half-Genie festival to celebrate all the things the Half-Genies do. Shantae is asked to take part in a stage show along with 5 other Half-Genies as part of the festival. Something goes wrong during the trial run, however, and the other 5 Half-Genies mysteriously vanish. Now Shantae must travel the island, find the other Half-Genies and discover the secrets of the sunken city and the Sirens that lurk within. Risky Boots is also back and she’s on the island doing her own thing. What could she be up to?

The story is a fairly typical Shantae tale. Unlike Half-Genie Hero which felt like a series of mini stories, Seven Sirens is just one story throughout making things a bit more focused. The story isn’t the most interesting in the series, but the writing is still good, and it has some genuinely funny moments. Shantae has always been good with its comedy and I'm glad to see the trend continue in Seven Sirens. Though Squid Baron is starting to get annoying. My main issue with the story is that it didn’t go far enough in certain places. When I saw the game was going to feature more Half-Genies, I thought the game would go deeper into the series lore. We got a little bit of that, but it wasn’t much and what we do get isn’t expanded on beyond the surface level stuff. And the Half-Genies themselves aren’t that interesting. I like their designs but, in terms of personality they’re kind of one note and lacking in character development. Then there’s the titular Seven Sirens. As villains they’re very generic and, while they have nice designs, they’re severely lacking when it comes to their personalities. Seven Sirens feels like a filler story, it’s perfectly fine for what it is but it could have done more.

Seven Sirens uses the same hand drawn art-style as Half Genie Hero. A lot of the same sprites and animations are used from that game, don’t worry though because there’s plenty of new ones thrown in, this isn’t just a recycling of assets. I’m a sucker for anything hand drawn and WayForward are some of the best in the field with Seven Sirens living up to their par of excellence. Say what you want about WayForward and they’re somewhat inconsistent output, but they know how to animate and even they’re bad still look god. While I don’t think the sprite work is as expressive as Half-Genie Hero it’s still good, especially during the bosses. They may be lacking in personality but the designs for the sirens are at least visually appealing, in more ways than one if you catch me.

One major change from Half-Genie Hero is the removal of the 3D backgrounds, it’s now a purely 2D affair. Nothing wrong with that but it does make everything look flatter by comparison. The backgrounds are at least well drawn but the game spends a lot of time in the underground city and while each section is slightly different, it’s honestly little more than a colour change. It lacks in visual variety, especially compared to previous games. It's still a nice-looking game but a lot of that is down to the character sprites and animations, a lot of which is reused from Half-Genie Hero so that’s not much of a point in Seven Sirens favour.

Every Shantae game got better and better when it came to visuals. Compare Risky’s Revenge and Pirates Curse and for example. Both used the same sprite work, but Pirates Curse was just more polished and visually interesting. And then there’s Half-Genie Hero, that game was a huge step forward for this series. Seven Sirens doesn’t push the series forward, it just feels like Half-Genie Hero again only not as good. I do like the new portraits at the very least. Now one area where they did improve the visual presentation is the new animated cutscenes done by Studio Yotta. While they aren’t the best animated cutscenes I've seen they are a nice addition and a great fit for the series. Mind you I feel bad for Studio Yotta because the opening cutscene is done by Studio Trigger and it’s incredible. It’s like Michael Jackson opening for Peter Capaldi.

Audio wise, Seven Sirens is the first Shantae game that doesn’t feature long-time series composer Jake Kaufman. Instead the soundtrack was done by a series of new composers and while the music isn’t as good as previous games it’s still a decent soundtrack overall. The opening track is a great theme for this series and I hope they bring it back for future games. The strangest part of the audio presentation is the voice acting. Not the voice acting itself, the acting is good across the board, but rather in how it’s used. The game doesn’t feature full voice acting, which is fine since a lot of games don’t do this, but the idea with this is that you save the voice acting for important scenes. Seven Sirens sort of does this but it only has voices for specific lines, not scenes, lines. One moment you’re reading the text as normal and then the next line will have voice acting. Half-Genie Hero did this too, but Seven Sirens has a lot more voice acting so this selective use of it just feels, awkward. It's like they wanted the whole game to be voiced but ran out of money, so they just had the actors record certain lines instead and I don’t think it works.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens acts a return to form for this series in terms of gameplay. Unlike Pirates Curse or Half-Genie Hero which went in a more level based direction, more so Half-Genie Hero but I would argue the trend started in Pirates Curse, Seven Sirens is more of a true Metroidvania game like the first two games in the series. So instead of having a series of smaller maps we now have one large map that is open to explore with more areas being accessible as you unlock new abilities. It's nice to see the series return to its roots but that doesn’t mean everything is like the old games.

Shantae still has a lot of the same moves she’s had since the beginning.  She once again attacks enemies with her air and it’s just as effective as ever along with a lot of the same magic attacks, with the only new one being the homing rockets. While I would like to see some more new additions to Shantae’s magic what we have here is still great, with my favourite being the Scimitars. But Shantae’s main claim to fame has been her transformations. And it’s here where the main changes have been made.

In previous games, Shantae would transform by performing a special dance and transform into an animal with its own unique abilities. Seven Sirens changes the transformations to act more like the pirate gear in Pirates Curse. So instead of transforming with a dance you just press a button and transform for a quick move. The transformations themselves are all brand new. Instead of a monkey you have a dash newt, the elephant has been replaced by a bonk turtle and while you can’t fly like a Harpy you can jump multiple times with the jet octo. These new transformations make for a nice change of pace and are a useful tool in Shantae’s arsenal. Being able to transform with a button push also makes them a little snappier and more immediate. While I'd like to see full transformations return for certain animals in later games this is a good step forward for the series. That being said, I'm not a fan of all the transformations, the drill shell and sea frog are fine but they’re a little too situational and the sections where they are used aren’t particularly interesting.

That’s not the only type of transformation that Shantae can perform. When you rescue the other Half-Genies, you can do a dance to combine your magic with theirs to become a super genie. It's not as cool as it sounds, you basically perform a big magic spell at the cost of some of your magic meter. There are 4 of these in total, one lets you see hidden objects and secrets, one heals you slightly and revitalizes plants, one is a powerful lightning attack that can power electrical devices and the last one performs a powerful earthquake that can move platforms and uncover buried secrets. These aren’t bad but they are very situational. The quake and shock transformations are good at dealing with large groups of enemies, but they slow the game down, I only used them if I absolutely needed to.

So far everything sounds pretty good doesn’t it. And to Seven Sirens credit it doesn’t play badly at all. The level design for the game is solid and it does a good job of making each area unique. The highlight of the level design are the returning dungeons, something that was sorely missed in Half-Genie hero. Most dungeons play out similarly, but each have their own unique layouts and obstacles to make them stand out. The highlight for me was the second dungeon with the cannons because it reminded me of Donkey Kong Country.

And like any good Metroidvania, there are plenty collectibles to be found, 3 types of collectibles to be exact. The main one being the returning Heart Squids which can be melted down at a Squid Smiths to gain an additional heart. These can be found in dungeons as well as the overworld. There’s 3 in every dungeon and they aren’t too hard to find, and you can also find them in special caves dotted around the island. There are also special monster cards you can get from defeated enemies. These are rare drops that can be equipped to gain special buffs, though you do need to collect a few cards in certain sets to equip them. These can be helpful though I didn’t go out of my way for them mainly because getting them can be kind of a grind, luckily they don’t count for the 100% completion requirements. Thing is though I didn’t use the base monster cards that much because the boss monster cards were far superior. These are super rare cards you can only get from collectors in the various towns you visit. These things are so rare that the collectors will only trade them for the third collectible, golden nuggets.

So you collect the golden nuggets to buy the powerful boss cards, that makes sense but what I want to know is why I can’t just buy regular monster cards. You can sell the cards you don’t need but you can’t buy them? What sense does that make. It's not like I was strapped for cash either, I was maxed out on money by the end of the game and had nothing to spend it on. Like previous Shantae games you can visit stores to buy upgrades, new magic and healing items. Thing is, you never need to buy the healing items because enemies drop their own kind of healing items as well. And these aren’t rare drops, you will get so many of them that you’ll never need to buy a healing potion from the store at all.

I suppose it’s time to talk about the main issues with Shantae and the Seven Sirens. While I've already mentioned some of the minor, niggling problems I had there are two major issues that really drag the game down. The first is the games map. Like every Metroidvania, Seven Sirens has a map that is useful for seeing which areas you haven’t explored yet. In that regard it works just fine though that’s about all its good for. I haven’t played that many Metroidvanias but the ones I have played also keep track of what collectibles you haven’t gotten yet; you know because you won’t always be able to get them when you first run into them. This is something the previous Shantae games did very well and it made backtracking a lot easier.

So why does Seven Sirens completely drop the ball here. The map doesn’t keep track of anything. Remember those caves I mentioned earlier, well they aren’t added to the map when you find them. This makes backtracking to them when you get the power needed to complete them unnecessarily difficult. To make matters worse, some collectables are hidden in very obtuse locations that you can and likely will miss. I had to consult a guide to find some of these and I never had to do that in any of the previous Shantae games.

But the biggest problem with the game by far, is the complete and utter lack of challenge. I already mentioned the copious amounts of healing items the game gives you but even if the game didn’t give me them it wouldn’t be a problem because I would have plenty of money to buy all the healing items I need. Not that I would need many of them either because the game provides you with plenty of hearts to replenish your health anyway. To say that Seven Sirens is forgiving is putting it lightly, this game is more forgiving than Ned Flanders on Ritalin.

I wouldn’t mind this so much if the game provided a challenge in the enemies or level design, but it really doesn’t. The previous Shantae games weren’t exactly known for their difficulty but they still had some challenging platforming sections and set pieces, something Seven Sirens is severely lacking in. Seven Sirens was originally developed for the Apple Arcade service, so the lack of tricky platforming probably has to do with the designers not wanting to alienate those playing the game on Mobile Phones.

The most disappointing aspect of this games lack of challenge are the boss fights. The previous Shantae games had some very memorable, very challenging fights. Seven Sirens bosses, by comparison, are absolutely pathetic. These guys go down ridiculously easy and it’s for several different reasons. Firstly, they don’t have difficult attack patterns making dodging their attacks ridiculously easy. Second, you are far too overpowered. While the magic system is a bit more balanced compared to Half-Genie Hero there are still some spell that are just stupid powerful. The Scimitars are my favourite spell for this very reason, it rips these bosses a new one. Then there’s the fact that many of these guys don’t have that much health. These guys have so little health I would end the fight in less than two minutes. The only boss I thought was even remotely interesting was the final one and even that wasn’t that bad.

This lack of challenge makes Shantae and The Seven Sirens an overall dull adventure. I don’t mind an easy game so long as it makes up for it with interesting level designs and set pieces, but Seven Sirens doesn’t have either. Outside of the dungeons and this one random dance minigame there aren’t a lot of interesting set pieces to liven things up. The core gameplay does have some nice improvements and the game can still be a good time, but when compared to the other games in the Shantae series it feels like a massive step backwards.

Shantae and The Seven Sirens is not a bad game. The core gameplay is still fun, it looks great, the soundtrack is good, and it has a decent story. The problem is it doesn’t do anything particularly great. It does everything well enough, but it never goes the extra mile to make anything truly spectacular. Combine that with the lack of difficulty and the steps backwards the game takes in regards to being a Metroidvania and Shantae and the Seven Sirens is easily the weakest game in the Shantae series. I don’t like the first game that much, but I can forgive it for being the first game and at least it was ambitious. Seven Sirens just plays things a little too safe for its own good and without anything to make it stand out, it makes this one difficult to recommend.

So, can I recommend Shantae and The Seven Sirens? No, and here’s why. Right now you can get Shantae Half-Genie Hero Ultimate edition on the E-Shop for around the same price and that game offers far more content and is a genuinely better experience. I would also say that Half-Genie Hero is a better jumping on point for the series since it isn’t too difficult but can provide a decent challenge. If Seven Sirens goes on sale, then I would say it might be worth it. But until that time, I say you can skip this one. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.